Billing methods
Private DNS uses the pay-as-you-go billing method to charge for user-defined zones, cache module, forward module, service addresses, and Domain Name System (DNS) logs.
User-defined zones: billed by the number of user-defined zones plus the number of DNS requests for user-defined zones. Bills are generated and settled on a daily basis.
Cache module: You are charged for the number of cache retention domain names (billed on a daily basis) plus the number of cache clearing times (billed on a times basis). Bills are settled on a daily basis.
Forward module: You are charged for the number of source IP addresses of outbound endpoints (billed on an hourly basis) plus the number of DNS requests forwarded by outbound endpoints (billed on a daily basis). Bills are settled on a daily basis.
Service addresses: You are charged for the number of IP addresses of inbound endpoints (billed on an hourly basis) plus the number of DNS requests received by inbound endpoints (billed on a daily basis). Bills are settled on a daily basis.
Traffic analysis: billed by the number of DNS logs. Bills are generated and settled on a daily basis.
Billing rules
Built-in authoritative zones
Billable item | Pricing | Billing cycle | Trigger condition | Billing rules |
Number of user-defined zones (converted based on the number of DNS records) | USD 0.015 per zone-day | Daily | A built-in authoritative zone is added. | The total number of built-in authoritative zones within an account is counted. The number of zones that need to be billed is converted based on the number of DNS records. You are charged USD 0.015 per day for each built-in authoritative zone. The following section describes the billing rules. Built-in authoritative regular zone: If the number of DNS records is less than or equal to 100,000, you are charged the fee of one zone. If the number of DNS records is greater than 100,000, the system determines the actual number of zones that need to be billed by rounding up the result of the actual number of DNS records divided by 100,000. The default quota of DNS records for a built-in authoritative regular zone is 100,000. If you want to increase the quota, submit a ticket. Built-in authoritative acceleration zone: If the number of DNS records is less than or equal to 1,000, you are charged the fee of one zone. If the number of DNS records is greater than 1,000, the system determines the actual number of zones that need to be billed by rounding up the result of the actual number of DNS records divided by 1,000. The default quota of DNS records for a built-in authoritative acceleration zone is 100,000. If you want to increase the quota, submit a ticket. |
Number of DNS requests for user-defined zones | USD 0.004 per 10,000 requests | Daily | DNS requests for a built-in authoritative zone are received. | The total number of DNS requests for all built-in authoritative zones within an account is counted. You are charged USD 0.004 per 10,000 requests. Built-in authoritative regular zone: The number of DNS requests that need to be billed is equal to the number of back-to-origin requests that the DNS servers process after the specified time-to-live (TTL) period ends. Built-in authoritative acceleration zone: The number of DNS requests that need to be billed is equal to the number of requests originated from clients. The requests originated from clients in Alibaba Cloud are not affected by the TTL value. |
Cache module
Billable item | Pricing | Billing cycle | Trigger condition | Billing rules |
Number of cache retention domain names | USD 0.015 per domain name-day | Daily | A cache retention domain name is added. | The total number of cache retention domain names within an account is counted. You are charged USD 0.015 per day for each cache retention domain name in exact match mode. |
Number of cache clearing times | USD 15 per time | Daily | The DNS records of a cache retention domain name are manually cleared from the cache. | The total number of times that DNS records are cleared from the cache within an account is counted. You are charged USD 15 each time you clear the DNS records from the cache. |
Forward module
Billable item | Pricing | Billing cycle | Trigger condition | Billing rules |
Number of source IP addresses for outbound endpoints | USD 0.15 per IP address-hour | Hourly | An outbound endpoint is added. | The total number of source IP addresses for outbound endpoints within an account is counted. You are charged USD 0.15 per hour for each source IP address of an outbound endpoint. |
Number of DNS requests that are forwarded by outbound endpoints | USD 0.004 per 10,000 requests | Daily | DNS requests are forwarded to external DNS systems by outbound endpoints. | The total number of DNS requests that are forwarded by all outbound endpoints within an account is counted. You are charged USD 0.004 per 10,000 requests. |
Service address
Billable item | Pricing | Billing cycle | Trigger condition | Billing rules |
Number of IP addresses for inbound endpoints of Standard Edition | USD 0.15 per IP address-hour | Hourly | An inbound endpoint is added. | The total number of IP addresses for inbound endpoints of Standard Edition within an account is counted. You are charged USD 0.15 per hour for each IP address of an inbound endpoint of Standard Edition. |
Number of DNS requests received by inbound endpoints | USD 0.004 per 10,000 requests | Daily | DNS requests are forwarded to internal DNS systems by inbound endpoints. | The total number of DNS requests received by inbound endpoints within an account is counted. You are charged USD 0.004 per 10,000 requests. |
Traffic analysis
Billable item | Pricing | Billing cycle | Trigger condition | Billing rules |
Number of DNS logs | USD 0.015 per 10,000 logs | Daily | The traffic analysis feature is enabled. | A DNS log is generated each time a DNS request is received. The total number of DNS logs within an account is counted. You are charged USD 0.015 per 10,000 logs. (1) Total number of DNS logs = Number of DNS requests for the global traffic module + Number of DNS requests for the built-in authoritative traffic module + Number of DNS requests for the cache traffic module + Number of DNS requests for the forward traffic module + Number of DNS requests for the recursion traffic module. (2) After the traffic analysis feature is enabled, the log collection feature is enabled by default, and no separate fee for DNS log collection is charged. |
Number of DNS requests for the global traffic module: the number of DNS requests that are initiated by all clients × 2. The clients include Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances and elastic container instances in your intranet. After a DNS request is initiated, a request log and a response log are generated.
Number of DNS requests for the built-in authoritative traffic module: the number of DNS requests for which the built-in authoritative module (including the acceleration zone module and regular zone module) returns DNS results.
Number of DNS requests for the cache traffic module: the number of DNS requests for which the cache module returns DNS results.
Number of DNS requests for the forward traffic module: the number of DNS requests for which the forward module returns DNS results × 2. If a DNS request matches a forwarding rule, the DNS request is responded to by the forward module and the external DNS system. This way, two response logs are generated.
Number of DNS requests for the recursion traffic module: the number of DNS requests for which the recursion module returns DNS results.
Examples
Scenario 1: built-in authoritative zones
Two built-in authoritative zones example.com and example.aliyundoc.com are added to Account A. example.com is an acceleration zone that has 5,050 DNS records. example.aliyundoc.com is a regular zone that has 105,000 DNS records.
Account A has 100,000 DNS back-to-origin requests for example.aliyundoc.com and 200,000 DNS requests for example.com that are originated from clients in a day.
example.com is an acceleration zone. The 5,050 DNS records are converted into six zones for billing. example.aliyundoc.com is a regular zone. The 105,000 DNS records are converted into two zones for billing. Therefore, you are charged for eight zones within Account A.
Then, the daily usage fee of Account A is calculated based on the following formula: Fee of user-defined zones + Fee of DNS back-to-origin requests for the regular zone + Fee of DNS requests for the acceleration zone.
That is, USD 0.24 = USD 0.12 (8 × USD 0.015 per zone) + USD 0.04 (10 × USD 0.004 per 10,000 requests) + USD 0.08 (20 × USD 0.004 per 10,000 requests).
Built-in authoritative regular zone:
The number of daily DNS requests for a user-defined zone is equal to the number of daily DNS back-to-origin requests for the zone.
For example, the TTL period is set to 30 seconds for www.example.com. When intranet clients try to access www.example.com, all requests initiated within the TTL period can match the cached DNS records as designed. After the TTL period expires, the system initiates a back-to-origin request. That is, a total of 20 (10 × 60/30 = 20) back-to-origin requests are initiated for www.example.com within 10 minutes. You can view the total number of back-to-origin requests on the Request Statistics page in the Alibaba Cloud DNS console.
A longer TTL period causes fewer back-to-origin requests and lower fees, but a longer period of time for domain name changes to take effect. A shorter TTL period causes more back-to-origin requests and higher fees, but a shorter period of time for domain name changes to take effect.
The Private DNS service is provided in cluster mode. Therefore, DNS requests initiated from your intranet are distributed to multiple DNS servers. The system does not initiate a back-to-origin request only if all the DNS requests match the DNS records cached on the DNS servers. When you compare your test data with the data displayed on the Request Statistics page in the console, it is normal that the number of back-to-origin requests displayed in the console is larger than the number of back-to-origin requests that you calculate, especially when the number of DNS requests is small.
Built-in authoritative acceleration zone:
Built-in authoritative acceleration zones are billed based on the number of DNS requests initiated by clients, such as ECS instances and containers, regardless of the TTL value.
Scenario 2: cache module
Account B has three cache retention domain names: www.example.com, test.example.com, and api.example.com. Due to the emergency adjustment of the services on your intranet, the DNS records for these domain names are updated. To make the updated DNS records of the cache retention domain names take effect quickly, a cache clearing operation is performed on both www.example.com and test.example.com.
The cache clearing operation performed on two domain names is equivalent to two cache clearing operations performed on one domain name.
Then, the usage fee within Account B in a day is calculated by using the following formula: Fee for the cache retention domain names + Fee for the cache clearing operations. That is, USD 0.045 (3 × USD 0.015 per domain name) + USD 30 (2 × USD 15 per cache clearing operation) = USD 30.045.
Scenario 3: forward module
Account C has a forwarding zone example.top and two source IP addresses for the outbound endpoint. The outbound endpoint forwards 1 million DNS requests in a day.
The usage fee within Account C in the day is calculated by using the following formula: Fee for the source IP addresses of the outbound endpoint + Fee for the number of DNS requests forwarded by the outbound endpoint. That is, USD 7.2 (2 × 24 hours × USD 0.15 per IP address-hour) + USD 0.4 (100 × USD 0.004 per 10,000 requests) = USD 7.6.
Scenario 4: Service address
Two IP addresses for the inbound endpoint of Standard Edition are created within Account D. The inbound endpoint receives 1 million DNS requests in a day.
The usage fee within Account D in the day is calculated by using the following formula: Fee for the IP addresses of the inbound endpoint of Standard Edition + Fee for the number of DNS requests received by the inbound endpoint. That is, USD 7.2 (2 × 24 hours × USD 0.15 per IP address-hour) + USD 0.4 (100 × USD 0.004 per 10,000 requests) = USD 7.6.
Scenario 5: traffic analysis
The traffic analysis feature is enabled for Account E. 1 million DNS logs are generated within Account E in a day.
The usage fee within Account E in the day is the fee for DNS logs. The fee for DNS logs is calculated by using the following formula: USD 1.5 = 100 × USD 0.015 per 10,000 logs.
Overdue payments
If you have an overdue payment, the Private DNS service becomes unavailable.
The billing stops after the service becomes unavailable. If billing data is generated during the billing cycle in which the service becomes unavailable, bills are also generated. Bills are no longer generated in subsequent billing cycles.
You receive a message or an email notification one day before the service is released. After the service is released, the configurations and related data of your zones are permanently deleted and cannot be restored.
The Private DNS service is retained for seven days after an overdue payment occurs. If you top up your account within seven days after the service becomes unavailable, the service automatically resumes.