Billing of Auto Scaling and associated resources - Auto Scaling

Auto Scaling is free of charge. However, you are charged for the resources or cloud services that are associated with Auto Scaling. This topic describes the billing details of the associated cloud services and resources. This topic also describes resource expiration and overdue payments.

Billing of associated cloud services and resources

The main cloud services and resources you can associate with Auto Scaling are Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances, elastic container instances, Server Load Balancer (SLB) instances, ApsaraDB RDS instances, CloudMonitor, and Simple Message Queue (SMQ, formerly MNS). The following table describes the specific billable items and billing methods of the preceding cloud services and resources.

Cloud service or resource	Billable item	Billing method	References
ECS instances	For ECS instances that are automatically created by Auto Scaling or you manually add to scaling groups, the billable items include instance types (computing resources), images, block storage devices, public bandwidth, and snapshots. Important For subscription ECS instances that are in the Stopped state and pay-as-you-go ECS instances (with the Economical Mode feature disabled) that are in the Stopped state, the billable items include images, disks, public bandwidth, and snapshots. For pay-as-you-go ECS instances (with the Economical Mode feature enabled) that are in the Stopped state, the billable items include images, disks, and snapshots. If elastic IP addresses (EIPs) are associated with pay-as-you-go ECS instances that are stopped in Economical Mode, the EIPs are also billable items.	Subscription, Pay-as-you-go, and Preemptible Instance	Billing overview
Elastic container instances	For elastic container instances that are automatically created by Auto Scaling or that you have manually added to scaling groups, the billable items include instance types (computing resources), image caches, data caches, and temporary storage space. Note You can use Alibaba Cloud network and storage services based on your business requirements.	Pay-as-you-go and Preemptible Instance	Billing overview
SLB instances	You must create SLB instances before you can associate SLB instances with scaling groups. You must also pay for SLB instances if you associate SLB instances with scaling groups. Billable items include instances, instance specifications, and public bandwidth.	Pay-as-you-go	CLB billing overview
ApsaraDB RDS instances	You must create ApsaraDB RDS instances before you can associate ApsaraDB RDS instances with scaling groups. You must also pay for ApsaraDB RDS instances if you associate ApsaraDB RDS instances with scaling groups. Billable items include instance specifications, storage capacity, and performance monitoring metrics.	Subscription, Pay-as-you-go, and Serverless	Billing overview

Resource expiration and overdue payments

If the associated cloud resources expire or you have an overdue payment within your Alibaba Cloud account, the instances in scaling groups change from the previous status to another status. The following table describes solutions to resource expiration and overdue payments.

Important

On both the China site (aliyun.com) and the international site (alibabacloud.com), Auto Scaling immediately removes instances that are in the Stopped state from scaling groups, or releases the instances. Make sure that you have sufficient balance in your Alibaba Cloud account to ensure service availability.

Cloud service or resource	Billing method	Expiration or overdue payment	Solution
ECS instances	Subscription	Resource expiration: By default, if you do not renew a subscription ECS instance that expires, the ECS instance stops providing services and enters the Expired state 15 days after the subscription ends. Auto Scaling then removes the ECS instance and you cannot access the ECS instance. For more information, see Impacts of resource expiration. Overdue payments: If you do not have sufficient balance within your Alibaba Cloud account, you cannot perform the following billing-related operations: purchase new ECS instances, upgrade instance specifications, and renew orders. Auto Scaling also cannot create ECS instances. Note ECS instances that are billed on a mixed basis refer to subscription ECS instances that provide pay-as-you-go services. By default, when an ECS instance that is billed on a mixed basis expires, the ECS instance also enters the Stopped state 15 days after expiration. If you still do not renew the ECS instance within the grace period, Auto Scaling removes the ECS instance that is in the Stopped state from your scaling group.	To ensure service availability, we recommend that you enable the auto-renewal feature. Before you enable the auto-renewal feature, make sure that your Alibaba Cloud account has sufficient balance. After you enable the auto-renewal feature, you can retain all resources. Renew a subscription instance Configure auto-renewal settings of an instance
ECS instances	Pay-as-you-go	By default, if you have an overdue payment within your Alibaba Cloud account, ECS instances enter the Stopped state 15 days after the overdue payment occurs and billing of ECS resources stops. Auto Scaling considers ECS instances that are in the Stopped state unhealthy. By default, if you have an overdue payment within your Alibaba Cloud account, Auto Scaling stops creating ECS instances and removes or releases unhealthy ECS instances. For more information, see the "Pay-as-you-go resources" section of the Overdue payments topic. If ECS instances that are automatically created are stopped or ECS instances that are manually added to and then managed by scaling groups are stopped, Auto Scaling considers the ECS instances unhealthy and releases the unhealthy ECS instances. If ECS instances that are manually added to but are not managed by scaling groups are stopped, Auto Scaling considers the ECS instances unhealthy and removes the ECS instances from the scaling groups. Note By default, Auto Scaling does not release pay-as-you-go ECS instances whose payments are overdue.	We recommend that you top up your Alibaba Cloud account and settle the outstanding bills within the time given. This way, ECS instances can be recovered and provide services in scaling groups. For more information, see Start an instance.
Elastic container instances	Pay-as-you-go	If you have an overdue payment within your Alibaba Cloud account, Auto Scaling immediately releases elastic container instances in scaling groups. For more information, see Overdue payments.	We recommend that you top up your Alibaba Cloud account and settle outstanding bills at the earliest opportunity.
SLB instances	Subscription and Pay-as-you-go	SLB instances do not immediately stop providing services after they expire or are overdue. However, we recommend that you renew your SLB instances as soon as possible to ensure service availability. For more information, see Overdue payments.	Note For pay-as-you-go instances, you need to only pay for the resources that you used based on the actual service time. To ensure that you have sufficient balance, top up your Alibaba Cloud account in the Alibaba Cloud Management Console.
ApsaraDB RDS instances	Subscription and Pay-as-you-go	You can unlock or recreate an expired or overdue ApsaraDB RDS instance within the specified retention period. For more information, see Overdue payments.

FAQ about the billing rules of Auto Scaling

Auto Scaling is free of charge. However, you are charged for other Alibaba Cloud services or resources associated with Auto Scaling that you use. For more information about Auto Scaling billing issues, see Billing.