Purchase a Public Zone instance to provide your business domain names with a highly available, high-performance, and secure authoritative resolution service.
Why choose a paid edition
Alibaba Cloud DNS is available in free and paid editions.
Free edition: For testing and development. Cannot provide production-level availability, security, or fine-grained management.
Paid edition: Recommended for production environments. See the table below for advantages:
Feature | Free Edition | Paid Edition | Paid Edition advantages |
Service-Level Agreement (SLA) | None | 100% monthly availability | Provides a 100% monthly availability guarantee for core domain names and prevents service interruptions caused by a single point of failure. |
Resolution lines | Basic | Intelligent resolution | Uses smart resolution lines to accelerate access speed for global users. Supports greater DNS records and a higher API call frequency. |
Security protection | None | DDoS protection | Protects against high-traffic DNS DDoS attacks and ensures stable resolution services. |
Technical support | None | Expert support | Access advanced O&M features such as DNS logs and health checks, and receive expert technical support. |
For more information about the differences between paid editions, see Edition comparison.
Purchase a paid zone
Choose one of the following ways to buy a paid zone:
Method 1: Go to the Hosted Public Zone (Subscription) purchase page.
Method 2:
Go to Alibaba Cloud DNS - Instance and select the Public Zone tab.
Click Buy Now.
Parameter descriptions
Parameter | Required | Description |
Instance type | Yes | Hosted Public Zone: Provides stable, high-quality public resolution services for domain names. Keep the default setting. |
Select Edition | Yes | Personal Edition: Designed for individual developers, offering cost‑effective support for basic needs. Enterprise Ultimate Edition: Designed for organisations across all industries, providing more granular O&M capabilities and expert consulting services. Premium Edition: Designed for enterprises in all sectors, with no limits on multiple key metrics. Provides enhanced O&M capabilities and expert consulting services. For more details, see Edition comparison. |
DNS Protection | Yes | Personal Edition: Optional Enterprise Ultimate Edition: Required Exclusive Edition: Includes DNS Attack Defense Advanced by default |
Quantity | Yes | The number of domain names that can be bound to the instance. The default value is 1 and the maximum is 100,000. |
Domain Name First Bound | No | Enter the domain names, separated by commas. After purchase, the system will automatically bind the entered domains to the selected plan. |
Duration | Yes | Valid values: 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, or 3 years. |
Auto-renewal | No | Select Auto-renewal to prevent service disruptions caused by instance expiration and release. The system will automatically renew the instance annually at the then-current price before it expires. You can disable auto-renewal at any time. |
Pricing
Plan 1: Personal Edition + DNS Protection (Optional)
Personal Edition can be purchased with optional DNS Protection. The billing formula is as follows: Total fee = (Unit price of Personal Edition + Unit price of DNS Protection) × Number of domain names
Billable item | Price | Description |
| 7 USD/domain name/year | Personal Edition: 7 USD/domain name/year Defense Basic: 86 USD/domain name/year Defense Adavanced: 429 USD/domain name/year Note For purchase and use by individual developers only Enterprise users cannot purchase new Personal Edition instances. Existing Personal Edition instances can still be used and renewed. |
| 93 USD/domain name/year | |
| 436 USD/domain name/year |
Plan 2: Enterprise Ultimate Edition + DNS Protection (Required)
Enterprise Ultimate Edition requires DNS Protection. The billing formula is as follows: Total fee = (Unit price of Enterprise Ultimate Edition + Unit price of DNS Protection) × Number of domain names
Billable item | Price | Description |
| 167 USD/domain name/year | Enterprise Ultimate Edition: 81 USD/domain name/year Defense Basic: 86 USD/domain name/year Defense Adavanced: 429 USD/domain name/year |
| 510 USD/domain name/year |
Plan 3: Premium Edition
Premium Edition includes DNS Protection Advanced by default. The billing formula is as follows: Total fee = Unit price of Exclusive Edition × Number of domain names
Billable item | Price |
Premium Edition | 4287 USD/domain name/year |
How to configure
1. Add a domain name to public zone
Domain names registered with Alibaba Cloud: Ensure that the domain status is normal (not locked or expired) and not bound to another instance.
Domain names not registered with Alibaba Cloud:
If no DNS records have been added for the domain name, you can add the domain name to Public Zone. For more information, see Domain name management.
If DNS records already exist for the domain name, you must migrate them to Public Zone in Alibaba Cloud DNS. For more information, see Migrate your DNS resolution to Alibaba Cloud DNS.
2. Bind a domain name to an instance
Go to Alibaba Cloud DNS - Instance.
Find the target instance and click Bind Zone.
On the Bind Domain page, in the Basic Information section, click the Bind Zone button and enter the domain names that you want to bind. If your purchased instance supports multiple domain names, you can enter multiple domain names on this page.
3. Modify the DNS server addresses and verify
Go to Alibaba Cloud DNS - Public Zone. Find the target domain name and copy the system-assigned NS addresses from the DNS Server IP Address column. The addresses assigned after a domain name is attached to an instance are typically
vip(1-8).alidns.com.
Go to the console of your domain name registrar to change the DNS server addresses. The following steps show how to do this for an Alibaba Cloud domain name:
Go to the Domain Names console. In the Domain Names list, find the target domain name and click Manage in the Actions column.
In the navigation pane on the left, click DNS Server Change, and then click the Change DNS Server button.
Enter the server names for System-assigned NS, such as
vip1.alidns.comandvip2.alidns.com. Then, click OK.
To change DNS servers for domain names of other providers, see Change the DNS servers for a domain name.
Verify the DNS change
After you update the DNS servers, it can take up to 48 hours for the changes to propagate globally. Once the propagation is complete, your new paid Alibaba Cloud DNS instance will handle your domain's DNS resolution.
Go to Alibaba Cloud DNS - Public Zone, and check whether the status in the DNS Server IP Address column for the target domain name is Available.
You can also use the command line to verify that the change has taken effect.
# Check whether the NS records are effective dig yourdomain NS # Check whether the resolution is normal dig @vip1.alidns.com yourdomain A
Manage and upgrade an instance
To prevent service degradation or resolution failure caused by an expired instance, configure auto-renewal for your instance in advance. For more information, see Instance expiration and renewal.
Only non-full refunds are supported for instances. For more information, see Unsubscribe from an instance.
To unbind a domain name, change the zone to which a domain name is bound, or upgrade or downgrade a zone, see Instance upgrade, unbinding, re-binding, and downgrade.
FAQ
Is monthly payment supported?
A: Yes. On the purchase page, in the Duration section, select More to view more billing cycle options. The minimum duration is one month.
What do I do if I purchased more domain names than I need?
The domain quantity cannot be decreased after purchase. We recommend buying only what you actually need.
What do I do if I fail to bind a domain name?
Common causes and solutions:
The domain name is already bound to another zone. Unbind the domain name before you try to bind it again.
Incorrect domain format. Check the domain name for special characters.
Insufficient permissions. Verify that your account has the required permissions.
How long does it take for an NS record switch to take effect?
The changes can take from a few minutes to 48 hours to propagate globally. The exact time depends on the settings of the top-level domain (TLD).
For more information, see Instance-related FAQ.