Elastic Compute Service:ECS overdue payments

Impacts

Pay-as-you-go ECS resources

The system attempts to deduct the fees for pay-as-you-go ECS resources on the following days: on the payment due date (day T), on the 7th day after the payment due date (day T+7), and on the 14th day after the payment due date (day T+14).

• Within 15 days after the payment becomes overdue: The ECS instance runs as expected.

  If the fees for a pay-as-you-go ECS instance fail to be deducted on day T, the payment for the instance becomes overdue. Within 15 days after the payment becomes overdue, the system does not stop the ECS instance. You can continue to use the existing resources of the ECS instance, but you cannot purchase resources, upgrade instance configurations, or renew resources. The system attempts to deduct the fees on day T+7 and day T+14.

  Important

  If you stop the ECS instance in economical mode, the computing resources (vCPUs and memory) are recycled. After the payment becomes overdue, the ECS instance may fail to restart. For information about the economical mode, see Economical mode.

• More than 15 days after the payment becomes overdue: The ECS instance is stopped.

  If all attempts to deduct the fees for a pay-as-you-go ECS instance fail, the instance is stopped on day T+15 and billing for the instance also stops. If the payment remains overdue for more than 15 days after the ECS instance is stopped, the system releases, detaches, or disassociates the resources of the instance.

  The following table describes whether the resources of a pay-as-you-go ECS instance are retained or released in different periods of time after the instance is stopped due to an overdue payment.

  Resource type	Within 15 days after the ECS instance is stopped	More than 15 days after the ECS instance is stopped
  Computing resources (vCPUs and memory)	The computing resources (vCPUs and memory) of the ECS instance are retained, but the instance stops providing services. After the ECS instance stops providing services, you cannot connect to the instance or access the websites that are deployed on the instance. Service errors may also occur.	The computing resources (vCPUs and memory) of the ECS instance are released. Note If computing resources (vCPUs and memory) are released due to overdue payments, the system notifies you by email.
  Block storage devices	Cloud disks and data that is stored on the disks are retained, but the disks become unavailable. Local disks and data that is stored on the disks are retained, but the disks become unavailable. Note After cloud disks or local disks become unavailable, the disks cannot process read/write requests as expected. As a result, the operation of the ECS instances to which the disks are attached is affected. For example, the read/write performance of applications may significantly decline, an extended period of time may be required to complete specific operations, or ECS instances that run specific operating system versions may unexpectedly shut down or fail to restart.	Cloud disks are released and data that is stored on the disks cannot be recovered. Note Data disks that are created together with pay-as-you-go ECS instances and pay-as-you-go data disks that are separately created on the Block Storage (Disks) page in the ECS console are released. Local disks are released and data that is stored on the disks cannot be recovered.
  IP addresses	If the ECS instance is deployed in the classic network, the static public IP address (also called system-assigned public IP address or auto-assigned public IP address) of the instance is retained. If the ECS instance is deployed in a virtual private cloud (VPC), the following rules apply: The static public IP address of the ECS instance is retained. Important If you enable the economical mode before the ECS instance is stopped, the static public IP address of the instance may be recycled after the instance is stopped due to an overdue payment. When you restart the ECS instance, the static public IP address of the instance may change. The elastic IP address (EIP) that is associated with the ECS instance remains unchanged.	If the instance is deployed in the classic network, the static public IP address of the instance is released. If the ECS instance is deployed in a VPC, the following rules apply: The static public IP address of the ECS instance is released. The EIP is disassociated from the ECS instance.
  Snapshots	All snapshots and custom images are retained. You cannot manually or automatically create snapshots for disks attached to the ECS instance. As a result, you cannot create custom images from the ECS instance. If you add funds to your account to complete the overdue payment, automatic snapshot policies are automatically re-enabled for disks attached to the ECS instance. Important Billing for existing snapshots continues, and fees are added to the overdue amount.	All snapshot resources are deleted, including snapshots that are not associated with custom images, snapshot-consistent groups, and snapshots that are associated with custom images. The snapshot data cannot be recovered. If a snapshot is associated with a custom image, the custom image is deleted when the snapshot is deleted and cannot be recovered. If you add funds to your account to complete the overdue payment, automatic snapshot policies are automatically re-enabled for disks attached to the ECS instance. Important You are charged for snapshots until the snapshots are deleted. Delete the snapshots that you no longer require. After a custom image is deleted, you can continue to use the subscription ECS instances that are created from the image, but you cannot re-initialize the system disks of the instances. If you delete a custom image that is shared with other users, the other users can no longer view and use the image to create instances. The system disks of instances that use the image can no longer be re-initialized. If you delete a custom image that is published as a community image, the community image is also deleted and cannot be used to create instances. The system disks of instances that use the community image can no longer be re-initialized.

Complete overdue payments

If your account has overdue payments, pay-as-you-go ECS instances may be stopped. To prevent overdue payments from affecting your services, we recommend that you complete the overdue payments at the earliest opportunity. You can log on to the Expenses and Costs console, click Pay Now in the upper part of the Account Overview page, and then follow the on-screen instructions to complete the overdue payments.

After you complete the overdue payments in your account, the ECS instances that were stopped due to the overdue payments are automatically restarted. If an ECS instance fails to automatically restart, you can manually restart the instance. For more information, see Start an instance.