You can choose an appropriate billing method based on the Elastic Compute Service (ECS) resource types. This topic describes all billing methods used in ECS, compares the subscription and pay-as-you-go billing methods, and elaborates the cost-effective billing methods such as preemptible instance and savings plans.
Basic billing methods
An ECS instance includes computing resources (vCPUs and memory), an image, and Elastic Block Storage (EBS) devices, and uses one of the following basic billing methods: subscription, pay-as-you-go, or preemptible instance. The following table describes the applicable resources and scenarios of each billing method.
Billing method | Applicable resources | Description | References |
Subscription |
| A billing method that allows you to use ECS resources only after you pay for them. Subscription is applicable to services that run for 24 hours a day and seven days a week, such as web services. You must pay for subscription resources before you can use them. | |
Pay-as-you-go |
| A billing method that allows you to use ECS resources and pay for them afterwards. Pay-as-you-go is applicable to applications or services that experience traffic spikes, such as temporary scaling, interim testing, and scientific computing. You can activate and use pay-as-you-go resources before you pay for them. The system generates bills in each billing cycle and deducts corresponding fees from your account. | |
Preemptible instance | Computing resources (vCPUs and memory) | Preemptible instances are on-demand instances that you can use before you pay for them. Preemptible instances offer some discounts compared with pay-as-you-go instances and are charged based on the actual usage duration. Prices of preemptible instances fluctuate based on the changes in supply and demand. |
Subscription instances, pay-as-you-go instances, and preemptible instances support different features. The following table describes the differences.
Feature | Subscription instance | Pay-as-you-go instance | Preemptible instance |
Release instances |
| Supported. Release pay-as-you-go instances that you no longer need at the earliest opportunity. If you do not release them, the ECS resources continue to incur charges until the instances are stopped and released due to overdue payments. | Supported. The system may also release an instance when the market price exceeds your bid or when the resources of the instance are insufficient. |
Change instance types | Supported. | Supported. | Not supported. |
Change bandwidth configurations | Supported. | Supported. | Not supported. |
Change billing methods | Supported. | Supported. | Not supported. |
Use subscription images from Alibaba Cloud Marketplace | Supported. | Not supported. | Not supported. |
Apply for ICP filings for websites that are deployed on ECS instances in the Chinese mainland | Supported. You can apply for ICP filings only for ECS instances that have a subscription period of at least three months. Note Public bandwidth must be purchased for the ECS instances. | Not supported. | Not supported. |
Create instances by calling API operations | Supported. | Supported. | Supported. |
Use Security Center Basic and CloudMonitor Basic | Supported. | Supported. | Supported. |
Cost-effective combinations of billing methods
In addition to subscription, pay-as-you-go and preemptible instance, Alibaba Cloud provides some combinations of billing methods for different ECS resources to reduce costs. You can use a proper combination of billing methods based on your business requirements.
Billing method | Applicable resources | Description | References |
Reserved instance |
| Reserved instances are coupons that can be used to offset the bills of pay-as-you-go instances. | |
SCU |
| Storage capacity units (SCUs) are storage resource plans that can be used to offset the bills of different pay-as-you-go storage resources. | |
Data transfer plan | Public bandwidth | Data transfer plans provide economical solutions designed to offset the fees of IPv4 data transfers from instances billed on a pay-by-traffic basis for network usage. |
Switch billing methods
You can switch between billing methods for ECS instances as your business requirements change and evolve. The following table describes the resources whose billing methods can be changed.
Resource | Description | References |
Instance | When you change the billing method of ECS instances, the billing methods of their computing resources and system disks are changed to match the billing method of the instance.
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Cloud disks |
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Public bandwidth | You can change the billing method for network usage by upgrading or downgrading instance configurations for instances that have system-assigned public IP addresses. | Change the billing method for network usage of an ECS instance that uses a static public IP address |