This topic describes the billing methods, billable items, and pricing of Object Storage Service (OSS).
Billable items
The billable items of Object Storage Service (OSS) are classified into the following types:
Basic billable items: Fees that most users incur when using OSS, including Storage fees for data storage, Traffic fees for downloading files from OSS buckets or delivering files by using Alibaba Cloud CDN, and API operation calling fees for read and write requests.
Billable items for value-added features: Fees incurred by a minority of users who enable and use value-added features. Intended to improve data processing efficiency or user experience, the value-added features include, but are not limited to image processing, transfer acceleration, and DDoS protection. For more information, see Billable items for value-added features
The following figure shows the billable items of OSS.
Billing methods
OSS supports the following billing methods:
Pay-as-you-go: By default, the pay-as-you-go billing method applies to all billable items. You are charged for the actual usage of each billable item. Fees are paid after you use resources. This billing method is ideal for scenarios in which resource usage is difficult to predict. For more information, see Pay-as-you-go.
Subscription (resource plans): OSS provides resource plans to offset fees generated for specific billable items. You can purchase resource plans that cover specific billable items at favorable prices. Resources are consumed before fees are offset by resource plans. Resource plans are ideal for scenarios in which resource usage is easy to predict. For more information, see Resource plans.
Unit price
For more information about the pricing of Object Storage Service (OSS), see OSS pricing.
Billing cycle
OSS calculates all resource usage by hour and charges fees for actual usage. Bills are generally generated within 1 hour after a billing cycle ends. The time when bills are generated is determined by the system. For example, you are billed at 09:30:00 for the fees that are generated from 08:00:00 to 09:00:00 of the same day.
The bill that you receive at 09:30:00 may include only the fees that are generated from 07:00:00 to 08:00:00 because of system latency.
Billing formulas
You are charged fees by hour based on actual usage. Fees are calculated based on the following formula: Fees = Actual usage (GB) × Unit price per hour.
Storage fees are calculated in USD per GB-month, as indicated on the OSS pricing page. When you use the pay-as-you-go billing method, fees are calculated based on the following formula: Fees = Actual usage (GB) × Unit price per hour. Therefore, when you calculate storage fees charged based on actual storage usage, you must convert GB-month to GB-hour to calculate the fees based on the following formula: Unit price in USD per GB-hour = Unit price in USD per GB-month/30/24. For example, the unit price for the storage of Standard LRS objects is USD 0.0173 per GB-month, and the unit price in GB-hour is USD 0.000024 per GB-hour (0.0173/30/24).
References
For more information, see: