When you create clusters, you do not need to make a payment first. You are charged for the computing and storage resources that you use. If you do not use compute plans or storage plans, you are billed for the usage of compute nodes and storage resources by hour. The fees are deducted from your account balance on an hourly basis.

Scenarios

If your server workloads are light, change infrequently, and fluctuate little, we recommend that you purchase pay-as-you-go clusters. Fees are deducted from your account based on the compute nodes that you use.

Combination with storage plans

The storage capacity of PolarDB is automatically scaled based on the amount of stored data. You do not need to manually specify the storage capacity. You are charged only for the used storage. We recommend that you purchase PolarDB storage plans if you require a large storage capacity to store a large amount of data. This reduces the storage costs.

You are charged based on the data volume and the retention period. If you need to store a large amount of data, for example, 1,000 GB or more, we recommend that you use this billing method together with storage plans. Larger discounts are offered on storage plans with larger capacities.

Note
  • Storage plans can be used by all PolarDB clusters in the regions that are specified by the Plan Type parameter. You can select Mainland China or China (Hong Kong) and regions outside China.
  • If the capacity of your storage plan is insufficient, you can Upgrade a storage plan. However, storage plans cannot be downgraded.
  • If the amount of used storage exceeds the capacity of your storage plan, you are charged for the additional storage resources based on the pay-as-you-go billing method.

    For example, assume that you have created three PolarDB clusters that each requires 400 GB of storage. If you purchase a storage plan of 1,000 GB and these clusters share the storage plan, the storage resources used in excess of 200 GB are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. For more information, see View the database storage usage.

Purchase pay-as-you-go clusters