This topic describes the factors that affect the discounts provided by savings plans and how to purchase an appropriate savings plan.
Factors that affect the discounts provided by savings plans
In principle, when you purchase a savings plan, if you select a longer purchase duration and a higher upfront payment ratio and the type of the savings plan more suits your resource specifications, the discount provided by the savings plan is greater. You can purchase an optimal savings plan based on your business requirements. The following factors affect the discounts provided by savings plans:
The purchase duration of the savings plan. Savings plans with a longer purchase duration provide greater discounts. You can purchase five-year, three-year, or one-year savings plans based on your business requirements.
The payment option of the savings plan. Savings plans with a higher upfront payment ratio provide greater discounts. All Upfront savings plans provide the greatest discounts, followed by Partial Upfront savings plans and then No Upfront savings plans.
The specifications of the Alibaba Cloud service to which the savings plan is applied, such as the region and instance type.
Offset logic of savings plans
Savings plans and reserved instances can be applied to offset the bills of pay-as-you-go instances. If you have multiple discount plans, the discount plans are applied in the following sequence:
Reserved instances and resource plans such as storage capacity units (SCUs)
Savings plans
Take note of the following rules when you use savings plans:
If your pay-as-you-go instances are billed based on a discount that is higher than the discounts provided by your savings plans, the higher discount is applied and the discounted charges are offset by the committed consumption amount of the savings plans.
If you have multiple savings plans that provide different discounts, the plans take effect in the order in which they were purchased. For example, if you purchase an All Upfront savings plan and then a Partial Upfront savings plan, the All Upfront savings plan takes effect before the Partial Upfront savings plan.
Purchase a savings plan
Procedure
The Expenses and Costs console provides the recommendation feature to generate recommendations on savings plans based on your historical purchase records.
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Savings Plan > Recommended.
Configure the parameters such as Reference Product and Historical Purchase Records.
Purchase a savings plan based on the provided recommendation.
If you are not satisfied with the recommendation or have few historical consumption records, you can directly click Purchase to purchase a savings plan on the Saving Plan buy page based on your business requirements.
Upgrade a savings plan
Upgrade rules
Before a savings plan that supports upgrade expires, you can upgrade the savings plan.
The upgrade takes effect upon the next cycle. For example, a savings plan is upgraded at 15:30 and the payment is settled. The price difference between the hourly committed consumption amounts before and after the upgrade is calculated from 16:00. At 16:00, the system automatically increases the hourly committed consumption amount to the new hourly committed consumption amount. The expiration time of the savings plan remains unchanged after the upgrade.
The payable amount after the upgrade is calculated by using the following formula: Payable amount after the upgrade = (Hourly committed consumption amount after the upgrade × Remaining hours - Hourly committed consumption amount before the upgrade × Remaining hours) × Upfront payment ratio.
The following table describes the savings plans that support upgrade.
Product | Discount plan | Description |
Elastic computing | Savings plan | You can upgrade only ECS general-purpose and ECS compute savings plans. |
Procedure
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console.
In the left-side navigation pane, choose Savings Plan > Overview.
On the Overview tab, configure the Start At and Savings Plan Id parameters based on your business requirements and click Search.
Find the savings plan that you want to upgrade and click Upgrade in the Actions column. On the Saving Plan | Upgrade/Downgrade page, place an order and pay for the order as prompted.
Renew a savings plan
Renewal rules
Before a savings plan that supports renewal expires, you can renew the savings plan or enable auto-renewal for the savings plan.
The renewal duration must be the same as the purchase duration of the savings plan that you want to renew. For example, you can renew a one-year savings plan only for one year.
Renewal is not allowed after a savings plan expires.
The following table describes the savings plans that support renewal.
Product | Discount plan | Description |
Elastic computing | Savings plan | You can renew only ECS general-purpose and ECS compute savings plans. |
Procedure
Method 1: Renew a savings plan in the Savings Plan module
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console.
In the left-side navigation pane, choose Savings Plan > Overview.
On the Overview tab, configure the Start At and Savings Plan Id parameters based on your business requirements and click Search.
Find the savings plan that you want to renew and click Renew in the Actions column. On the Saving Plan | Renew page, place an order and pay for the order as prompted.
Method 2: Renew a savings plan in the Cost Management module
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console.
In the left-side navigation pane, choose Cost Management > Renewal.
On the Manual tab, set the Instance ID parameter to the ID of the savings plan that you want to renew and click Search.
Find the savings plan that you want to renew and click Renew in the Actions column. You can also select multiple savings plans and click Batch Renew below the list. On the Saving Plan | Renew page, place an order and pay for the order as prompted.
Method 3: Enable auto-renewal in the Cost Management module
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console.
In the left-side navigation pane, choose Cost Management > Renewal.
On the Manual tab, set the Instance ID parameter to the ID of the savings plan that you want to renew and click Search.
Find the savings plan that you want to renew and click Enable Auto Renewal in the Actions column. You can also select multiple savings plans and click Enable Auto Renewal below the list. In the Enable Auto Renewal dialog box, confirm the information and click Auto Renew.
After you enable auto-renewal, the system initiates a payable amount deduction request at 08:00 on the ninth day before the savings plan expires. If your account does not have sufficient balance, the system automatically initiates a deduction request every day before the savings plan expires. If your account balance is still insufficient one day before the savings plan expires, auto-renewal fails.
After auto-renewal is enabled, you can change the renewal method to manual renewal on the Auto tab.