Purchase cloud computers on a pay-as-you-go basis - Elastic Desktop Service

You can purchase cloud computers on a monthly basis or on demand. When you purchase cloud computers on demand, you are charged based on the pay-as-you-go billing method. In this case, you can purchase and release cloud computers as needed. This is suitable for short-term users such as interns and training institutions. This topic describes the pay-as-you-go billing method, including the billing rules and impacts of overdue payments.

Billing rules

Billing cycles

The computing and storage resources of cloud computers have different billing cycles.

Computing resources: The billing cycle for computing resources is the period of time during which cloud computers are running. The billing for computing resources stops when cloud computers are in the Stopped or Hibernated state.
Storage resources: The billing cycle for storage resources begins when cloud computers are created and ends when the cloud computers are released. Billing continues without interruption during this cycle.

Settlement cycles

Bills are generated and settled every hour on the hour (UTC+8) for pay-as-you-go cloud computers.

For example, you purchased and started a cloud computer at 08:45:30 and released the cloud computer at 10:20:30. During this period, the cloud computer is not shut down. The cloud computer has the following settlement cycles:

The first settlement cycle starts at 08:00:00 (UTC+8) and ends at 09:00:00 (UTC+8). Fees are generated for a usage duration of 870 seconds from 08:45:30 (UTC+8) to 09:00:00 (UTC+8).
The second settlement cycle starts at 09:00:00 (UTC+8) and ends at 10:00:00 (UTC+8). Fees are generated for a usage duration of 3,600 seconds from 09:00:00 (UTC+8) to 10:00:00 (UTC+8).
The third settlement cycle starts at 10:00:00 (UTC+8) and ends at 11:00:00 (UTC+8). Fees are generated for a usage duration of 1,230 seconds from 10:00:00 (UTC+8) to 10:20:30 (UTC+8).

Settlement rules

The system generates a bill for each settlement cycle and deducts fees from your account based on your resource usage. Then, the system starts the next billing cycle.

Important

If the available amount of your Alibaba Cloud account, including the balance and coupons), is not enough to pay the fees, you are notified about the payment failure by email. We recommend that you complete your payment at the earliest opportunity to prevent impacts on your business due to stopped or released cloud computers.

Billing examples

Billing formulas:

Computing resources (pay-as-you-go)
Fee = Hourly price × Number of hours
Storage resources (pay-as-you-go)
Fee = Hourly price per GiB × Capacity in GiB × Number of hours

Purchase details:

Computing specification: 4 vCPUs, 8 GiB memory
System disk: 80 GiB
Data disk: 100 GiB

Usage:

The cloud computer runs for 10 hours.
The cloud computer is retained for 12 hours (from the time when the cloud computer is created to the time when it is released).

Fee calculation:

Computing resource fee
= Hourly price × Number of hours
= 0.148 × 10
= USD 1.48

Storage resource fee
= Hourly price per GiB × Capacity in GiB × Number of hours
= 0.00007 × (80 + 100) × 12
= USD 0.1512

Total fees
= Computing resource fee + Storage resource fee
= USD 1.6312

Impacts of overdue payments

If the available amount of your Alibaba Cloud account, including the balance and coupons, is less than the amount to be paid, the system determines that your account has an overdue payment.

Note

You can go to User Center to view overdue payments.

After a payment becomes overdue, the cloud computer enters the Expired state. Data on the cloud computer is retained. However, you cannot perform operations on the cloud computer. For example, you cannot start, stop, restart, or connect to the cloud computer. If you want to continue using the cloud computer, you must top up your account within 30 days after the expiration date. Otherwise, the cloud computer is automatically released on the 31st day after expiration.

Warning

After a cloud computer is released, the data on and snapshots of the cloud computer are also deleted and cannot be recovered.

Switch from pay-as-you-go to monthly subscription

You can switch the billing method of a cloud computer from pay-as-you-go to monthly subscription without impacting the data or usage of the cloud computer.

Note

You cannot switch the billing methods of cloud computer pools.

Prerequisites

Cloud computers are in the Running or Stopped state.
You do not have any unpaid orders for cloud computers. Otherwise, you must complete or cancel the orders before you proceed.

Procedure

Log on to the EDS Enterprise console.
In the left-side navigation pane, choose Resources > Cloud Computers.
In the upper-left corner of the top navigation bar, select a region.
On the Cloud Computers page, find the cloud computer whose computing plan you want to change, click the ⋮ icon in the Actions column, and then select Switch Billing Method.
Note
You can select up to 20 cloud computers and choose More > Switch Billing Method in the lower part of the page to batch switch the billing methods of the cloud computers.
In the Switch Billing Method panel, select Monthly Subscription for the New Billing Method parameter, select a computing plan if necessary, and then click Switch Billing Method.
Note
- The Unlimited option for the Computing Plan parameter is supported for all cloud computers, regardless of their computing specifications. However, the 120 Hours/Month and 250 Hours/Month options are available only for 4 vCPU/8 GiB and 8 vCPU/16 GiB specifications.
- If a computing plan, such as 120 Hours/Month or 250 Hours/Month, is exhausted before a subscription cycle ends, the cloud computer continues running. If you do not want the cloud computer to continue running in this case, you can select When the monthly running hours of a cloud computer are exhausted in advance, the system automatically stops or hibernates the cloud computer.
Complete the payment as prompted.