Private Zone Billing and Pricing-Alibaba Cloud DNS(DNS)-阿里云帮助中心

Billing methods

Private Zone uses pay-as-you-go billing. You are charged for Authoritative Zone, Cache, Forward Zone, Inbound Endpoint, and Traffic Analysis. Bills are generated daily. You can view the previous day's charges the next day.

Billable items

1. Authoritative Zone

Billable item

Pricing

Billing cycle

Billing trigger

Description

Number of User Defined Zones (converted for billing)

CNY 0.1 per zone/day

Daily

A User Defined Zones is added to Authoritative Zone.

Pay for the total number of Authoritative Zone in your account. The number of billable zones depends on how many DNS records each zone has:

Acceleration region (default): Each zone with up to 1,000 DNS records counts as one billable zone. For zones with more than 1,000 records, the billable count equals Actual records / 1,000 (rounded up). The default quota is 100,000 records per zone. To increase this limit, submit a ticket.
Regular region (legacy): Each zone with up to 100,000 DNS records counts as one billable zone. For zones with more than 100,000 records, the billable count equals Actual records / 100,000 (rounded up). The default quota is 100,000 records per zone. To increase this limit, submit a ticket.

DNS queries for User Defined Zones

CNY 0.03 per 10,000 queries

Daily

A DNS query is received for a domain in Authoritative Zone.

Acceleration region: Pay for every DNS query from clients. TTL values do not affect query counts.
Regular region: Pay only for origin queries that occur after a DNS record's TTL expires.

2. Cache

Billable item

Pricing

Billing cycle

Billing trigger

Description

Number of Domain Name

CNY 0.1 per domain/day

Daily

A Domain Name is added.

Pay for the total number of Domain Name in your account. Cache persistence works on an exact domain match basis.

Number of Clear Cache operations

CNY 100 per operation

Daily

You manually trigger Clear Cache for an added Domain Name.

Pay for the total number of Clear Cache operations in your account.

3. Forward Zone

Billable item

Pricing

Billing cycle

Billing trigger

Description

Number of Source IP Addresses of Outbound Traffic

CNY 1 per IP/hour

Hourly

An Outbound Endpoint is added.

Pay for the total number of Source IP Addresses of Outbound Traffic in your account.

Number of DNS queries forwarded by Outbound Endpoint

CNY 0.03 per 10,000 queries

Daily

DNS queries are forwarded to external DNS systems through an Outbound Endpoint.

Pay for the total number of DNS queries forwarded by all Outbound Endpoint in your account.

4. Inbound Endpoint

Billable item

Pricing

Billing cycle

Billing trigger

Description

Number of Inbound service IP addresses

CNY 1 per IP/hour

Hourly

An Inbound Endpoint is added.

Pay for the total number of Inbound service IP addresses in your account.

Number of DNS queries received by Inbound Endpoint

CNY 0.03 per 10,000 queries

Daily

DNS queries are received by an Inbound Endpoint.

Pay for the total number of DNS queries received by all Inbound Endpoint in your account.

5. Traffic Analysis

Billable item	Pricing	Billing cycle	Billing trigger	Description
Private Zone stores and analyzes logs	CNY 0.1 per 10,000 entries	Daily	Private Zone Traffic Analysis Enabled and set to Private Zone stores and analyzes logs.	When enabled, the system collects and analyzes DNS request and response logs from internal resolution. Total number of DNS log entries = `global traffic queries + authoritative zone traffic queries + cache traffic queries + forward zone traffic queries + recursive traffic queries`.
Deliver to Log Service only	CNY 0.01 per 10,000 entries	Daily	Private Zone Traffic Analysis Enabled and set to Deliver to Log Service only.	Pay for forwarding logs to SLS based on the number of DNS log entries. These fees cannot be offset by resource plans. Other charges: SLS charges separately for storage per SLS pricing.
Private Zone stores, analyzes, and delivers to Log Service	CNY 0.11 per 10,000 entries	Daily	Private Zone Traffic Analysis Enabled and set to Private Zone stores, analyzes, and delivers to Log Service.	Pay for both analyzing in Private Zone and forwarding to SLS based on the number of DNS log entries. Other charges: SLS charges separately for storage per SLS pricing.

Note

Global traffic queries: All DNS queries from clients (such as ECS instances and containers) in your internal network. Each query generates a request and response log, doubling the count.

Private Zone traffic queries: Queries processed by the Private Zone module (including acceleration and regular regions).

Cache traffic queries: Queries answered directly from the cache.

Forward zone traffic queries: Queries processed by the forwarding module. The count doubles because both the forwarding module and external DNS generate response logs.

Recursive traffic queries: Queries processed by the recursive module.

Billing examples

Scenario 1: Authoritative Zone

Account A has two User Defined Zones: example.com (acceleration region, 5,050 DNS records) and example.aliyundoc.com (regular region, 105,000 DNS records).

In one day, example.aliyundoc.com receives 100,000 origin queries, and example.com receives 200,000 client queries.

example.com (acceleration region): 5,050 records / 1,000 = 6 billable zones. example.aliyundoc.com (regular region): 105,000 records / 100,000 = 2 billable zones. Total: 8 billable zones.
Daily cost = zone fee + regular region query fee + acceleration region query fee:

CNY 1.7 = CNY 0.8 (8 × CNY 0.1/zone) + CNY 0.3 (10 × CNY 0.03/10,000 queries) + CNY 0.6 (20 × CNY 0.03/10,000 queries).

Note

Acceleration region (default):

Pay for every DNS query from clients (such as ECS instances and containers). TTL values do not affect the query count. Enable NSCD on ECS instances to reduce queries when no local cache is available.
Regular region:

You pay based on origin queries to User Defined Zones.

For example, if the TTL for www.example.com is 30 seconds, queries within each 30-second window hit the cache. After the TTL expires, one origin query is made. In 10 minutes, the origin query count for this domain is 10 x 60 / 30 = 20. You can view origin query counts on the request analysis page in the console.
- A longer TTL means fewer origin queries and lower costs, but DNS changes take longer to take effect.
- A shorter TTL means more origin queries and higher costs, but DNS changes take effect faster.

Note

Private Zone distributes queries across a server cluster. A 100% cache hit rate requires every server to have a cached response, so the console may show a higher origin query count than the theoretical value, especially at low query volumes.

Scenario 2: Cache

Account B has three Domain Name: www.example.com, test.example.com, and api.example.com. After an urgent DNS update, you perform a Clear Cache operation on www.example.com and test.example.com to apply the changes immediately.

Clearing the cache for www.example.com and test.example.com counts as two Clear Cache operations.
Daily cost = domain fee + cache clear fee: CNY 200.3 = CNY 0.3 (3 × CNY 0.1/domain) + CNY 200 (2 × CNY 100/operation).

Scenario 3: Forward Zone

Account C adds a forwarding rule for the domain example.top, configures 2 Source IP Addresses of Outbound Traffic, and forwards 1 million DNS queries through the Outbound Endpoint in one day.

Daily cost = IP address fee + forwarded query fee: CNY 51 = CNY 48 (2 × 24 hours × CNY 1/IP/hour) + CNY 3 (100 × CNY 0.03/10,000 queries).

Scenario 4: Inbound Endpoint

Account D adds 2 Inbound service IP addresses. In one day, the Inbound Endpoint receives 1 million DNS queries.

Daily cost = IP address fee + inbound query fee: CNY 51 = CNY 48 (2 × 24 hours × CNY 1/IP/hour) + CNY 3 (100 × CNY 0.03/10,000 queries).

Scenario 5: Traffic Analysis

Account E enables Traffic Analysis and generates 1 million DNS log entries in one day.

Daily cost = log entry fee: CNY 10 = 100 × CNY 0.1/10,000 entries.

Overdue payments

Alibaba Cloud DNS offers service suspension protection. This feature lets you continue using Alibaba Cloud services for a specific period or within a certain credit limit after a payment becomes overdue. Your existing pay-as-you-go services, purchased resource plans, and subscription resources can be used without interruption. The service suspension process starts only if your usage exceeds the protection scope. For more information, see Pay-as-you-go service suspension protection.