ApsaraDB for Cassandra offers two billing methods for database instances: pay-as-you-go and subscription. The subscription method is more cost-effective for long-term use.
Billing methods
The pay-as-you-go method is suitable for testing scenarios. After testing is complete and the configuration is finalized, you can change the billing method to subscription in the console for a lower price.
Billing method | Description | Notes |
Subscription | A subscription method that requires upfront payment when an instance is created. The longer the subscription period, the lower the price.
| Subscription instances can be upgraded or downgraded during the subscription period, but cannot be released. A subscription instance cannot be changed to pay-as-you-go.
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Pay-as-you-go | The billing cycle is one hour. Usage for less than one hour is billed as one hour. If the instance capacity is changed within a billing cycle, billing is based on the maximum capacity specification for that cycle. For example, consider the billing cycle from 13:00:00 to 14:00:00. If the capacity is 1 GB at 13:10:00, changed to 8 GB at 13:20:00, and then changed to 2 GB at 13:50:00, the fee for this cycle is calculated based on the 8 GB capacity specification. A bill is typically generated within one hour after a billing cycle ends, but can take up to three hours. The actual time of bill generation is determined by the system. For example, the bill for the 9:00:00 to 10:00:00 cycle is usually generated before 11:00:00. After a bill is generated, the fee is automatically deducted from the account balance.
| Instances can be released at any time. After an instance is released, no more fees are charged. A pay-as-you-go instance can be changed to a subscription instance. After the change is successful, the instance is immediately billed as a subscription instance. For detailed steps, see Change to subscription. Each Alibaba Cloud account that has completed identity verification can have a maximum of 10 pay-as-you-go ApsaraDB for Cassandra instances.
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Important notes
ApsaraDB for Cassandra is billed based on the provisioned instance capacity, not the actual capacity used. For example, if you provision a 2 GB ApsaraDB for Cassandra instance and store 256 MB of data, you are charged for the 2 GB capacity.
Internal network traffic for ApsaraDB for Cassandra is free. This includes data transfer between an Elastic Computing Service (ECS) instance and an ApsaraDB for Cassandra instance.