Purchase cloud products on the Alibaba Cloud website

Step 1: Register an Alibaba Cloud account

Before you purchase a cloud product, you must register an Alibaba Cloud account and complete real-name verification. If you already have an account, skip to Step 2: Claim special offers.

1. Go to the Alibaba Cloud account registration page to create your account.

   We recommend registering with your mobile phone number.

2. Log in to the Account Management console with your registered Alibaba Cloud account.

3. Complete the real-name verification for your account.

   Real-name verification includes personal verification for individuals and enterprise verification for legally registered companies or organizations.

   Personal verification can be completed using Alipay. For enterprise verification, we recommend using the legal representative's facial recognition scan. Otherwise, you must provide a photo of your company's business license and one of the following three items: the legal representative's Alipay account, the company's bank card, or the company's Alipay account combined with the legal representative's ID number.

Step 2: Claim special offers

Before purchasing a cloud product, explore Alibaba Cloud's special offers.

1. Review available offers.

   You can purchase discounted products directly from the Benefits page, such as an ECS Economy e-instance for 99 CNY per year (the "99 Plan").

   The Alibaba Cloud Benefits page also provides new users with various coupons and discounted products. Different offers are available for individual developers, students and faculty, and enterprises.

2. Claim your offers.

   After claiming your offers, go to the My Privileges page to view the rules and instructions for your benefits.

Step 3: Select and purchase a cloud product

1. Choose a cloud product.

   Review a product's product details page on the Alibaba Cloud website to learn about its features and use cases.

2. Understand the product's billing method and estimate the cost.

   1. Choose a billing method.

      Different billing methods, such as Pay-As-You-Go, Subscription, and resource plans, offer different trade-offs between cost-effectiveness and resource elasticity. Before you buy, determine the billing method that best suits your business needs.

      If you are new to cloud products, have low or fluctuating consumption, or are unsure of your future needs, consider the Pay-As-You-Go model. As your business needs stabilize, you can switch to the Subscription model.

      Additional information: Pay-As-You-Go vs. Subscription

      Choosing a billing method

      The key to choosing the right billing method is to understand your workload's resource usage patterns.

      Workloads with stable, predictable usage are best suited for pre-paid models to lock in costs. Workloads with fluctuating demand are better for the pay-as-you-go model to maintain elasticity. Combining models helps balance cost and flexibility.

      Stable workloads

      Suitable for systems with fixed configurations that run long-term with few changes, such as corporate websites or core databases. Purchasing a subscription for one year or more often provides greater discounts and ensures high availability.

      Dynamic workloads

      Ideal for scenarios that require frequent configuration changes, such as rapidly iterating web applications or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) services with continuous user growth. This approach combines the cost savings of discounts with the flexibility of resizing, avoiding penalties for canceling subscriptions.

      Fluctuating workloads

      Suitable for workloads with cyclical traffic patterns, such as those with peaks during the day and troughs at night, or high usage on weekdays and low usage on weekends:

      • Base load: Use Savings Plans to lock in costs for your consistent usage.

      • Variable load: Use pay-as-you-go to scale on demand.

      This tiered approach optimizes costs and resource efficiency, preventing you from overpaying for peak capacity during off-peak hours or leaving resources idle.

      Bursty workloads

      Perfect for unpredictable traffic spikes, such as during sales promotions, marketing campaigns, or viral events. Use the pay-as-you-go model to quickly scale up before an event and release resources immediately after. This approach requires no upfront planning and eliminates idle costs, providing maximum elasticity.

      Exploratory workloads

      Ideal for early-stage projects with uncertain usage, such as validating a minimum viable product (MVP), evaluating technologies, or running proof-of-concept (POC) tests:

      • Use the pay-as-you-go model to create and tear down resources as needed, paying only for what you use.

      • Once the concept is proven, you can seamlessly migrate to a standard subscription or Savings Plans model to optimize costs.

      Storage and traffic

      Ideal for predictable and stable usage scenarios, such as log storage, data backups, and CDN traffic. Estimate your average monthly consumption based on historical data and purchase a corresponding resource plan. The usage is automatically deducted, offering better value than standard pay-as-you-go rates.

      Combination strategy

      In practice, workloads often require a combination of billing methods. A typical strategy is as follows:

      • Core stable load: Use a standard subscription or Savings Plans to lock in baseline costs.

      • Auto Scaling: Use pay-as-you-go to handle peak demand.

      • Storage and Traffic: Use resource plans for bulk purchases to get discounts.

   2. Check product pricing.

      On the Product Pricing page, find the link to a product's Pricing Details page, which lists its billable items and prices.

      In the Pay-As-You-Go model, different billable items have different rules. For example, an ECS instance's system disk is billed hourly, while a snapshot is billed monthly by its storage size (GB).

      Only some products have a Pricing Details page. For others, check the product's purchase page.

      Note

      You can find the purchase page URL for the corresponding product on the product details page.

   3. Estimate the total cost.

      Use the Pricing Calculator to select product configurations and estimate costs.

      To estimate the total cost for multiple cloud products or configurations, add them to the configuration list in the Pricing Calculator.

      You can also export the configuration list as an Excel file to share configuration details or apply for a budget internally.

      For products not supported by the Pricing Calculator, select your configuration on the product purchase page to view the cost. If you choose the Subscription model, the page will display the total order amount. If you choose the Pay-As-You-Go model, it will show the hourly rate.

3. Place and pay for your order on the product purchase page.

4. (Optional) Go to the Orders page to view your purchased or activated cloud products.

Next steps

• Use your cloud products

  Manage Alibaba Cloud products using the console, API/SDK, CLI, and Terraform.

• Review your bills

  Check your bill details to understand which products are incurring charges.

• Adjust your resources

  For example: upgrade and configuration change, scaling, or plan modifications.

FAQ

Registration error: "Security phone number limit exceeded"

1. Use a different mobile number to create an Alibaba Cloud account.

2. If you do not have another mobile number, you can choose to close other Alibaba Cloud accounts that are linked to the same phone number, then try creating the new account again. For detailed instructions, see Delete an Alibaba Cloud account.

3. If you do not have any other mobile numbers and the existing accounts are in use and cannot be closed, you cannot create a new account with the current mobile number.