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

      Choose a billing method

      The key to choosing a billing method is understanding your workload patterns.

      Stable workloads suit prepaid methods to lock in costs. Fluctuating workloads suit pay-as-you-go for elasticity. Combine methods to balance cost and flexibility.

      Stable workloads: lock in costs with subscription instances

      For systems with fixed configurations that run continuously, such as enterprise websites and core databases. Multi-year purchases receive higher discounts and ensure high availability.

      Elastic workloads: reduce costs flexibly with Savings Plans

      For scenarios that require frequent configuration changes, such as fast-iterating Internet applications and growing SaaS services. Balances discounts with upgrade and downgrade flexibility, avoiding refund losses from subscription changes.

      Fluctuating workloads: elastic response with layered cost reduction

      For workloads with periodic load fluctuations, such as daytime peaks and nighttime lows, or busy weekdays and idle weekends:

      • Base load: Use a Savings Plan to lock in costs.

      • Fluctuating portion: Use pay-as-you-go for on-demand scaling.

      This approach balances cost optimization and resource efficiency, preventing overpayment for peak loads or idle resources during off-peak periods.

      Burst workloads: start and stop on demand with zero idle costs

      For unpredictable traffic surges such as sales promotions, marketing campaigns, and trending events. Use pay-as-you-go to scale out before events and release resources immediately afterward. No advance planning required, no idle costs incurred.

      Exploratory workloads: experiment flexibly and pay on demand

      For early-stage projects with uncertain usage, such as MVP validation, technology evaluation, and POC testing:

      • Use pay-as-you-go. Start resources as needed, release when finished, and pay only for actual usage.

      • After validation, migrate to subscription instances or a Savings Plan for lower costs.

      Storage and data transfer: batch purchase with automatic offset

      For stable, predictable usage such as log storage, data backup, and CDN data transfer. Estimate average monthly usage from historical consumption and purchase a matching resource plan. Offsets apply automatically with no manual intervention, offering better value than pay-as-you-go.

      Combination strategies

      Most production environments combine multiple billing methods. A typical strategy:

      • Core stable load: Use subscription instances or a Savings Plan to lock in base costs.

      • Elastic scaling portion: Use pay-as-you-go to handle peak demands.

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

      Stable workloads: lock in costs

      For production systems with fixed configurations that run continuously, such as enterprise websites and core databases, subscription instances are the recommended choice. Multi-year purchases typically receive greater discounts. These workloads require high resource availability and have a low frequency of configuration changes.

      For long-running workloads that require frequent configuration changes, such as fast-iterating Internet applications and growing SaaS services, a Savings Plan combined with pay-as-you-go is more suitable. This combination retains upgrade and downgrade flexibility while providing discounted pricing, avoiding the refund losses associated with subscription instance changes.

      Fluctuating workloads: elastic response

      When workload patterns show clear periodic fluctuations, such as daytime peaks and nighttime lows or busy weekdays and idle weekends, adopt a layered strategy: purchase a Savings Plan for base load costs and use pay-as-you-go for the fluctuating portion. This avoids overpaying for peak loads and wasting resources during off-peak periods.

      For unpredictable traffic surges such as e-commerce promotions, marketing campaigns, and trending events, pay-as-you-go is the best choice. Scale out before the event to handle traffic spikes and release resources immediately afterward. No advance planning required, no idle resource costs.

      Exploratory workloads: experiment flexibly

      When usage is uncertain during early project stages, such as new product MVP validation, technology evaluation, or POC test environments, pay-as-you-go minimizes experimentation costs.

      Create test environments on demand, release them after testing, and pay only for actual usage. After validating the business model and clarifying resource requirements, switch to a prepaid plan for better cost efficiency.

      Storage and data transfer: batch purchase

      For stable, predictable storage and data transfer usage such as log storage, data backup, and network acceleration traffic, resource plans offer the best value.

      Estimate average monthly consumption from historical data and purchase a matching resource plan. Offsets apply automatically with no additional steps required.

   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.