WebSearch billing-Information Query Service(IQS)-阿里云帮助中心

After your account is converted to a paid account, you will be charged for API calls.

Usage notes

This service uses pay-as-you-go billing. Alibaba Cloud generates daily bills based on your usage and automatically deducts the fees from your account.
If the discrepancy between your usage records and our bill is 1% or greater, technical contacts from both parties will review the data. If the discrepancy is less than 1%, the statistics provided by Alibaba Cloud prevail.

Metering

Important

Billable item: This refers to the product name that appears on your Alibaba Cloud bill. Use this name for bill reconciliation.

1. WebSearch (Text Search)

Metering: A call is considered a successful request if the target address returns an HTTP response code (httpcode) of less than 400.

When you call the UnifiedSearch API to perform a text search, billing varies based on the engineType parameter. The following table provides a comparison.

	Search latency (average RT)	Number of returned webpages	Billable item
Generic	950 ms	Approx. 10	*WebSearch (Standard) 1**
GenericAdvanced	950 ms	40 to 80	*WebSearch (Standard) 1 + add-on package * 1**
LiteAdvanced	500 ms	1 to 50	*WebSearch (Speed Edition) 1**
Deep	6 s	1 to 50	*vertical search 50**

2. Multimodal search (image search)

Metering: A call is considered a successful request if the target address returns an HTTP response code (httpcode) of less than 400.

When you call the MultimodalSearch API to perform an image search, billing varies based on the engineType parameter. The following table provides a comparison.

	Search latency (average RT)	Number of returned webpages	Billable item
MultimodalSpeed	1,000 ms	—	*Multimodal search (image search) (Speed Edition) 1**
MultimodalSpeedAdvanced	1,600 ms	—	*Multimodal search (image search) (Speed Edition) 1 + add-on package * 1**

3. Add-on package

Metering for add-on services: Add-on services are billed per call based on the number of units consumed. The CostCredits field in the API response indicates the number of units consumed by each call.

	Billable item
Enhanced summary	*add-on package 1**
GenericAdvanced	*add-on package 1**
Multimodal enhancement	*add-on package 1**

Pricing

Generic (Standard)

Important

When you call the UnifiedSearch API, billing is based on the request parameters. If you set the engineType parameter to Generic, you are charged for WebSearch (Standard).

If the engineType request parameter is set to Generic, charges for WebSearch (Standard) are incurred.

Performance specifications (QPS)	Tiered pricing (CNY)
Performance specifications (QPS)	Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3	Tier 4
30 (inclusive)	0 ≤ daily call volume < 200,000	200,000 ≤ daily call volume < 350,000	350,000 ≤ daily call volume < 600,000	≥ 600,000
60 (inclusive)	1,000,000 ≤ daily call volume < 1,200,000	1,200,000 ≤ daily call volume < 1,600,000	1,600,000 ≤ daily call volume < 2,000,000	≥ 2,000,000
100 (inclusive)	1,700,000 ≤ daily call volume < 2,000,000	2,000,000 ≤ daily call volume < 2,600,000	2,600,000 ≤ daily call volume < 3,000,000	≥ 3,000,000
200 (inclusive)	3,500,000 ≤ daily call volume < 4,500,000	4,500,000 ≤ daily call volume < 6,000,000	6,000,000 ≤ daily call volume < 8,000,000	≥ 8,000,000

Billing example

Billing rules

Tiered pricing
Note
This service uses a daily tiered pricing model. The pricing tier for a given calendar day is determined by the total daily call volume for your performance specification. All calls on that day are billed at that tier's rate.
Scenario: Billing across different tiers on different days
- Example: A user with a 30 QPS performance specification makes 360,000 WebSearch (Standard) calls on May 10, 2025, and 150,000 WebSearch (Standard) calls on May 11, 2025.
  - Charges for May 10: All calls for the day are billed at the Tier 3 price for 30 QPS. The cost is (360,000 / 1,000) * 34.00 = 12,240 CNY.
  - Charges for May 11: All calls for the day are billed at the Tier 1 price for 30 QPS. The cost is (150,000 / 1,000) * 42.00 = 6,300 CNY.
Scenario: Billing when usage exceeds the highest tier for a QPS specification
- Example: A user with a 30 QPS performance specification makes 1,100,000 WebSearch (Standard) calls on May 10, 2025. This usage may exceed the capacity of your current performance specification. Frequent overages can impact service reliability. We recommend upgrading to 60 QPS. Please contact your account manager or Contact Us one week in advance to arrange an upgrade.
  - If you remain at 30 QPS: All 1,100,000 calls are billed at the Tier 4 price for 30 QPS. The cost is (1,100,000 / 1,000) * 30.00 = 33,000 CNY.
  - If you upgrade to 60 QPS: All 1,100,000 calls are billed at the Tier 1 price for 60 QPS. The cost is (1,100,000 / 1,000) * 42.00 = 46,200 CNY.
Performance specifications
Note
- The default performance specification is 30 QPS.
- Upgrades: You can request to upgrade to a higher specification tier only after your daily call volume reaches the minimum of the next tier. Requests must be made one week in advance. Without an approved upgrade, your service is limited to your current QPS performance.
- Downgrades: If your daily call volume does not meet the minimum requirement for your current performance specification tier for 5 consecutive calendar days, we will automatically downgrade your specification.
Scenario: Specification downgrade
- Example: A user has a 60 QPS performance specification. For 5 consecutive days, from May 1 to May 5, 2025, their daily call volume is less than 1,000,000, which is the minimum required for the 60 QPS tier.
  - Starting on the 6th calendar day (May 6 at 00:00), the system downgrades the specification to 30 QPS, and billing then follows the pricing tiers for 30 QPS. For the period from May 1 to May 5, you are still billed at the 60 QPS Tier 1 price.

LiteAdvanced (Speed)

Important

When you call the UnifiedSearch API, billing is based on the request parameters.

If the engineType request parameter is set to LiteAdvanced, charges for WebSearch (Speed Edition) will be incurred.

Service type	Unit price (CNY)
WebSearch (Speed Edition) [LiteAdvanced]	12

Billing rules

Note

The default performance specification is 10 QPS.
To request a higher specification, you can apply for a QPS quota increase. This generally requires a daily call volume of 400,000 (10 QPS * 40,000). Please contact your account manager or Contact Us one week in advance to submit your request. Without an approved quota increase, your service is limited to your current QPS performance.

Scenario: Billing for WebSearch (Speed Edition)

Example: A user makes 100,000 calls using LiteAdvanced on May 10, 2025.
- WebSearch (Speed Edition) charges: (100,000 / 1,000) * 12 = 1,200 CNY.

Deep

Service type	Unit price (CNY)
WebSearch (Deep Edition) [Deep]	50

Billing rules

Note

The default performance specification is 5 QPS.
To request a higher specification, you can apply for a QPS quota increase. This generally requires a daily call volume of 200,000 (5 QPS * 40,000). Please contact your account manager or Contact Us one week in advance to submit your request. Without an approved quota increase, your service is limited to your current QPS performance.

Scenario: Billing for WebSearch (Deep Edition)

Example: A user makes 100,000 calls using Deep on May 10, 2025.
- WebSearch (Deep Edition) charges: (100,000 / 1,000) * 50 = 5,000 CNY.

Multimodal (image search)

Important

When you call the MultimodalSearch API, billing is based on the request parameters.

If the request parameter engineType is set to MultimodalSpeed, Multimodal Search (Speed Edition) fees will be incurred.

Service type	Unit price (CNY)
Multimodal search (image search) (Speed Edition) [MultimodalSpeed]	25

Billing rules

Note

The default performance specification is 5 QPS.
To request a higher specification, please contact your account manager or Contact Us one week in advance. Without an approved upgrade, your service is limited to your current QPS performance.

Scenario: Billing for multimodal search

Example: A user calls MultimodalSearch 100,000 times on May 10, 2025.
- Multimodal search (image search) (Speed Edition) charges: (100,000 / 1,000) * 25 = 2,500 CNY.

Advance

Important

When you call the UnifiedSearch API, billing for add-on services depends on your request parameters:

If the request parameter engineType is set to GenericAdvanced, a fee for the Enhanced value-added service will be incurred.
If the summary field in the contents request parameter is set to true, a value-added service fee is incurred for enhanced summary.

When you call the MultimodalSearch API, billing for add-on services depends on your request parameters:

If the request parameter engineType is set to MultimodalSpeedAdvanced, multimodal enhancement charges will be incurred.

Service type	Unit price (CNY)
Expanded Results	2.8
Enhanced summary	2.8
Multimodal enhancement	2.8

Billing rules

Add-on service types
- Expanded Results: Provides more URL results, ranging from 40 to 80.
- Enhanced summary: Generates LLM-based summaries from the content of the first 10 URLs by default.
Metering for add-on services: Billing is based on the number of add-on package units consumed per call. You can view the add-on package consumption for each request in the CostCredits field of the API response.
Unit price: A flat per-call price applies, with no performance specification limits.
Scenario: How add-on packages are billed
- Example: A user has a 30 QPS specification. On May 10, 2025, they make 480,000 WebSearch (Standard) calls. Of these, 360,000 calls use the enhanced summary add-on, and 120,000 calls use the Expanded Results add-on.
  The total daily call volume of 480,000 falls into the 30 QPS Tier 3 pricing.
  1. Add-on package charges: (360,000 + 120,000) / 1,000 * 2.8 = 1,344 CNY.
    - Enhanced summary charges: (360,000 / 1,000) * 2.8 = 1,008 CNY.
    - Expanded Results charges: (120,000 / 1,000) * 2.8 = 336 CNY.
  2. WebSearch (Standard) charges: (480,000 / 1,000) * 34 = 16,320 CNY.
  3. Total charges for May 10: 1,344 + 16,320 = 17,664 CNY.