Overdue payments: effects on ECS resources, causes, and settlement-Elastic Compute Service(ECS)-阿里云帮助中心

Impacts of overdue payments

Subscription ECS resources

Note

Subscription ECS resources have an expiration date. For more information about the impacts of resource expiration, see Subscription.

If your account has an overdue payment, you can continue to use your existing subscription ECS resources, but the following limitations apply:

You cannot perform operations that incur fees, such as purchasing, upgrading, or renewing instances, or expanding disks.
If a subscription ECS instance has an attached pay-as-you-go disk or uses pay-by-traffic for public bandwidth, the disk and public bandwidth services become unavailable after a payment becomes overdue. For more information about the impacts of an overdue payment on pay-as-you-go disks and public bandwidth, see Pay-as-you-go ECS resources.

If detachment fails, billing for the disk stops, but you risk data loss. We recommend that you stop using these disks.

Pay-as-you-go ECS resources

When a payment becomes overdue, the system automatically stops your services and suspends billing. If the payment remains overdue for 15 days, the system releases or unbinds all related ECS resources.

Important

If your account has an overdue payment, pay-as-you-go instances will not be released at their scheduled time, even if you configured an automatic release.
Instances in economical mode have their computing resources (vCPUs and memory) reclaimed when stopped. If your account has an overdue payment, such an instance will fail to start. What is economical mode?

The following table describes what happens to ECS resources when services are stopped due to an overdue payment.

Resource type	Overdue: Within 15 days	Overdue: After 15 days
Computing resources (vCPUs, GPUs, and memory)	An instance stopped due to an overdue payment immediately enters the Expired state. Within 48 hours after the service is stopped, Alibaba Cloud releases the instance's computing resources, and the instance enters the Recycling Due to Overdue Payment state. In the Expired state, the computing resources (vCPUs, memory, and GPUs) are retained. In the Pending Release state, the computing resources (vCPUs, memory, and GPUs) are released.	The computing resources (vCPUs, GPUs, and memory) are released and cannot be recovered.
block storage	Disks and their data are retained. Local disks are retained, but their data can be released at any time.	Disks and their data are released and cannot be recovered. Local disks are released, and their data cannot be recovered.
public IP	The static public IP address is retained. The lifecycles of EIPs and ECS instances are independent. If you use an EIP, see Overdue payments for EIPs for information about how an overdue payment affects the EIP.	The static public IP address is released. The lifecycles of EIPs and ECS instances are independent. If you use an EIP, see Overdue payments for EIPs for information about how an overdue payment affects the EIP.
snapshot	All snapshots and custom images are retained. However, you cannot use existing snapshots to create new disks or custom images. You cannot create manual snapshots, and automatic snapshot creation is suspended. Attempts to create a custom image from an instance fail because a snapshot cannot be created. If you settle your overdue balance, you can use your snapshots again, and automatic snapshot policies resume.	All your snapshot resources, including snapshots, snapshot-consistent groups, and snapshots associated with custom images, are deleted. This data cannot be recovered. If a snapshot is associated with a custom image, that custom image is also deleted and cannot be recovered. If you settle the overdue amount, the automatic snapshot policy automatically resumes. Important If you have subscription instances that were created from a custom image, the instances continue to run normally after the image is deleted. However, you cannot re-initialize their system disks. If a custom image has been shared with other accounts, those accounts can no longer find or use the image to create ECS instances after the image is deleted. In addition, the system disks of ECS instances created from the shared image cannot be re-initialized. If a custom image has been published as a community image, the community image is also deleted. Users can no longer use the community image to create ECS instances, and the system disks of ECS instances created from that image cannot be re-initialized.

Settle an overdue bill

An overdue payment can cause your pay-as-you-go ECS instances to be stopped. To avoid service interruptions, settle overdue bills promptly. For more information, see Online top-up.

After settling an overdue bill, the system automatically restarts any instances that were stopped. If an instance fails to restart automatically, you can start it manually. For more information, see Start an instance.

Prevent service suspension

Release unused resources

If you no longer need an ECS resource, back up its data and release the resource promptly to prevent further charges.
Set a credit alert

Set an alert threshold based on your available account credit. You will receive a notification when your credit falls below this threshold. For more information, see Monitor your account balance.
Set an automatic release time

Enable the automatic release feature for pay-as-you-go instances to prevent unexpected charges from instances that run longer than intended. For more information, see Release an instance.
Enable service suspension protection

Alibaba Cloud provides the extended suspension-free benefit. When a pay-as-you-go resource is overdue, you can continue to use cloud services for a certain amount or duration. Normal fees apply during the extended period. For more information, see Extended Suspension-Free Benefit.

View the overdue amount

Log on to the Expenses and Costs console.
On the Homepage page, view the overdue amount in the Overview section.

FAQ

How do I top up my account and make payments?
If my account balance is insufficient, will the system send me a reminder? When is the reminder sent?
If my account balance is insufficient, is the data on my pay-as-you-go instances affected?
Why am I still charged after I requested a refund for an ECS instance?
Why does my account have an overdue payment even though it has a positive balance?