What are the billable items of Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch, Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch billing-Elasticsearch(ES)-阿里云帮助中心

Learn about the pricing and billable items of Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch.

Billable items

An Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch cluster incurs the following billable items:

Elasticsearch cluster fees: Charged when you create or modify a cluster, based on the selected configuration and usage duration.
- Basic configuration fees: Cover the node specifications (such as CPU type), number of nodes, and node storage space.
- Fees for optional advanced features:
  - Kernel-enhanced Edition features, such as Indexing Service and OpenStore
  - AI model service (available only for Vector Edition)
Snapshot storage fees (optional): After you enable the snapshot (data backup) service, the OSS storage space that your snapshots occupy is billed based on OSS pricing. For more information, see the "Snapshot storage fees" section.
Logstash component fees: Charged based on the Logstash instance configuration and usage.

Billing method comparison

Billing method

Description

Use cases

Pay-as-you-go

A post-paid, hourly billing method that allows flexible scaling with no long-term commitment.

You can change the billing method from pay-as-you-go to subscription.

Ideal for short-term testing, temporary services, or scenarios with fluctuating workloads.

Subscription

A prepaid billing method offering lower prices for long-term resource reservations.

You can change the billing method from subscription to pay-as-you-go.

Ideal for stable services or scenarios with predictable resource usage.

Billing rules

Basic configuration fees

Billable item	Billing formula
Node specifications (CPU and memory specifications)	Subscription: Fee = Unit price of node specifications × Number of nodes × Subscription duration Pay-as-you-go: Fee = Unit price of node specifications × Number of nodes × Usage duration Note Elastic nodes are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis, regardless of the billing method (subscription or pay-as-you-go) selected for the cluster.
Node storage space	Subscription: Fee = Storage space per node × Number of nodes × Unit price of cloud disk × Subscription duration Pay-as-you-go: Fee = Storage space per node × Number of nodes × Unit price of cloud disk × Usage duration

Advanced feature fees (Optional)

Fees for Kernel-enhanced Edition features

Advanced feature	Billable item	Billing formula
Indexing Service	write acceleration traffic	Pay-as-you-go: Fee = write acceleration traffic × Unit price of traffic × Usage duration Important Write acceleration traffic is billed on a tiered pricing basis. For example, in the China (Hangzhou) region, the unit prices are: CNY 0.061/GB/h for write acceleration traffic that is less than or equal to 1 TB/h CNY 0.027/GB/h for write acceleration traffic that is greater than 1 TB/h
Indexing Service	Hosted storage space	Pay-as-you-go: Fee = Hosted storage space × Unit price of storage × Usage duration
OpenStore	OpenStore storage space	Pay-as-you-go: Fee = OpenStore storage capacity × Unit price of storage × Usage duration

AI model service fees (Vector Edition only)

Built-in models are available for multi-modal data parsing, splitting, vectorization, query analysis, reranking, and large language models (LLMs). The models are ready to use after you enable the service. Provided by the AI Search Open Platform, they are free to enable and billed on a pay-as-you-go basis by actual usage. For more information, see AI model billing methods and billable items.

Checking prices

During purchase: On the Elasticsearch buy page, click View Details in the lower-right corner to view the total price of the instance and the price details for each node.

Prices for the same specifications vary by region and subscription duration. Configure the instance based on your business requirements to check pricing.
During use: Go to the Billing and Orders center to view your consumption details.

Snapshot storage fees

After you enable the snapshot (data backup) service, snapshots are stored in an Object Storage Service (OSS) bucket under your own account (a bucket whose name uses the es-alicloud-* prefix or that carries the es-alicloud tag). The storage space that the snapshots occupy is billed based on OSS pricing and is calculated separately from your Elasticsearch cluster fees.

"Free Trial" in the Data Backup (Free Trial) section of the console refers only to the automatic backup feature itself. It does not mean that the OSS storage space occupied by snapshots is free of charge.

The billing rules are as follows:

Billing start time: Billing starts when you enable the snapshot service, that is, when you first turn on Enable Automatic Backup or create a manual snapshot. Historical data and earlier images that already existed before you enabled the service are not billed retroactively.
Data that is not billed: Internal backups and metadata that the system retains automatically before you enable the snapshot service are not counted toward your OSS storage and incur no fees. Only the manual and automatic snapshots created after you enable the service occupy OSS storage space and incur fees.

Logstash billing

Billable item	Billing formula
Instance specifications (CPU and memory specifications)	Subscription: Fee = Unit price of node specifications × Number of nodes × Subscription duration Pay-as-you-go: Fee = Unit price of node specifications × Number of nodes × Usage duration
Storage space	Subscription: Fee = Storage space per node × Unit price of cloud disk × Number of nodes × Subscription duration Pay-as-you-go: Fee = Storage space per node × Unit price of cloud disk × Number of nodes × Usage duration

On the Logstash buy page, in the lower-right corner, click the icon next to Payable Fees to view the price details of the instance.

Note

Prices for the same specifications vary by region and subscription duration. Configure the instance based on your business needs to check pricing.