Billing FAQ-Express Connect(Express Connect)-阿里云帮助中心

This topic answers common questions about Express Connect billing.

Category	Common questions
Billing and refunds	What changes were made to the billable items of Express Connect? Can I get a refund for an initial installation fee that was paid before July 1, 2021? If I renewed a VBR subscription that expires after July 1, 2021, can I request a refund?
Outbound data transfer fee	Are there any promotions for the outbound data transfer fee? After billing for outbound data transfer is enabled, how do partners provision resources for hosted connections?
Partner billing	What specifications of shared ports can partners purchase? How are existing users with hosted connections billed?
Partner billing
ProductCode query	How do I find the ProductCode for each billable item?

Changes to billable items

Alibaba Cloud adjusted the billable items of Express Connect as follows:

We eliminated the CNY 15,000 initial installation fee for ports to make it easier for you to migrate services to the cloud.
We provide more free VBR quota to support more complex network topologies.
We provide unlimited inbound data transfer free of charge and bill you only for the outbound data transfer that you use. This reduces the data transfer costs for your connection.

Refunds for initial installation fees

No. This fee is non-refundable.

Promotions for outbound data transfer

Yes. After you enable billing for outbound data transfer, each Alibaba Cloud account (primary account) is eligible for a monthly free quota of 50 TB for outbound data transfer. This promotion is valid until December 31, 2026. Starting from January 1, 2027, the free quota will no longer be available, and outbound data transfer will be billed at standard rates.

Resource provisioning for hosted connections

Alibaba Cloud provides a new resource for partners: the shared port. This replaces the previous method of pushing cross-account VBRs to end users. Partners now push cross-account shared ports, which belong to the end users.

Refunds for VBR subscriptions

After you enable billing for outbound data transfer, you can submit a ticket to request a refund for the VBR subscription fee. The refund applies to the period from the date you enabled billing for outbound data transfer to the subscription expiration date.

For example, if you prepaid for a VBR subscription until December 31, 2021, and you enable billing for outbound data transfer on August 1, 2021, you can request a refund for the subscription fee for the period from August 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021.

Shared port specifications

Partners can purchase shared ports with the following specifications: 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 200 Mbps, 300 Mbps, 400 Mbps, 500 Mbps, and 1 Gbps. To request ports faster than 1 Gbps, you must contact your business manager.

Billing for existing hosted connections

For users who connected to Alibaba Cloud through a partner's hosted connection before September 1, 2021, Alibaba Cloud provides a one-click conversion feature for your partner. The partner can convert your resources without interrupting your business.

After the conversion, the system adds a shared port to your Alibaba Cloud account and re-associates the VBR from the partner's shared port to the new one in your account.

ProductCode for billable items

You can call the QueryCommodityList API operation to query a list of commodities based on a product code. Express Connect involves two ProductCode values. You must perform two separate queries:

Call the operation once with ProductCode set to expressconnect.
Call the operation again with ProductCode set to pconn.