Billing
Global Accelerator (GA) supports two billing methods: pay-as-you-go and subscription.
Billing method
Choosing a billing method
Pay-as-you-go: Recommended when resource usage is temporary or bursty, traffic peaks fluctuate significantly, or you cannot predict resource and traffic consumption. To use pay-as-you-go GA instances for the first time, activate the service on the service activation page.
Subscription: Recommended when you can predict the usage period, traffic peaks are stable, and you need the resources long term.
Converting between billing methods
You can only select the billing method when purchasing a GA instance. Once created, the billing method cannot be converted.
Billing items
Billing items vary by billing method and instance type:
Instance type | Pay-as-you-go | Subscription |
Standard instance | Instance fee + CU fee + data transfer fee | Instance fee + specification fee + bandwidth fee |
Basic instance | Instance fee + data transfer fee | Instance fee + bandwidth fee |
Instance fee: Charged for both billing methods and both instance types. Pay-as-you-go bills by instance duration, regardless of whether configuration is completed or traffic is generated; subscription bills by the purchased duration.
CU fee: Applies only to pay-as-you-go standard instances. A CU (Capacity Unit) is charged based on the performance metric with the highest hourly usage; currently only the Data Processing CU dimension is billed.
Specification fee: Applies only to subscription standard instances and varies with the selected specification tier. Tiers differ in the number of acceleration regions, bandwidth capacity, and concurrent connections.
Network transmission fee:
Data transfer fee: Applies only to pay-as-you-go instances. No bandwidth plan is required. Based on the geographic distribution of your workloads, internet traffic, cross-region traffic, and cross-border traffic are incurred, priced by region tiers, and settled through Cloud Data Transfer (CDT).
Bandwidth fee: Applies only to subscription instances. A basic bandwidth plan must be bound to the instance, billed by the bandwidth peak and bandwidth type specified in the plan. If your workloads involve communication between the Chinese mainland and overseas regions, an additional cross-border acceleration bandwidth plan is required.
Billing item pricing
For unit prices, CU conversion factors, the data transfer pricing matrix, and specification tiers, see Pay-as-you-go and Subscription. Actual prices are shown on the console purchase page.
Billing cycle
Billing cycle | Billing time | Applicable items |
Hourly | The hour after the current billing cycle ends | Pay-as-you-go instance fee, CU fee, data transfer fee |
Monthly | The 1st of the following month | Subscription instance fee, specification fee, bandwidth fee |
For pay-as-you-go, usage of less than 1 hour within a billing cycle is charged as 1 full hour. The subscription billing cycle is the order purchase period (UTC+8), starting at the purchase or renewal time and ending at 24:00:00 on the expiration date. Exact billing time depends on the system.
Cost optimization
Free trial
Alibaba Cloud offers enterprise users new to GA a free trial of pay-as-you-go standard GA instances. Visit Alibaba Cloud Free Trial to apply. The trial is valid for 3 calendar months (a calendar month runs from the 1st to the last day of that month). Usage exceeding the free quota is automatically billed as pay-as-you-go from your account balance; service stops when the account is overdue.
Resource plans and offsets
Prepaid resource plans reduce pay-as-you-go and data transfer costs. Each plan type offsets a different range of fees. No resource plan currently offsets cross-region or cross-border traffic.
Offset method | Offset scope |
GA resource plan | Instance fee and CU fee of pay-as-you-go instances |
Internet traffic on BGP (multi-line) routes, all billed tiers beyond the free quota | |
The first billing tier (0–10 TB) of internet traffic on BGP (multi-line) routes |
Bills and usage queries
Go to the Billing Details page in the Billing console to view itemized billing data. Click View Usage Details in the upper-right corner to download and export usage records.
Pay-as-you-go instance charges are billed under two products — Global Accelerator (GA) and Cloud Data Transfer (CDT). Select both products when querying pay-as-you-go costs.
Subscription charges are billed under Global Accelerator (GA) only.
Overdue Payments and Top-ups
Pay-as-you-go instances
Service status after an overdue payment:
If the overdue amount remains within the extended suspension-free quota, the GA instance continues operating normally.
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 Service suspension protection for overdue payments.
Once the overdue amount exceeds the extended suspension-free quota, the instance enters a suspended state.
If the instance remains suspended for 15 days without the bill being settled, it is automatically released. After release, all configurations and data are permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.
Top-up and recovery:
Topping up within the grace period keeps the business unaffected. If you top up within 15 days after suspension — before the instance is released — the system automatically pays the outstanding bill, and the instance resumes service immediately.
Subscription instances and basic bandwidth plans
After creation, subscription instances and basic bandwidth plans remain in the Normal state until they expire.
Service status after expiration: When a subscription instance or basic bandwidth plan expires but has been expired for no more than 7 days, it enters a suspended state (FinancialLocked). In this state, no operations can be performed, but the configuration is retained. If renewal is not completed or fails within 7 days of expiration, the instance or bandwidth plan is released — all configurations and data are permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.
Renewal and recovery: Renewal is available during the contract period or within 7 days after expiration.