OTA update billing
IoT Platform charges for over-the-air (OTA) updates on legacy public instances. This topic describes the billing details for OTA updates, which are based on the number of successful updates.
Billing rules
An OTA update is considered successful when a device reports its new version after an upgrade. The number of billable updates depends on the size of the update package.
| Update package size (MB) | Rule description |
| Less than or equal to (≤) 100 MB | Each device that successfully reports its upgraded version is counted as one update. |
| Greater than (>) 100 MB | For each device that successfully reports an upgraded version, the number of billable updates is calculated by dividing the package size in MB by 100 and rounding the result up to the nearest whole number. If multiple devices are successfully upgraded, the count is calculated by dividing the upgrade package size in MB by 100, rounding up to the nearest integer, and then multiplying the result by the number of devices. For example, you upload a 450 MB update package to the IoT Platform console and push it to one device. If the device successfully upgrades, it is billed as 5 updates. If you push the package to 10 devices and all 10 successfully report the new version, the total number of billable updates is 5 × 10 = 50. |
You can use delta updates to reduce costs. Delta update packages contain only the differences between the current and previous versions.
Billing method
Pay-as-you-go: Each Alibaba Cloud account receives a free quota of 100 updates per month. The unused portion of the free quota does not carry over to the next month. Updates that exceed the free quota are billed at CNY 0.2 per update.
Billing cycle
The number of OTA updates is calculated daily. Fees are billed based on this daily count. The exact time that your bill is generated is determined by the system.
Billing formula
Your daily fee is calculated using the following formula: Number of updates × CNY 0.2.
Bills are calculated to two decimal places and rounded down. This means that any digits after the second decimal place are truncated.