Billing items
Intelligent Speech Interaction (ISI) charges based on service usage. Pay-as-you-go pricing applies daily tiered rates — the more you use, the lower the unit price. A free trial is available for all four core services.
If Alibaba Cloud detects that an account repeatedly uses the free trial across multiple Alibaba Cloud accounts, Alibaba Cloud may take appropriate action without prior notice. The account holder bears responsibility for any consequences.
Billing items
ISI bills across four core services and two additional features.
Core services
| Service | Billing unit |
|---|---|
| Real-time speech recognition | Total duration of processed audio (hours) |
| Short sentence recognition | Number of service calls (thousands) |
| Recording file recognition | Total duration of processed recording files (hours) |
| Speech synthesis | Number of service calls (thousands) |
Additional features
| Feature | Billing |
|---|---|
Excess concurrent lines | The commercial version provides a default concurrency of 200 for Short Sentence Recognition and Real-time Speech Recognition, and 10 for Recording File Recognition (Express Edition). If your business requires higher concurrency, you can purchase additional concurrent lines. For more information about fees, see Billing methods. For instructions on how to purchase, see Concurrency. |
| Self-learning platform | Free — create up to 10 custom language models |
| Speech synthesis speaker customization | Custom quote — contact sales |
Pricing
Free trial vs. Commercial Edition
All four services offer a three-month free trial. Upgrade to Commercial Edition when you need higher concurrency or longer daily recording limits.
| Free trial | Commercial Edition | |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time speech recognition | Unlimited usage if concurrent calls ≤ 2 | Pay-as-you-go, tiered pricing |
| Short sentence recognition | Unlimited usage if concurrent calls ≤ 2 | Pay-as-you-go, tiered pricing |
| Recording file recognition | Up to 2 hours total per calendar day | Pay-as-you-go, tiered pricing |
| Speech synthesis | Unlimited usage if concurrent calls ≤ 2 | Pay-as-you-go, tiered pricing |
| Duration | 3 months | No expiry; no charge if unused |
| Concurrent calls after downgrade | 0 (service becomes unavailable) | — |
The free trial billing policy may change. Check the latest announcements on alibabacloud.com for updates. Free trial rules have been in effect since March 1, 2020. Commercial Edition rules have been in effect since June 10, 2019.
No free quota is available for Commercial Edition services. Avoid downgrading a service from Commercial Edition back to the free trial. After the downgrade, the number of available concurrent calls drops to 0, making the service unavailable.
Category | Service | Billing unit | Billing method |
Speech recognition | Real-time Speech Recognition | Billed by audio duration | Pay-as-you-go or resource plan (subscription) |
Short Sentence Recognition | Billed by number of calls | ||
Recording File Recognition | Billed by recording duration | ||
Recording File Recognition (Express Edition) | Billed by recording duration | ||
Recording File Recognition (Off-Peak Edition) | Billed by recording duration | ||
Alibaba Cloud Model Studio Voice Model Service | Billed by audio duration | Pay-as-you-go | |
Speech synthesis | Speech Synthesis | Billed by number of calls | Pay-as-you-go or resource plan (subscription) |
Long Text-to-Speech | Billed by number of synthesized characters | ||
Speech analytics | Sound Event Detection | Billed by recording duration | |
Speaker Recognition | Billed by number of calls | ||
Gender Recognition | Billed by number of calls | ||
Language Identification | Billed by number of calls |
Pay-as-you-go rates
Usage is billed daily. All usage within a calendar day is priced at the single tiered rate that corresponds to the total daily volume — not split across tiers.
Bills are calculated at 24:00 (UTC+8) each day. Your consumption today is billed the following day. Keep your account balance sufficient to avoid service interruptions.
Real-time speech recognition — Standard rate: USD 1.40/hour
Billed per second, rounded down. For example, 22.8 seconds of audio is recorded as 22 seconds.
| Daily usage | Unit price |
|---|---|
| 0–299 hours | USD 1.40/hour |
| 300–999 hours | USD 1.20/hour |
| 1,000–2,999 hours | USD 1.00/hour |
| 3,000–4,999 hours | USD 0.86/hour |
| ≥ 5,000 hours | USD 0.70/hour |
Short sentence recognition — Standard rate: USD 1.40/thousand calls
Failed calls are not counted.
| Daily usage | Unit price |
|---|---|
| 0–299 thousand calls | USD 1.40/thousand calls |
| 300–999 thousand calls | USD 1.20/thousand calls |
| 1,000–2,999 thousand calls | USD 1.00/thousand calls |
| 3,000–4,999 thousand calls | USD 0.86/thousand calls |
| ≥ 5,000 thousand calls | USD 0.70/thousand calls |
Recording file recognition — Standard rate: USD 1.00/hour
Billed per second, rounded down. Upgrade to Commercial Edition if you need more than 2 concurrent calls or more than 2 hours of recording recognition per calendar day.
| Daily usage | Unit price |
|---|---|
| 0–299 hours | USD 1.00/hour |
| 300–999 hours | USD 0.95/hour |
| 1,000–2,999 hours | USD 0.90/hour |
| 3,000–4,999 hours | USD 0.85/hour |
| ≥ 5,000 hours | USD 0.60/hour |
Speech synthesis — Standard rate: USD 1.40/thousand calls
Calls are counted based on the number of UTF-8 encoded characters per request. Each Chinese character, English letter, or full-width or half-width punctuation mark counts as one character. The maximum per request is 300 characters. Failed calls are not counted.
| Characters per request | Calls billed |
|---|---|
| 1–100 | 1 call |
| 101–200 | 2 calls |
| 201–300 | 3 calls |
| Daily usage | Unit price |
|---|---|
| 0–299 thousand calls | USD 1.40/thousand calls |
| 300–999 thousand calls | USD 1.20/thousand calls |
| 1,000–2,999 thousand calls | USD 1.00/thousand calls |
| 3,000–4,999 thousand calls | USD 0.86/thousand calls |
| ≥ 5,000 thousand calls | USD 0.70/thousand calls |
Billing example
All usage within a calendar day is priced at the single tiered rate for the total daily volume.
| Scenario | Daily usage | Applicable rate | Daily charge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short sentence recognition | 500,000 calls (500 thousand) | USD 1.20/thousand (300–999k tier) | 500 × USD 1.20 = USD 600.00 |
Additional features
Self-learning platform
The self-learning platform is free. Create up to 10 custom language models to improve recognition accuracy for business-specific vocabulary and phrases.
Speech synthesis speaker customization
Pricing varies based on business scenario, data volume, speaker type, and intellectual property rights. No standard rate applies.
To get a quote, contact nls_support@service.aliyun.com.
View consumption details
Log on to alibabacloud.com.
Move the pointer over the profile picture in the upper-right corner and select Billing.
In the left-side navigation pane of the Expenses and Costs page, choose Bills > Bill Details.
Click the Consumption by Bill, Billing Details, or View Usage Details tab to view your consumption details.
Notes on refunds
Fees incurred in pay-as-you-go mode cannot be refunded.