The pay-as-you-go billing method is ideal for short-term or temporary workloads, while the subscription billing method is better suited for long-term or stable workloads. When your needs change, MaxCompute lets you switch between these two billing methods to save costs. A quota represents a block of computing resources in MaxCompute, which are measured in compute units (CUs). A project's billing method is determined by its default compute quota. To switch a project's billing method, you change its default compute quota.
Prerequisites
You have activated the MaxCompute pay-as-you-go and subscription offerings.
Billing method conversion
The difference between the pay-as-you-go and subscription offerings is how computing resources are billed and run. Storage and download are billed the same way for both.
Computing jobs in a subscription project use only purchased reserved computing resources and non-reserved computing resources. Reserved computing resources are dedicated resources.
The following tables describe the supported conversion scenarios.
|
Conversion scenario |
Description |
Effective period |
|
Switch from Standard Edition (pay-as-you-go) to Standard Compute Resources (subscription) |
Supported. You must purchase MaxCompute CUs in advance. You can switch the billing method of a project only within the same region. To purchase CUs, click Subscription. Note
Before switching, calculate your current CU usage to estimate the number of subscription CUs required. For more information, see Plan computing resources based on the compute-to-storage ratio or Plan computing resources based on the actual CU consumption of a project. |
The change typically takes effect immediately. However, for jobs that are already running, the switch takes effect on their next run. |
|
Switch from Standard Compute Resources (subscription) to Standard Edition (pay-as-you-go) |
Supported. Paid subscription fees are non-refundable. You can create other projects to use the purchased CUs because they can be shared across multiple projects. |
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Avoid frequently switching billing methods, as this can affect the runtime of your computing jobs.
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If you want to specify a compute quota only for specific jobs in a project, see Specify a quota at the job level.
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New purchases of subscription package editions (Storage-intensive 160, Storage-intensive 320, and Storage-intensive 600 packages), non-reserved computing resources, and Developer Edition (pay-as-you-go) are discontinued. Service for these offerings was terminated at 00:00:00 on Tuesday, October 31, 2023 (UTC+8). For more information, see September 23, 2022 - Announcement on Discontinuation of New Purchases for Specific MaxCompute Editions.
Console procedure
A project's billing method is determined by its default compute quota. To switch the billing method, change this quota for the project.
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Before you change the default compute quota of a project, make sure that you have purchased the required computing resources for the new billing method. To purchase computing resources, click Purchase Computing Resources.
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In the new console, you can independently configure the
default compute quotafor each project.
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Log on to the MaxCompute console and select a region in the upper-left corner.
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In the left-side navigation pane, click Projects.
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On the Projects page, find the target project and click Manage in the Actions column.
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On the Parameter Configuration tab, click Edit next to Basic Information.
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From the Default Compute Quota drop-down list, select the desired quota.
Related documents
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After purchasing CUs for a subscription, go to the Quota Management page of the MaxCompute console to configure quota plans. This helps you plan resources effectively and improve utilization. For more information, see Manage quotas for computing resources.
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For resource planning examples, see Resource isolation for subscription resources or Best practices for elastically reserved CUs.