When you first activate Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, the platform automatically grants you a free quota for various models.
Only models in the China (Beijing) region with the service deployment scope set to China (Mainland) are eligible for a free quota. Models in other regions or with different service scopes are not eligible.
Rules
Validity period
The free quota is valid for 30 to 90 days, starting from the date you activate Alibaba Cloud Model Studio or your model request is approved. After the quota expires or is exhausted, you will be charged for continued use of the model inference service.
Starting from 11:00 (UTC+8) on September 8, 2025, users who activate Alibaba Cloud Model Studio for the first time will receive a free quota that is valid for 90 days. This change does not affect users who activated the service before this date. For more information, see the Notice on Validity Period Adjustment for Alibaba Cloud Model Studio Free Quota.
Scope
The free quota only covers charges for real-time inference (invocations). It does not apply to the following scenarios:
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Custom models (fine-tuned or deployed models)
Notes
An Alibaba Cloud account and its RAM users share a single free quota.
For example, if the total free quota for qwen-max is 1,000,000 tokens, and the Alibaba Cloud account uses 100,000 tokens while a RAM user uses 200,000 tokens, the remaining free quota for qwen-max is 700,000 tokens.
Get your free quota
Visit Alibaba Cloud Model Studio - China (Mainland). After reading and agreeing to the service agreement, the system automatically activates Alibaba Cloud Model Studio and grants you a free quota
If the service agreement does not appear, it means you have already activated Alibaba Cloud Model Studio and received a free quota.
Check your remaining quota
You can check the free quota for your models in two ways.
Method 1: From the model usage page
In the console, go to the model usage page and click the Free Quota tab to view the remaining free quota and expiration date for all your models.
Method 2: From the Model Square page
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In the console, go to the Model Square page, find the desired model series, and click it to open its details page.
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Select a model version from the Model Code list and view the remaining quota in the Free Quota area. If no free quota is displayed, it may have expired. Refer to the model list for the specific validity period.
362,917/1,000,000 indicates that 362,917 of 1,000,000 total tokens remain.
The free quota displayed in the console is updated on a minute-by-minute basis. You must manually refresh the page to view the latest information.
Use your free quota
Real-time invocations of large models automatically use your free quota. For more information, see Get started with Alibaba Cloud Model Studio.
By default, new, unverified users cannot use the service after their free quota is exhausted. To switch to pay-as-you-go billing, you must verify your identity and add funds to your account. For verified users, usage after the free quota is exhausted is automatically billed. To prevent unexpected charges, you can enable the Free Quota Only feature in advance.
After the free quota for a new, unverified user is exhausted, the service stops responding and returns the error code AllocationQuota.FreeTierOnly. To continue with pay-as-you-go billing, you must verify your identity and add funds to your account.
Free Quota Only
When this feature is enabled, the service stops responding and returns the error code AllocationQuota.FreeTierOnly once your free quota is exhausted. You will not be charged for further usage.
How to enable
Method 1: From the model usage page
Enable for a single model:
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In the console, go to the model usage page and click the Free Quota tab.
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Find the desired model in the list and enable the Free Quota Only switch in the Actions column. You cannot enable this feature for models that do not have a free quota.
Enable in batches:
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In the console, go to the model usage page and click the Free Quota tab.
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Click Free Quota Only Batch Operation and select Batch Enable from the drop-down menu.
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Select the target models and click Batch Enable. To enable the feature for all eligible models for which the feature is disabled, click Enable for All Models.
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In the confirmation dialog box, click Enable Free Quota Only.
Method 2: From the Model Square page
Take Qwen3-Coder-Plus as an example. Go to the Qwen3-Coder-Plus model details page and turn on the Free Quota Only switch.
If the switch is not displayed for a model, its free quota has been exhausted or has expired, or the model does not offer one.
How to disable
This feature is disabled by default. If you have enabled Free Quota Only, you can disable it only after the console shows that the free quota is exhausted.
The free quota data in the console is updated on a minute-by-minute basis. You must manually refresh the page to view the latest information.
FAQ
Notifications for low or exhausted quota
Yes. When your remaining quota drops to 20% or is fully exhausted, the system sends notifications through SMS, internal messages, and email.
To enable or disable alerts, or to change the alert threshold, go to My Free Trials. Find the trial with the description Model Studio Large Model Inference Free Trial, click View Trial Details, and then click Configure Alert Rule for Remaining Quota in the upper-right corner to make changes.
Effects of an exhausted quota
For new, unverified users: You cannot continue making invocations after your free quota is exhausted. To continue on a pay-as-you-go basis, you must complete identity verification and add funds to your account.
For verified users:
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If you have enabled Free Quota Only, you cannot make further invocations after your free quota is exhausted. To continue on a pay-as-you-go basis, you must disable the Free Quota Only feature.
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If you have not enabled Free Quota Only, ongoing invocations are not interrupted. Any tokens used beyond the free quota are charged at the input/output prices listed in the console. These charges are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis and deducted from your Alibaba Cloud account, which may lead to an overdue balance.
If your account has an overdue balance, you cannot make model invocations, even if other models still have a free quota.
Before making an invocation, we recommend that you check the remaining quota for the model and configure budget management or account balance alerts to ensure that your account has a sufficient balance. Unused balances are eligible for withdrawal.
How to add funds
Alibaba Cloud supports various top-up methods, such as Alipay, UnionPay, and online banking. The specific methods available to you are displayed on the top-up page. For more information, see Top-up methods.
After adding funds, your account balance may take a few minutes to update. You can check your available balance later on the Billing & Costs page. Once your balance is updated and you have no overdue payments, you can resume making model invocations.
View usage records and bills
Usage records are generated within minutes of an invocation's completion. To view them, follow these steps:
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On the Billing Details page, select a billing month, select Model Studio for Product Name, and click Search.
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Click the
icon in the upper-right corner of the bill list, find Usage Information, select the Deducted Usage checkbox, and click Confirm. -
Find the bill item where the Cost Type is Free Quota. The value in the Deducted Usage column shows the amount of usage that was covered by your free quota.
Why am I being charged?
Common reasons include:
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The free quota for the model you used has been exhausted.
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The free quota does not cover charges incurred by OpenAI-compatible Batch (File Input) invocations.
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The free quota data in the console is updated on a minute-by-minute basis and requires a manual page refresh. If you did not refresh the page, it might have displayed a remaining quota when the quota had actually been exhausted, leading to charges for new invocations. Always refresh the page before use to see the most current information.
To confirm the details of any charges, see How do I identify which model incurred charges? and How do I view model invocation records?
Identify models with charges
Within minutes of an invocation's completion, go to the Billing Details page. Select the billing month. For Product Name, select Model Inference in Model Studio. Then, click Search. The models that incurred charges are listed in the column.
How do I view model invocation records?
One hour after you call a model, go to the Monitoring page. Set the query conditions, such as the time range and workspace. Then, in the Models area, find the target model and click Monitor in the Actions column to view the model's call statistics. For more information, see the Monitoring document.
Data is updated hourly. During peak periods, there may be an hour-level latency.
How do I avoid charges?
After your free quota is exhausted, charges are automatically deducted from your account balance. You can reduce the risk of unexpected charges in the following ways:
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Delete created API keys: Go to the API key (China (Beijing)) or API key (Singapore) page in Alibaba Cloud Model Studio and delete your API keys. After an API key is deleted, it can no longer be used to call models, which prevents further invocation fees.
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Set up a High-spending Alert: When a product's daily bill exceeds the alert threshold, you receive one SMS reminder per day (based on statistics as of 24:00 on the previous day).
From the Alert Product drop-down list, select a specific product, such as Model Studio Model Deployment, Model Studio Large Model Inference, or Model Studio Model Training. In the Alert Threshold field, enter an amount (for example,
0.01), and then click Add to create the alert rule.
Invocation failures with remaining quota
Check if your Alibaba Cloud account has an overdue balance. If your account has an overdue balance, you cannot make invocations, even if a model still has a free quota.
Missing free quota and validity period
If the Free Quota column displays No free quota, or if the Free Quota area is not displayed, it means the model's free quota has expired.