NAT Gateway billing

Billing methods

Both Internet NAT gateways and VPC NAT gateways support these billing methods:

NAT Gateway is a post-paid service billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. Purchasing a resource plan deducts usage from the plan but does not change the payment type. Single-AZ disaster recovery instances support only pay-as-you-go billing, do not support subscription, and cannot use resource plans.

Pay-as-you-go: Bills are generated each billing cycle based on actual usage, and fees are deducted from your account.
Resource Plan: Purchase a NAT Gateway resource plan in advance. Usage is deducted from the resource plan first during fee settlement.
- Resource plans offer discounts compared to pay-as-you-go billing.
- Excess usage is automatically billed on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Use the NAT CU Estimator to estimate the CU count for your workload.

Billing cycle

Both Internet NAT gateways and VPC NAT gateways are billed hourly based on actual usage.

Usage less than one hour in a billing cycle is billed as one hour.
Bills are typically generated one hour after the cycle ends. Actual timing is determined by the system.

For example, if you purchase a NAT gateway at 09:10:00 and release it at 10:50:00 on the same day, the usage duration is two hours.

The period from 09:00:00 to 10:00:00 is one billing cycle. A bill is generated after 10:00:00, and the corresponding fees are deducted from your account.
The period from 10:00:00 to 11:00:00 is another billing cycle. A bill is generated after 11:00:00, and the corresponding fees are deducted from your account.

Billable items and pricing

Before you create a pay-as-you-go NAT Gateway instance, ensure your Alibaba Cloud account has a balance of at least CNY 100.00 (cash, vouchers, or coupons). Top up your account.

Instance fee

Instance fee = Unit price of instance (CNY/hour) × Usage duration (hours)

Usage duration

Usage duration is the time from gateway creation to release. Instance fees are billed hourly.

Unit price of a NAT gateway

The prices in the table are for reference only. The actual prices on the buy page prevail.

Region	Price (cross-AZ DR) (CNY/hour)	Price (single-AZ DR) (CNY/hour)
China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Nanjing - Local Region), China (Qingdao), China (Beijing), China (Zhangjiakou), China (Hohhot), China (Ulanqab), China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), China (Guangzhou), China (Wuhan - Local Region), China (Chengdu), China (Fuzhou - Local Region)	0.23	0.115
China (Hong Kong), Japan (Tokyo), South Korea (Seoul), Singapore, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Indonesia (Jakarta), Philippines (Manila), Thailand (Bangkok), Malaysia (Johor), Germany (Frankfurt), UK (London), US (Silicon Valley), US (Virginia), UAE (Dubai)	0.3	0.15
SAU (Riyadh - Partner Region)	0.4	0.2

CU fee

A CU (capacity unit) measures the traffic processed by a NAT gateway. CUs are billed hourly.

Starting September 26, 2025, the CU fee is based only on processed traffic per hour.

Previously, the CU count per hour was the largest of: CUs for new connections, CUs for concurrent connections, or CUs for processed traffic.

CU fee per hour = CU unit price (CNY/CU) × Number of CUs for processed traffic in the hour
Number of CUs for processed traffic in the hour = Total processed traffic / 1 GB

NAT Gateway measures processed traffic in GB, where 1 GB = 2^30 bytes (also known as GiB per the IEC standard). 1 TB = 2^40 bytes = 1,024 GB.

Number of CUs for processed traffic in the hour

The system calculates total inbound and outbound traffic (in bytes) processed per hour, measured before NAT gateway processing.

CU unit price

The prices in the table are for reference only. The actual prices on the buy page prevail.

Region	CU price (cross-AZ DR) (CNY/CU/hour)	CU price (single-AZ DR) (CNY/CU/hour)
China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Nanjing - Local Region), China (Qingdao), China (Beijing), China (Zhangjiakou), China (Hohhot), China (Ulanqab), China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), China (Guangzhou), China (Wuhan - Local Region), China (Chengdu), China (Fuzhou - Local Region)	0.23	0 to 1,000,000 CUs: 0.184 Over 1,000,000 CUs: 0.11
China (Hong Kong), Japan (Tokyo), South Korea (Seoul), Singapore, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Indonesia (Jakarta), Philippines (Manila), Thailand (Bangkok), Malaysia (Johor), Germany (Frankfurt), UK (London), US (Silicon Valley), US (Virginia), UAE (Dubai)	0.3	0 to 1,000,000 CUs: 0.24 Over 1,000,000 CUs: 0.144
SAU (Riyadh - Partner Region)	0.4	0 to 1,000,000 CUs: 0.32 Over 1,000,000 CUs: 0.192

Billing example

Assume you create two cross-AZ NAT Gateway instances in Germany (Frankfurt) at 08:10:00 on June 13, 2025, and delete them at 08:50:00 the same day.

Traffic data in this example is for illustration only. Actual fees are based on system-recorded metrics.

Instance

Performance metrics for processed traffic

Instance fee

CU fee

Total fee

Internet NAT gateway 1

Total processed traffic: 3.5 GB

Usage duration: 1 hour

Unit price of an instance: CNY 0.3/instance/hour

Instance fee: 0.3 × 1 = CNY 0.3

Number of CUs for processed traffic: 3.5 / 1 = 3.5

CU unit price: CNY 0.3/CU/hour

CU fee: 0.3 × 3.5 = CNY 1.05

0.3 + 1.05 = CNY 1.35

VPC NAT gateway 2

All are 0

Usage duration: 1 hour

Unit price of an instance: CNY 0.3/instance/hour

Instance fee: 0.3 × 1 = CNY 0.3

No CU fee

CNY 0.3

View bills and usage

On the Billing Management - Billing Details page, set Product Name to NAT Gateway to view usage and billing details.

Stop billing

Billing stops automatically when you delete a NAT gateway.

To stop EIP billing for an Internet NAT gateway used for Internet access, you must release the EIP. Only pay-as-you-go EIPs can be released. Subscription EIPs are released after they expire.
Detaching an EIP from an Internet NAT gateway does not stop billing for either the EIP or the NAT gateway.

Overdue payments and top-ups

If your account balance (cash, vouchers, coupons, and pre-authorizations) is insufficient to pay an outstanding bill and your resource plans do not cover all fees, your account enters overdue status.

The system checks whether your account balance can cover the next three billing cycles based on average NAT Gateway bills in the last 24 hours. If insufficient, you receive a text message or email notification.

If balance alerts are enabled, you also receive a notification when your account balance falls below the specified threshold.

If your account is overdue but within the grace period provided by service suspension protection, you can continue using the instance.

Service suspension protection allows you to continue using Alibaba Cloud services for a specific period or up to a specific quota after a payment becomes overdue. You are billed for usage during this grace period.
If the overdue amount exceeds the grace period quota, the instance is locked, the service stops, and billing stops.
If you top up your account to pay the overdue amount within seven days after the instance is locked, the instance is automatically re-enabled.
If the overdue amount remains unpaid for seven days after locking, the instance is deleted. You receive a text message or email notification one day before deletion. After deletion, all configurations and data are permanently erased.

FAQ

Why does billing continue after I delete my NAT gateway?

Due to the delayed billing mechanism, bills received after deletion are for resource usage that occurred before the gateway was deleted.

On the Billing Management - Billing Details page, set Statistic Period to Details, and check the Billing Period to confirm which billing cycle the fees belong to.

Does NAT Gateway support the subscription billing method?

No. You can no longer create subscription or specification-based NAT gateways. Only pay-as-you-go billing is supported.

Unsubscribe from existing subscription Internet NAT Gateway instances

You can unsubscribe from existing subscription Internet NAT Gateway instances, including standard unsubscriptions and unsubscriptions from renewal orders not yet in effect. Go to the Unsubscription Management page.

After unsubscription, the instance is immediately released and cannot be recovered. Complete data migration or backups before submitting the request.
The refund amount is displayed on the refund page. Confirm the amount before submitting.
The refund is returned to your account within approximately two business days.
After refund, any free gifts (vouchers, extended service periods) become invalid.