This topic describes the billing methods and billable components of ApsaraDB RDS.
Billing methods
Subscription
Definition: This billing method lets you use resources of your choosing for a specified period of time on an upfront payment. Longer subscription periods offer more savings.
Scenarios: You have long-running, predictable workloads.
Billing method change: You can change the billing method of an RDS instance from subscription to pay-as-you-go. For more information, see Change the billing method of an ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instance from subscription to pay-as-you-go.
Specification changes: The price for a subscription RDS instance before and after a specification change may be different. You may need to pay the price difference or receive a refund. For more information, see Change instance specifications.
Renewal: You need to renew an expired subscription RDS instance within a specific period of time if you want to continue using it. After this period of time, instance resources such as CPU cores, memory, and disks are released, and the data stored in the RDS instance is deleted. For more information, see Renewal policy.
Pay-as-you-go
Definition: This billing method allows you to use resources before you pay for them. After you create a pay-as-you-go RDS instance, fees for the instance are calculated based on the resources that you use and are automatically deducted from the balance of your Alibaba Cloud account every hour.
NoteTo purchase a pay-as-you-go instance, the balance in your Alibaba Cloud account must be equal to or larger than CNY 100.
Scenarios: You have short-term workloads. If you no longer require a pay-as-you-go RDS instance, you can release the instance to reduce costs.
Billing method change:
You can change the billing method of an RDS instance from pay-as-you-go to subscription. For more information, see Convert a pay-as-you-go instance to a subscription instance.
Specification changes: Pay-as-you-go RDS instances are billed on an hourly basis. If you change the specifications of a pay-as-you-go RDS instance, you are billed based on the price of the new specifications. For more information, see Change instance specifications.
If your Alibaba Cloud account has overdue payments, RDS instances that do not use the subscription billing method and belong to your Alibaba Cloud account become overdue. For more information, see Overdue payments.
Serverless
Definition: A serverless RDS instance is not billed based on instance types, but based on the actual amount of resources used each hour. Resources are measured in RDS Capacity Units (RCUs). For more information, see Overview of serverless ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL instances.
Scenarios: You have intermittent or unpredictable workloads.
Specification changes: The specifications of a serverless RDS instance cannot be manually changed. During the use of the instance, the system automatically scales the RCUs to suit your workloads.
If your Alibaba Cloud account has overdue payments, RDS instances that do not use the subscription billing method and belong to your Alibaba Cloud account become overdue. For more information, see Overdue payments.
You can also purchase Savings Plans and resource plans to offset the costs of your pay-as-you-go instances for greater discounts:
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ApsaraDB RDS offers a Savings Plan that helps reduce your pay-as-you-go costs for various billable items, including instance types, data storage, backup storage, cross-region disaster recovery (for instances that use high-performance local disks only), SQL audit, second-level monitoring, and dedicated database proxies. The plan covers ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL, ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL, and ApsaraDB RDS for SQL Server. For more information, see Introduction to ApsaraDB RDS Savings Plans.
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ApsaraDB RDS offers prepaid resource plans, including storage plans and compute plans. For more information, see Overview of resource plans.
You can use resource plans to offset the specific resource fees of an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL, ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL, ApsaraDB RDS for SQL Server, or ApsaraDB RDS for MariaDB instance.
Item
Compute plan
Storage plan
Billable items that can be deducted
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Compute resources of pay-as-you-go primary instances.
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Compute resources of pay-as-you-go read-only instances.
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Compute resources of database proxy configured for pay-as-you-go or subscription instances.
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Storage capacity of pay-as-you-go instances(except for Premium ESSDs).
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Backup storage capacity of subscription and pay-as-you-go instances(except for Premium ESSDs).
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Storage for SQL audit of subscription and pay-as-you-go instances.。
Supported regions
China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Nanjing - Local Region) Closing Down, China (Qingdao), China (Beijing), China (Zhangjiakou), China (Hohhot), China (Ulanqab), China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), China (Guangzhou), China (Chengdu)
China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Nanjing - Local Region) Closing Down, China (Qingdao), China (Beijing), China (Zhangjiakou), China (Hohhot), China (Ulanqab), China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), China (Guangzhou), China (Chengdu)
Quantity
You can purchase multiple plans and use them together.
You can purchase multiple plans and use them together.
Deduction order
Multiple plans are consumed in order of their expiration date, from earliest to latest.
Multiple plans are consumed in order of their expiration date, from earliest to latest.
Renewal and unsubscription
Not supported
Not supported
Upgrade&Downgrade
Not supported
Not supported
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Billable items
The basic fee of an RDS instance is:
Total fee = computing resources fee + storage resources fee
Computing resources
|
Billable item |
Description |
Billing method |
|
Instance type |
Determines the number of CPU cores and the amount of memory provisioned |
Subscription, Pay-as-you-go |
|
RCU |
The computing resource unit for serverless instances. One RCU delivers performance equivalent to RDS Basic Edition with 2 GB of memory. |
Serverless |
Storage resources
|
Billable item |
Description |
Billing method |
|
Storage capacity |
Charged for the storage provisioned across primary, secondary, read-only, and disaster recovery instances. Price varies by storage type. See the ApsaraDB RDS buy page for pricing. |
Subscription, Pay-as-you-go |
In addition to the items above, ApsaraDB RDS provides value-added options. See Billable items for the full list.
Estimate your cost: On the ApsaraDB RDS buy page, configure the parameters — Billing Method, Region, Database Engine, Edition, Architecture, Storage Type, Zone, Deployment Method, Instance Type, and Storage Capacity — and the estimated price and applicable discounts appear in the lower-right corner.
If you set the Billing Method parameter to Subscription, you must configure the Subscription Duration parameter. Longer subscription durations provide more savings.
View billing details
To view costs broken down by billable item — such as instance type, performance monitoring, and SQL Audit — see View your bills.
Payment and refund
You can pay for the RDS instance that you purchase using the following methods:
Alibaba Cloud account balance
Online payment
Credit cards are not supported when you create a subscription instance by calling CreateDBInstance.
Vouchers
Make sure that your voucher is available. You can go to Expenses and Costs and view your vouchers by choosing .
Vouchers are used to deduct fees before bills are generated. Using them does not involve actual paying operations.
You can view your bills and resource usages after purchase. For more information, see View your bills.
To unsubscribe from resources, understand the Refund policy.