Purchase an RDS savings plan to reduce costs-ApsaraDB RDS(RDS)-阿里云帮助中心

Savings plans help you reduce your RDS usage costs. If your RDS instances generate pay-as-you-go bills, you can purchase a savings plan to receive a discount. This topic describes how to choose and purchase a savings plan, and provides answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ).

How to choose a savings plan

RDS provides two types of savings plans: General-purpose savings plan and Elastic Savings Plan (Special Offer).

Differences between savings plans

The main differences between General-purpose Savings Plans and Elastic Savings Plans (Special Offer) are the billable items that they can offset and their respective offset rules.

Different offsettable billable items

Elastic Savings Plan (Special Offer): Applies only to Serverless instances. It can offset only the RCU fees and storage fees of Serverless instances, and cannot offset other billable items.
General-purpose Savings Plan: Applies to subscription instances, pay-as-you-go instances, and some pay-as-you-go items of Serverless instances. You can view the complete list of Eligible billable items.

Different offset rules

Elastic Savings Plan (Special Offer): This plan does not require an hourly committed spend. You only need to specify and prepay the total amount of the savings plan. The hourly fees for RCU and storage are deducted from the prepaid amount at a discount until the prepaid amount is used up or the savings plan expires.
General-purpose Savings Plan: This plan requires an hourly committed spend. The offsettable amount is calculated based on the hourly committed spend and the discount rate. If the hourly bill for an offsettable billable item is within the offsettable amount, you do not need to pay the bill separately. If the hourly bill exceeds the offsettable amount, you must pay for the excess.

Purchase recommendations

If you do not have RDS Serverless instances and your RDS instances generate relatively stable pay-as-you-go costs that fall within the offset scope of a General-purpose Savings Plan, purchase a General-purpose Savings Plan.
If you have only RDS Serverless instances and your RDS instances generate no billable items other than RCU fees and storage fees, purchase an Elastic Savings Plan (Special Offer).
If you have both RDS Serverless instances and RDS instances with defined specifications, you can purchase both a General-purpose Savings Plan and an Elastic Savings Plan (Special Offer). When you purchase both types of savings plans, the General-purpose Savings Plan is applied first. You can use the General-purpose Savings Plan to offset your fixed hourly bills. If the RCU fees and storage fees of your Serverless instances exceed the amount that the General-purpose Savings Plan can offset, you can use the Elastic Savings Plan (Special Offer) to offset the excess.

Purchase a savings plan

Log on to the ApsaraDB RDS console.
In the upper-right corner of the Instances page, click Elastic Savings Plan (Special Offer).
Note
You can also click here to purchase a savings plan.

On the Database Savings Plan page, select a savings plan and configure the parameters.

Purchase an Elastic Savings Plan: Select Elastic (Special Offer) and set Committed Spend (CNY).

Purchase a General-purpose Savings Plan: Select General-purpose and configure the following parameters:

Parameter	Description
Committed Spend (CNY)	The hourly amount that you commit to spend. Your pay-as-you-go bills are offset at a discount. You cannot change the committed spend within the lifecycle of the savings plan. To estimate your committed spend, see Estimate your committed spend. To learn how much of your bill the committed spend can offset, see Deductible amount.
Payment Type	General-purpose Savings Plans provide three payment types: All Upfront: Pay the full amount at the time of purchase. This option provides the largest discount. Partial Upfront: Pay approximately 50% of the fee at the time of purchase. The remaining fee is billed hourly and paid off within the lifecycle of the savings plan. This option provides a medium discount. No Upfront: Pay nothing at the time of purchase. The fee is billed hourly and paid off within the lifecycle of the savings plan. This option provides a smaller discount than the other payment types.
Duration	General-purpose Savings Plans provide two subscription durations. The longer the duration, the greater the discount: 1 Year 3 Year

Important

The committed spend, payment type, and subscription duration of a savings plan cannot be changed. A savings plan cannot be unsubscribed or renewed.

Confirm the Total Configuration Fee, Hourly Payment, and Upfront Payment, and then click Buy Now to complete the payment.
- The total configuration fee is the total committed spend within the subscription duration. For an Elastic Savings Plan (Special Offer), the total configuration fee is equal to the committed spend. For a General-purpose Savings Plan, the total configuration fee = committed spend × 24 hours × 365 days × 1 year or 3 years.
- The upfront payment is the portion of the committed spend that you must prepay when you purchase the savings plan. The upfront percentage depends on the payment type and the subscription duration.
- The hourly payment is the fee that you must pay each hour after you purchase the savings plan. If you select All Upfront, the hourly payment is 0. If you select Partial Upfront or No Upfront, you must pay half or all of the hourly committed spend each hour.
After the purchase is complete, you can view details of your new savings plan, such as the savings plan instance ID, type, and start and end times, on the Savings Plan Overview page.

View savings plan offset details and balance

Query item	Query entry point
Savings plan offset details	Log on to the Savings Plan Usage Details page to view the billable items that the savings plan offset and the offset amount.
Savings plan balance	Log on to the Savings Plan Overview page to view the remaining balance of the savings plan.

Note

A savings plan can offset only the pay-as-you-go bills that are generated after the savings plan is purchased. You can view the offset details of a savings plan only after the bills are generated. Therefore, wait at least one hour after you purchase a savings plan before you view the savings plan usage details.
If you find that a savings plan did not offset your bill, first confirm the type of the savings plan that you purchased, and then check whether the billable items in your bill (Billable items that a General-purpose Savings Plan can offset and Billable items that an Elastic Savings Plan (Special Offer) can offset) fall within the offset scope of this type of savings plan.

FAQ

For more information, see Savings Plan FAQ.

References

To determine whether your savings plan is underutilized or insufficient, see Query savings plan usage and coverage.
To learn about the billable items that a General-purpose Savings Plan can offset, the offsettable amount, how to estimate the committed spend, and the offset order when multiple savings plans are purchased together, see General-purpose savings plan.
To learn about the billable items that an Elastic Savings Plan (Special Offer) can offset, the offset rules, and the offset order when multiple savings plans are purchased together, see Elastic Savings Plan (Special Offer).