An ApsaraDB RDS general-purpose savings plan is a discount program that helps you reduce your ApsaraDB RDS pay-as-you-go costs. If your ApsaraDB RDS instances have relatively stable pay-as-you-go costs, we recommend purchasing a general-purpose savings plan to reduce your expenses.
ApsaraDB RDS general-purpose savings plans
A general-purpose savings plan applies to the pay-as-you-go bills for specific billable items of ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL, ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL, and ApsaraDB RDS for SQL Server.
You set and pay an hourly commitment. Based on the term (1 or 3 years) and payment option of your savings plan, the system calculates an hourly deductible amount. A longer term provides a greater discount. The system automatically applies this hourly deductible amount to your pay-as-you-go bills for eligible ApsaraDB RDS billable items. If your usage costs exceed the hourly deductible amount, the overage is billed to your account.
Hourly deductible amount: The value applied to offset your pay-as-you-go bills. The hourly deductible amount is calculated by using the following formula: Hourly commitment / Discount rate.
By setting a proper hourly commitment, you can reduce your ApsaraDB RDS pay-as-you-go costs by 20% to 70%. To estimate an hourly commitment, see Estimate an hourly commitment.
Purchase
Deduction rules
Eligible billable items
Except for I/O burst (io_burst), OSS storage for data archiving (rds_oss_storage), and elastic compute resources (CPU+IOPS) for auto-scaling of high-performance local disks, a general-purpose savings plan offsets pay-as-you-go bills for other billable items of ApsaraDB RDS (including subscription instances, pay-as-you-go instances, and Serverless instances).
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Cross-region backup storage fees are handled differently based on the disk type of your instance. For instances that use high-performance local disks, the fees are billed under the item Cross-region Backup Storage (DdrOssStorageSize) and can be deducted. For instances that use cloud disks, the fees are billed as Database Backup Service (DBS) under the item Cloud Database Backup Storage (BackupStorageSize) and cannot be deducted.
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In addition to the backup storage fees for cross-region backups, some features of ApsaraDB RDS are billed as Database Backup Service (DBS) or Database Autonomy Service (DAS). The fees for these billable items cannot be deducted by an ApsaraDB RDS general-purpose savings plan.
Deductible amount
The hourly commitment is not applied directly to your bills. Instead, the system uses the hourly commitment and the discount rate to calculate an hourly deductible amount. This amount then offsets your ApsaraDB RDS pay-as-you-go bills. The formula is:
The discount rate varies based on the term and payment option (All Upfront, Partial Upfront, or No Upfront). The longer the term and the larger the upfront payment, the lower the discount rate, which translates to greater savings.
|
Payment option |
Discount rate |
|
3-year, All Upfront |
30% |
|
3-year, Partial Upfront |
43% |
|
3-year, No Upfront |
50% |
|
1-year, All Upfront |
50% |
|
1-year, Partial Upfront |
70% |
|
1-year, No Upfront |
80% |
Stacking and deduction order
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The system applies deductions from the plan that expires first. If multiple plans share the same expiration date, the system applies the one that was purchased earliest.
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You can purchase both general-purpose and economy savings plans. The system applies the benefits of general-purpose savings plans before those of economy savings plans.
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You can purchase both a general-purpose savings plan and a resource plan. The system applies the benefits of the resource plan first. The general-purpose savings plan then deducts any remaining charges.
Example
Assume that you purchase two general-purpose savings plans:
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Savings Plan A: Valid from 15:00 on August 1, 2024 to 15:00 on August 1, 2025. The hourly commitment is USD 5, the term is one year, and the payment option is No Upfront (discount rate: 80%). The hourly deductible amount for this savings plan is USD 6.25 (USD 5 / 80%).
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Savings Plan B: Valid from 10:00 on August 5, 2024 to 10:00 on August 5, 2025. The hourly commitment is USD 2, the term is one year, and the payment option is All Upfront (discount rate: 50%). The hourly deductible amount for this savings plan is USD 4 (USD 2 / 50%).
You have two ApsaraDB RDS instances that generate pay-as-you-go bills every hour.
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From 09:00 to 10:00 on August 5, 2024, the total pay-as-you-go bill for eligible billable items is USD 7. This amount exceeds the hourly deductible amount of Savings Plan A (USD 6.25). The excess amount of USD 0.75 is billed to your account.
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From 10:00 to 11:00 on August 5, 2024, the total pay-as-you-go bill for eligible billable items is USD 8. Because this amount is within the total hourly deductible amount of Savings Plan A and Savings Plan B (USD 6.25 + USD 4 = USD 10.25), your savings plans cover the entire USD 8 bill, and you are not charged an overage.
Estimate an hourly commitment
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Use the Alibaba Cloud Savings Plan Recommender. This tool analyzes your historical consumption data and provides recommendations based on consumption prediction and optimization algorithms. The results are for reference only. For more information about the recommender, see Billing method optimization - Savings plans.
On the Savings Plan Recommender page, specify the following parameters: set Savings Plan Type to General-purpose, Term to 3 Years, Payment Option to All Upfront, and Historical Time Range to Last 30 Days. Then, click Estimate.
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If the hourly bills for your ApsaraDB RDS instances are stable, you can calculate the average hourly cost. Then, use the following formula to estimate the hourly commitment: Average hourly cost × Discount rate.
For example, your average hourly cost for ApsaraDB RDS instances is USD 10. If you want to purchase a one-year general-purpose savings plan with the All Upfront payment option (discount rate: 50%), you can set the hourly commitment to USD 5 (USD 10 × 50%). If you want to purchase a three-year general-purpose savings plan with the Partial Upfront payment option (discount rate: 43%), you can set the hourly commitment to USD 4.3 (USD 10 × 43%).
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If the hourly bills for your ApsaraDB RDS instances fluctuate or you are unsure about the hourly costs, you can set a low hourly commitment and monitor its performance. If the savings plan has high utilization but low coverage, you have more room for cost savings. You can purchase another savings plan. The benefits of multiple savings plans stack, which increases your total hourly deductible amount. To learn how to view the utilization and coverage of a savings plan, see View the utilization and coverage of a savings plan.
Modifications, renewals, and cancellations
You cannot change the hourly commitment, term, or payment option of a general-purpose savings plan. You also cannot renew or cancel a general-purpose savings plan.
If a general-purpose savings plan expires or the hourly deductible amount is insufficient to cover your hourly bill, you can purchase a new general-purpose savings plan.