Billing

SAE supports pay-as-you-go billing and prepaid resource plans. A free trial is available for new users.

Free trial

SAE offers a free trial quota for new users. Claim the SAE free trial package before you purchase a resource plan or activate SAE.

During the validity period of the free trial quota, your SAE CU usage is first offset by the free trial CU package.

Free trial details

Free trial quota	Validity period
4,320,000 CU	3 months

Important

If you activate SAE or purchase a resource plan before you claim the free trial quota, you lose eligibility for the free trial quota.

The validity period of the free trial quota begins on the claim date. Unused quota is forfeited upon expiration. If you continue using SAE, billing switches to a resource plan (subscription) if you have purchased one, or to pay-as-you-go if you have not.

If your service usage is stable and your budget is predictable, purchase a suitable resource plan before the quota is used up or expires to reduce your total costs.

Free trial FAQ

After I claim the free trial quota, can I use resources for free, or will I still be charged? After the trial quota is used up, how am I charged if I have not purchased a resource plan?

SAE offers a free trial quota that is valid for a specific period. During this period, your SAE CU usage is first offset by the free trial CU package. After the trial period ends or the quota is used up, if you continue to use SAE, the billing method automatically switches to a resource plan (subscription) if you have purchased one, or to pay-as-you-go if you have not. In addition, if your SAE application or job integrates with other Alibaba Cloud services, you will incur additional fees for these services. The free trial quota does not cover these fees. See Additional billable items.

My account has an overdue payment after I claimed the free trial quota. How do I view the specific overdue payment information?

If your account has an overdue payment, promptly view your consumption details to identify the billable items that caused the charges.

After deleting an application, I checked my bill and found that I am still being charged. Why?

Deleting an SAE application does not delete integrated services (networking, logging, storage). Delete these resources from each service console separately.

Cost calculation

Single application or Job task

Follow these steps to calculate the costs for a single application or Job task in SAE:

Calculate the raw resource usage, which includes vCPU usage, memory usage, and disk usage. When calculating resource usage duration, any duration less than 1 second is rounded up to 1 second.

Raw resource types

Raw resource type	Description	Unit	Example
vCPU usage	The number of vCPU cores used by an application or Job task multiplied by the runtime in seconds.	vCPU-second	An application has two instances, and each instance has a specification of 1 vCPU core. If all instances run for 100 seconds, the vCPU usage is 2 × 1 × 100 = 200 vCPU-seconds.
memory usage	The amount of memory (in GB) used by an application or Job task multiplied by the runtime in seconds.	GB-second	An application has two instances, and each instance has a specification of 2 GB of memory. If all instances run for 100 seconds, the memory usage is 2 × 2 × 100 = 400 GB-seconds.
disk usage	SAE provides each application instance with 20 GiB of free temporary disk space by default. To request more temporary disk space, submit a ticket. You are billed for usage that exceeds 20 GiB, which is calculated by multiplying the excess disk space (in GiB) by the runtime (in seconds).	GiB-second	An application instance has 50 GiB of temporary disk space and runs for 10 seconds. After the 20 GiB of free space is deducted, the billable disk usage is (50 - 20) × 10 = 300 GiB-seconds.

Calculate the CU Usage. SAE converts raw resource usage (including vCPU usage, memory usage, and disk usage) into CU Usage (Cost Unit) for billing. The formula is CU Usage = raw resource usage × CU conversion coefficient. The CU conversion coefficient varies by application version (Lightweight, Standard, or Professional) or Job task, raw resource type, and server type (default server or Hygon server).

CU conversion coefficients

Important

The Lightweight and Professional versions are in invite-only beta. If you are not part of the beta test, your applications are created as the Standard version, and the billing method remains unchanged.

Application version/Job task	Raw resource type	CU conversion coefficient		Unit
Application version/Job task	Raw resource type	Default server	Hygon server	Unit
Lightweight	vCPU usage	0.6	0.7644	CU/vCPU-second
	memory usage	0.15	0.1911	CU/GB-second
	disk usage	0.015	0.015	CU/GiB-second
Standard	vCPU usage	1	1.274	CU/vCPU-second
	memory usage	0.25	0.3185	CU/GB-second
	disk usage	0.015	0.015	CU/GiB-second
Professional	vCPU usage	1.1	1.4014	CU/vCPU-second
	memory usage	0.275	0.35035	CU/GB-second
	disk usage	0.015	0.015	CU/GiB-second
Job task (Default)	vCPU usage	1.2	N/A	CU/vCPU-second
Job task (Default)	memory usage	0.3	N/A	CU/GB-second
Job task (BestEffort)	vCPU usage	0.1296	N/A	CU/vCPU-second
Job task (BestEffort)	memory usage	0.0324	N/A	CU/GB-second

If you use a resource plan (subscription), the CU Usage is deducted from your plan. If you use the pay-as-you-go method, your cumulative monthly CU Usage determines the unit price for CU billing, as shown in the following table.

CU tiered pricing

Chinese mainland
Region	Tier	CU usage range (CU)	Unit price (CNY/CU)	Promo price (CNY/CU)
China (Hangzhou) China (Shanghai) China (Beijing) China (Zhangjiakou) China (Ulanqab) China (Shenzhen) China (Heyuan) China (Guangzhou) China (Chengdu)	Tier 1	[0, 270,000,000)	0.00005144	0.00004115	From April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026, a 20% discount applies.
	Tier 2	[270,000,000, 1,200,000,000)	0.00004630	0.00003704
	Tier 3	>=1,200,000,000	0.00004115	0.00003292
China (Hong Kong) and other regions
Region	Tier	CU usage range (CU)	Unit price (CNY/CU)	Promo price (CNY/CU)
China (Hong Kong) Singapore Germany (Frankfurt) US (Silicon Valley) US (Virginia)	Tier 1	[0, 270,000,000)	0.00006944	0.00005556	From April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026, a 20% discount applies.
	Tier 2	[270,000,000, 1,200,000,000)	0.00006430	0.00005237
	Tier 3	>=1,200,000,000	0.00005916	0.00004985

Multiple applications or Job tasks

To calculate costs for multiple applications or Job tasks in SAE, follow these steps:

Important

Applications of the same version are billed together, while applications of different versions are billed separately.

For example, if you run both Lightweight and Professional applications, the costs for each version are calculated and billed separately.

Calculate the raw resource usage, which includes vCPU usage, memory usage, and disk usage. When calculating resource usage duration, any duration less than 1 second is rounded up to 1 second.
- vCPU usage = Σ(Number of instances × vCPU cores per instance × Runtime in seconds)
- memory usage = Σ(Number of instances × Memory per instance in GB × Runtime in seconds)
- disk usage = Σ(Number of instances × (Disk size per instance in GiB - 20 GiB free disk size) × Runtime in seconds)
Calculate the CU Usage.
- CU Usage = Σ(Usage of each resource type × Corresponding CU conversion coefficient)
If you use a resource plan (subscription), the CU Usage is deducted from your plan. If you use the pay-as-you-go method, the cumulative monthly CU Usage determines the unit price. Usage for applications of the same version is aggregated, while usage for applications of different versions is calculated separately..
- Total cost = Σ(CU Usage in each tier × Unit price for the corresponding tier)

Billing

To use the service and enable billing, activate SAE. SAE supports two billing methods: pay-as-you-go and resource plan (subscription).

Pay-as-you-go

Instead of purchasing resources in advance, you are billed for your resource consumption. A bill is automatically generated hourly, and the amount is deducted from your account.

Bill generation is subject to a delay of approximately 3 hours. For example, the bill for the 01:00–02:00 period is available after 04:00.

Example - Pay-as-you-go cost calculation

These examples are for reference only. See your bill for the actual cost.

These examples assume an SAE user runs a single application for one month in the Chinese mainland, with each application instance running for the same duration each day and using the default server.

All examples use the pay-as-you-go billing method. For production, consider purchasing a resource plan to reduce costs.

Estimating costs manually is complex and error-prone. Use the price calculator for an automatic estimate.

Lightweight

Calculation step		Example 1		Example 2
Calculate raw resource usage	Daily runtime	10h		24h
	Running days per month	25 days		30 days
	Total monthly runtime	25 * 10 * 3,600 = 900,000 seconds		30 * 24 * 3,600 = 2,592,000 seconds
	Number of instances	2		8
	Specification per instance	2 vCPU	4 GB memory	8 vCPU	64 GB memory	50 GiB disk
	Monthly usage	2 * 2 * 900,000 = 3,600,000 vCPU-seconds	2 * 4 * 900,000 = 7,200,000 GB-seconds	8 * 8 * 2,592,000 = 165,888,000 vCPU-seconds	8 * 64 * 2,592,000 = 1,327,104,000 GB-seconds	8 * (50 - 20) * 2,592,000 = 622,080,000 GiB-seconds
Calculate CU usage	CU conversion factor	0.6 CU/(vCPU-second)	0.15 CU/(GB-second)	0.6 CU/(vCPU-second)	0.15 CU/(GB-second)	0.015 CU/(GiB-second)
	Converted CU usage	3,600,000 * 0.6 = 2,160,000 CU	7,200,000 * 0.15 = 1,080,000 CU	165,888,000 * 0.6 = 99,532,800 CU	1,327,104,000 * 0.15 = 199,065,600 CU	622,080,000 * 0.015 = 9,331,200 CU
	Total CU usage	2,160,000 + 1,080,000 = 3,240,000 CU		99,532,800 + 199,065,600 + 9,331,200 = 307,929,600 CU
Calculate cost	CU usage per tier	Tier 1: 3,240,000 CU		Tier 1: 270,000,000 CU Tier 2: 37,929,600 CU
	Unit price per CU tier	Tier 1: CNY 0.00004115/CU		Tier 1: CNY 0.00004115/CU Tier 2: CNY 0.00003704/CU
	Cost per CU tier	Tier 1: 3,240,000 * 0.00004115 = CNY 133.33		Tier 1: 270,000,000 * 0.00004115 = CNY 11110.5 Tier 2: 37,929,600 * 0.00003704 = CNY 1404.91
	Total cost	CNY 133.33		11110.5 + 1404.91 = CNY 12515.41

Standard

Calculation step		Example 1		Example 2
Calculate raw resource usage	Daily runtime	10h		24h
	Running days per month	25 days		30 days
	Total monthly runtime	25 * 10 * 3,600 = 900,000 seconds		30 * 24 * 3,600 = 2,592,000 seconds
	Number of instances	2		8
	Specification per instance	2 vCPU	4 GB memory	8 vCPU	64 GB memory	50 GiB disk
	Monthly usage	2 * 2 * 900,000 = 3,600,000 vCPU-seconds	2 * 4 * 900,000 = 7,200,000 GB-seconds	8 * 8 * 2,592,000 = 165,888,000 vCPU-seconds	8 * 64 * 2,592,000 = 1,327,104,000 GB-seconds	8 * (50 - 20) * 2,592,000 = 622,080,000 GiB-seconds
Calculate CU usage	CU conversion factor	1 CU/(vCPU-second)	0.25 CU/(GB-second)	1 CU/(vCPU-second)	0.25 CU/(GB-second)	0.015 CU/(GiB-second)
	Converted CU usage	3,600,000 * 1 = 3,600,000 CU	7,200,000 * 0.25 = 1,800,000 CU	165,888,000 * 1 = 165,888,000 CU	1,327,104,000 * 0.25 = 331,776,000 CU	622,080,000 * 0.015 = 9,331,200 CU
	Total CU usage	3,600,000 + 1,800,000 = 5,400,000 CU		165,888,000 + 331,776,000 + 9,331,200 = 506,995,200 CU
Calculate cost	CU usage per tier	Tier 1: 5,400,000 CU		Tier 1: 270,000,000 CU Tier 2: 236,995,200 CU
	Unit price per CU tier	Tier 1: CNY 0.00004115/CU		Tier 1: CNY 0.00004115/CU Tier 2: CNY 0.00003704/CU
	Cost per CU tier	Tier 1: 5,400,000 * 0.00004115 = CNY 222.21		Tier 1: 270,000,000 * 0.00004115 = CNY 11110.5 Tier 2: 236,995,200 * 0.00003704 = CNY 8778.30
	Total cost	CNY 222.21		11110.5 + 8778.30 = CNY 19888.8

Professional

Calculation step		Example 1		Example 2
Calculate raw resource usage	Daily runtime	10h		24h
	Running days per month	25 days		30 days
	Total monthly runtime	25 * 10 * 3,600 = 900,000 seconds		30 * 24 * 3,600 = 2,592,000 seconds
	Number of instances	2		8
	Specification per instance	2 vCPU	4 GB memory	8 vCPU	64 GB memory	50 GiB disk
	Monthly usage	2 * 2 * 900,000 = 3,600,000 vCPU-seconds	2 * 4 * 900,000 = 7,200,000 GB-seconds	8 * 8 * 2,592,000 = 165,888,000 vCPU-seconds	8 * 64 * 2,592,000 = 1,327,104,000 GB-seconds	8 * (50 - 20) * 2,592,000 = 622,080,000 GiB-seconds
Calculate CU usage	CU conversion factor	1.1 CU/(vCPU-second)	0.275 CU/(GB-second)	1.1 CU/(vCPU-second)	0.275 CU/(GB-second)	0.015 CU/(GiB-second)
	Converted CU usage	3,600,000 * 1.1 = 3,960,000 CU	7,200,000 * 0.275 = 1,980,000 CU	165,888,000 * 1.1 = 182,476,800 CU	1,327,104,000 * 0.275 = 364,953,600 CU	622,080,000 * 0.015 = 9,331,200 CU
	Total CU usage	3,960,000 + 1,980,000 = 5,940,000 CU		182,476,800 + 364,953,600 + 9,331,200 = 556,761,600 CU
Calculate cost	CU usage per tier	Tier 1: 5,940,000 CU		Tier 1: 270,000,000 CU Tier 2: 286,761,600 CU
	Unit price per CU tier	Tier 1: CNY 0.00004115/CU		Tier 1: CNY 0.00004115/CU Tier 2: CNY 0.00003704/CU
	Cost per CU tier	Tier 1: 5,940,000 * 0.00004115 = CNY 244.43		Tier 1: 270,000,000 * 0.00004115 = CNY 11110.5 Tier 2: 286,761,600 * 0.00003704 = CNY 10621.65
	Total cost	CNY 244.43		11110.5 + 10621.65 = CNY 21732.15

Job

Calculation step		Example
Calculate raw resource usage	Daily runtime	1h
	Running days per month	25 days
	Total monthly runtime	25 * 1 * 3,600 = 90,000 seconds
	Number of instances	2
	Specification per instance	2 vCPU	4 GB memory
	Monthly usage	2 * 2 * 90,000 = 360,000 vCPU-seconds	2 * 4 * 90,000 = 720,000 GB-seconds
Calculate CU usage	CU conversion factor	1.2 CU/(vCPU-second)	0.3 CU/(GB-second)
	Converted CU usage	360,000 * 1.2 = 432,000 CU	720,000 * 0.3 = 216,000 CU
	Total CU usage	432,000 + 216,000 = 648,000 CU
Calculate cost	CU usage per tier	Tier 1: 648,000 CU
	Unit price per CU tier	Tier 1: CNY 0.00004115/CU
	Cost per CU tier	Tier 1: 648,000 * 0.00004115 = CNY 26.67
	Total cost	CNY 26.67

Resource plan (subscription)

Purchase a resource plan with a fixed quota in advance for more favorable pricing than the pay-as-you-go model. This option is ideal when your resource usage is relatively stable and exceeds 10 million CU/month, business traffic has predictable peaks and troughs, and you have a clear budget. Generally, the larger the capacity of a resource plan and the longer its validity period, the greater the discount.

Resource plan types and pricing

Important

Starting October 8, 2024, SAE offers new CU resource plans that replace the original vCPU and memory resource plans. CU resource plans are available as monthly plans, quarterly plans, and yearly plans.
If you have previously purchased vCPU and memory resource plans, the system first converts vCPU and memory usage into CU usage. Then, the system uses the quota from one of the resource plans to offset the total CU usage until that plan's quota is exhausted. After that, the system starts to use the quota from the other resource plan.

Type	Specification	Price	Discount
Monthly plan	10 million CU/month	CNY 360.00	30% off
Monthly plan	30 million CU/month	CNY 999.00	35% off
Quarterly plan	300 million CU/quarter	CNY 9,300.00	40% off
Yearly plan	60 million CU/year	CNY 1,998.00	35% off
	360 million CU/year	CNY 11,988.00	35% off
	3 billion CU/year	CNY 84,000.08	45% off

Purchase a resource plan

Use the price calculator or refer to the resource plan purchase examples to estimate your resource usage and select a suitable resource plan. The examples are for reference only. You should select a plan based on your actual business needs. To give you a general idea, 10 million CU can support one Standard Edition application instance with 1 vCPU and 2 GB of memory (using a default server) running continuously for about 77 days.

Example - Purchase a suitable resource plan

These examples assume you run only one Lightweight Application in a given month, deployed in the Chinese mainland and using a default server.

Calculation step		Example 1: Development and test environment Does not need to run 24/7. For example, run resources 8 hours on workdays and stop them at other times with one-click start/stop.		Example 2: Production environment Needs to be active 24/7. Service traffic fluctuates. Assume a daily peak period of 10 hours and an off-peak period of 14 hours.
Calculate raw resource usage	Daily runtime	8h		10h (peak) + 14h (off-peak)
	Monthly running days	20 days		30 days
	Total monthly runtime	20 × 8 × 3,600 = 576,000 seconds		30 × 10 × 3,600 = 1,080,000 seconds (peak) 30 × 14 × 3,600 = 1,512,000 seconds (off-peak)
	Number of instances	10		10 (peak) 2 (off-peak)
	Specification per instance	2 vCPU	4 GB memory	8 vCPU	64 GB memory
	Monthly usage	10 × 2 × 576,000 = 11,520,000 vCPU-seconds	10 × 4 × 576,000 = 23,040,000 GB-seconds	10 × 8 × 1,080,000 + 2 × 8 × 1,512,000 = 110,592,000 vCPU-seconds	10 × 64 × 1,080,000 + 2 × 64 × 1,512,000 = 884,736,000 GB-seconds
Calculate CU usage	CU conversion coefficient	0.6 CU/(vCPU-second)	0.15 CU/(GB-second)	0.6 CU/(vCPU-second)	0.15 CU/(GB-second)
	Converted monthly CU usage	11,520,000 × 0.6 = 6,912,000 CU	23,040,000 × 0.15 = 3,456,000 CU	110,592,000 × 0.6 = 66,355,200 CU	884,736,000 × 0.15 = 132,710,400 CU
	Total monthly CU usage	6,912,000 + 3,456,000 = 10,368,000 CU		66,355,200 + 132,710,400 = 199,065,600 CU
	Total quarterly CU usage	10,368,000 × 3 = 31,104,000 CU		199,065,600 × 3 = 597,196,800 CU
	Total yearly CU usage	10,368,000 × 12 = 124,416,000 CU		199,065,600 × 12 = 2,388,787,200 CU
Select a resource plan	Strategy 1: Pay-as-you-go only	Details: Pay-as-you-go (10,368,000 CU) Monthly cost: 10,368,000 × 0.00004115 = CNY 426.64 Yearly cost: 426.64 × 12 = CNY 5,119.68		Details: Pay-as-you-go (199,065,600 CU) Monthly cost: 199,065,600 × 0.00004115 = CNY 8,191.55 Yearly cost: 8,191.55 × 12 = CNY 98,298.6
	Strategy 2: Optimal monthly plan	Details: Purchase a monthly plan (10 million CU/month), and pay for the remaining 368,000 CU on a pay-as-you-go basis. Monthly cost: 360 + 368,000 × 0.00004115 = CNY 375.14 Yearly cost: 375.14 × 12 = CNY 4,501.68		Details: Purchase monthly plans (30 million CU/month × 6), and pay for the remaining 19,065,600 CU on a pay-as-you-go basis. Monthly cost: 999 × 6 + 19,065,600 × 0.00004115 = CNY 6,778.55 Yearly cost: 6,778.55 × 12 = CNY 81,342.6
	Strategy 3: Optimal quarterly plan	Details: Purchase a quarterly plan (300 million CU/quarter) Quarterly cost: CNY 9,300 Yearly cost: 9,300 × 4 = CNY 37,200		Details: Purchase quarterly plans (300 million CU/quarter × 2) Quarterly cost: 9,300 × 2 = CNY 18,600 Yearly cost: 18,600 × 4 = CNY 74,400
	Strategy 4: Optimal yearly plan	Details: Purchase yearly plans (60 million CU/year × 2), and pay for the remaining 4,416,000 CU on a pay-as-you-go basis. Yearly cost: 1,998 × 2 + 4,416,000 × 0.00004115 = CNY 4,177.72		Details: Purchase yearly plans (360 million CU/year × 6 and 60 million CU/year × 3), and for the last month, purchase monthly plans (30 million CU/month + 10 million CU/month × 2). Yearly cost: 11,988 × 6 + 1,998 × 3 + 999 + 360 × 2 = CNY 79,641
	Conclusion	The optimal strategy is to purchase yearly plans (60 million CU/year × 2) and pay for the remaining 4,416,000 CU on a pay-as-you-go basis. The yearly cost is CNY 4,177.72, which saves you CNY 941.96 per year compared to pay-as-you-go.		The optimal strategy is to purchase quarterly plans (300 million CU/quarter × 2) each quarter. The yearly cost is CNY 74,400, which saves you CNY 23,898.6 per year compared to pay-as-you-go.

Purchase an SAE CU resource plan.

Resource plan validity period

When you purchase a resource plan, carefully read the description of its validity period on the purchase page. For example, if you purchase a one-year resource plan at 14:00 on February 12, 2025, it expires at 14:00 on February 12, 2026.

Applicable regions

Resource plans can be used in all available regions.

Deduction order of resource plans

If you have claimed a free trial quota, the system uses it first to offset usage. After this quota is exhausted or expires, the system starts using your purchased resource plans.

You can purchase multiple resource plans. The system uses the plan that expires soonest first. If multiple resource plans have the same expiration time, the system uses them in the order they were purchased.

If you have not purchased a resource plan, or your resource plan is exhausted or has expired, your usage is billed on a pay-as-you-go basis.

View resource plans

After you purchase a resource plan (subscription), log in to the SAE console. In the Resource Plan area in the upper-right corner of the Overview page, you can view the usage details of your resource plan.

On the page in Expenses and Costs, you can view the details of your resource plans, including their status, remaining amount, periodic capacity, and usage details.

Resource plan unsubscription

You can request a full refund for an unused resource plan within five days of purchase using the online self-service unsubscription. Refunds are not available for plans purchased more than five days ago or for plans that have been used. See Cancellation and refund rules.

Set alerts for resource plan quotas

When the remaining quota of your SAE resource plan reaches a specified level, Alibaba Cloud notifies you by SMS, email, or internal message.

On the Resource Plan page in Expenses and Costs, click Balance Alert Settings, and then set an alert threshold as a percentage of the remaining quota. When the remaining quota falls below the threshold, the system triggers an SMS alert.
In the top menu bar, click the icon and select . Then, find Product Expiration Notification and select a notification method.
You must configure at least one message recipient. If you do not change the message settings, the default recipient is the account contact you provided during registration.

Resource plan FAQ

How do I configure instance specifications when I migrate applications from ECS to SAE?

For example, if you previously deployed four identical instances of an application on a 4-vCPU, 16 GB ECS instance, we recommend that you deploy four 1-vCPU, 4 GB application instances in SAE after migration.

After deployment, you can use a stress testing tool to test application performance metrics, such as Queries Per Second (QPS).

Additional billable items

If your SAE application or job task integrates with other Alibaba Cloud services, you will be billed for other services such as networking, storage, databases, middleware, logging, and observability.

Warning

When you delete an SAE application or stop a job task, SAE stops billing for that resource.

If your SAE application or job depends on other services such as Classic Load Balancer (CLB), those services continue to incur costs.

To avoid unnecessary charges, stop or delete services that are no longer needed and verify that billing has stopped.

Service type	Requirements and scenarios	Implementation method	Billing reference
Networking	Your SAE application must be accessible from the internet (inbound traffic).	Access your application by using SAE Ingress (gateway routing): Public API Gateway Public ALB Public MSE cloud-native gateway	Cloud Native API Gateway billing ALB billing MSE cloud-native gateway billing
		Access your application by using an SAE Service: Public NLB Public CLB	NLB billing CLB billing
	Your SAE application must access the internet (outbound traffic).	Configure an Internet NAT gateway for the application's VPC.	NAT Gateway billing
		Bind an EIP to each instance of your SAE application.	EIP billing
	Use a registry to enable communication between microservice applications.	Implement service registration and discovery with a registry, such as Nacos.	SAE's built-in Nacos registry is free of charge. MSE Nacos registry
	Enable internal network communication between applications.	Access your application by using SAE Ingress (gateway routing): Private API Gateway Private ALB Private MSE cloud-native gateway	Cloud Native API Gateway billing ALB billing MSE cloud-native gateway billing
	Enable internal network communication between applications.	Access your application by using an SAE Service: Private NLB Private CLB	NLB billing CLB billing
Storage	Enable persistent storage for your SAE application or job task.	NAS storage	NAS billing
Storage		OSS storage	OSS billing
Database	Your SAE application or job task connects to an Alibaba Cloud database service.	Application accesses an Alibaba Cloud database	Refer to the billing documentation for the specific database service.
Middleware	Your SAE Standard and Professional Edition applications integrate with MSE's microservice governance capabilities.	Microservice governance	Professional Edition: Microservice governance is free of charge. Standard Edition: Microservice governance requires separate activation and is billed.
Logging	Centrally collect and analyze logs from your SAE application or job task.	Set up log collection to SLS	SLS billing
Logging		Set up log collection to Kafka	Kafka billing
Observability	Your SAE Standard and Professional Edition applications integrate with ARMS advanced monitoring capabilities.	ARMS advanced monitoring	Professional Edition: ARMS advanced monitoring is free of charge. Standard Edition: ARMS advanced monitoring requires separate activation and is billed.

View bills

Billing details

Log on to Expenses and Costs and go to the Billing Overview page to view your monthly consumption. You can switch accounts to view the summarized consumption for associated RAM users.
Go to the Billing Details page, click the corresponding tab, then view your consumption.
- Billing Details: You can filter billing details by different Statistic Item and Statistic Period values. You can view bills aggregated by billable item for a month or a day, detailed bills for billable items, bills aggregated by instance for a month or a day, and detailed bills for instances.
- View Usage Details: Follow the instructions on the page to download the usage information in CSV format.

Resource plan usage details

Log on to Expenses and Costs. Go to the Usage Details page for resource plans, enter the resource plan Instance ID, and view the detailed deduction records for the resource plan.

SAE resource plans have a fixed capacity that is consumed over time. During the validity period, usage is deducted from the resource plan until its capacity is fully used or the plan expires. The remaining capacity is the previous balance minus the deducted amount. The deducted amount is the resource usage of the instance during a specific time period.

You can also view the usage of your purchased CU resource plans on the right side of the Overview page, within the Resource Plan area.

Reconciliation FAQ

How to reconcile SAE resource bills

To reconcile your bills, use View billing details and View resource plan usage details.

Why am I charged after stopping SAE?

Assume that you used SAE resources from 13:00 to 14:00, stopped using them at 14:00, and immediately checked the Billing Details tab. You may find that SAE still has consumption records after 14:00.

This is normal because SAE bill generation is delayed by approximately 2 hours. Therefore, after you stop using SAE resources at 14:00, you can check the Billing Details tab around 16:00 to view the bill details. You can also export detailed data from the View Usage Details tab if needed.

Deduction order

Credit limit for enterprise users.
Valid coupons in your Alibaba Cloud account.
Valid prepaid cards in your Alibaba Cloud account.
Cash balance in your Alibaba Cloud account.
Balance of your linked Alipay account.
The bank card specified for your linked Alipay account.
Other bank cards linked to your Alipay account for express payments.
Yu'e Bao balance of your linked Alipay account (if the Yu'e Bao auto-debit feature is enabled in Alipay).

The credit limit for enterprise users, valid coupons, and cash balance cannot be used simultaneously.

Overdue payments and renewals

If your available balance (account balance and coupons combined) cannot cover outstanding bills, your account immediately becomes overdue.

Note

If you no longer need SAE, release its resources to avoid further charges:

To delete an SAE application: Delete an application.
To delete an SAE task template: Delete a task template.
If your application or task integrates with other Alibaba Cloud services, you will incur additional fees for services such as networking, storage, databases, middleware, logging, and observability. Before you delete these resources, make sure to back up any necessary data.

Overdue payments

Overdue duration

Description

Overdue for less than 7 days

If your account has been overdue for less than 7 days (168 hours), your application and task instances in SAE continue to use cloud resources and incur fees, unless they are deleted or stopped.

The following limits apply to SAE:

Normal billing and operations:
- Existing application and task instances remain active and continue to be billed.
- You can still stop, scale in, and delete applications.
Restricted management functions:
- You cannot create, copy, start, restart, scale out, or deploy applications.
- You cannot create new task instances, execute tasks periodically, or change specifications.

Overdue for more than 7 days

If you fail to pay all outstanding bills within 7 days (168 hours) after your account becomes overdue, SAE will stop your services. The application and task instances that you created in SAE are then released, and their data is permanently deleted.

To avoid service disruptions, pay your outstanding bills promptly.

Overdue payments

Log on to Expenses and Costs.
On the Homepage, view the overdue amount in the Overview area on the right.

Renewals

Pay-as-you-go

Log on to Expenses and Costs.
In the Overview area of the Homepage, click Top-up and follow the on-screen instructions to add funds to your account.

Resource plan (subscription)

Log on to the SAE console.
In the Resource Plan Balance area of the Overview page, click Purchase Now and follow the on-screen instructions to purchase a resource plan.

Price calculator

Use the SAE price calculator to estimate your SAE costs.

Why use the price calculator?

Budget planning: Estimate costs for different configurations before deployment.
Cost transparency: View per-service billing breakdowns.

How to use the price calculator

The price calculator provides options for the production environment and test environment.

Production environment

Log on to the SAE console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Price Calculator.

On the Price Calculator page, set the number of applications, enter the following parameters, and then click Calculate Cost. You can click Add Application to calculate the price for multiple applications.

Parameter	Description	Example
Region	The physical location of the Alibaba Cloud data center.	China (Hangzhou)
Edition type	The application edition. Different editions have different CU conversion coefficients.	Professional
Resource type	The type of compute resource. Choose between Intel (default) and Hygon.	Intel
Instance type	The amount of compute resources, such as CPU cores and memory size, required to run the application.	8-core 32 GB
Daily peak hours	The expected duration of high traffic within a day.	1 hour
Number of peak instances	The number of instances required during high-traffic periods.	8
Daily normal hours	The expected duration of the non-peak period within a day.	23 hours
Number of normal instances	The base number of instances running during non-peak periods.	2
Usage duration	The total expected duration of service usage, typically in months or years.	1 month

The Pay-As-You-Go tab displays an estimate of the monthly Total Application Instance Cost. Click Cost Details to view the detailed cost estimate.
Note
Based on the calculated price, the calculator recommends a suitable billing method, such as pay-as-you-go, a resource plan, or a combination of both.
The Pay-As-You-Go + Resource Plan tab recommends the most cost-effective SAE monthly package plan and shows the estimated monthly Total Application Instance Cost.
Click Cost Details to view the detailed cost estimate, and then click Purchase Now.

Test environment

Log on to the SAE console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Price Calculator.

Parameter	Description	Example
Region	The physical location of the Alibaba Cloud data center.	China (Hangzhou)
Edition type	The application edition. Different editions have different CU conversion coefficients.	Professional
Resource type	The type of compute resource. Choose between Intel (default) and Hygon.	Intel
Instance type	The amount of compute resources, such as CPU cores and memory size, required to run the application.	8-core 32 GB
Daily usage duration	The expected usage duration per day.	10 hours
Total number of instances	The total number of instances used.	2
Usage duration	The total expected duration of service usage, typically in months or years.	1 month

On the Pay-As-You-Go tab, review the cost estimate in the Cost Details section.
Note
Based on the calculated price, the calculator recommends a suitable billing method, such as pay-as-you-go, a resource plan, or a combination of both.
The Pay-As-You-Go + Resource Plan tab recommends the most cost-effective SAE monthly package plan and shows the estimated monthly Total Application Instance Cost.
Click Cost Details to view the detailed cost estimate, and then click Purchase Now.