A resource plan is a prepaid, fixed amount of cloud resources used with the pay-as-you-go model to reduce costs. It optimizes cost-effectiveness through automatic deductions and flexible management.-Expenses and Costs-阿里云帮助中心

This topic describes the concept and types of resource plans, their use cases, and how to select them. It also covers management tasks such as purchasing, renewal, setting alerts, viewing expiration times, and unsubscription.

What is a resource plan?

A resource plan is a prepaid, fixed amount of cloud resources. Within its validity period, it automatically offsets usage from eligible pay-as-you-go resources, such as storage capacity or network traffic. Using a resource plan is typically more cost-effective than standard pay-as-you-go rates.

When a resource plan's quota is depleted or the plan expires, the corresponding cloud services or billable items are billed at pay-as-you-go rates.

Plan types and deduction mechanisms

Resource plans are categorized based on how their quotas are consumed:

Consumption type	Description	Usage period	Examples
Recurring	A fixed quota is allocated each period. Unused quota expires at the end of the period and the quota resets at the start of the next period.	Hourly, daily, or monthly	reserved instance, Storage Capacity Unit (SCU), OSS egress traffic plan
Aggregate	A total quota is allocated at purchase. This quota is consumed until it is depleted or the plan expires.	Entire validity period	PolarDB compute plan

When to use a resource plan

A resource plan is a cost-effective option when your resource usage is stable and predictable over a specific period. If your predicted usage for resources like storage, network traffic, or compute falls within a plan's capacity, you can significantly lower your costs.

To ensure your plan covers your usage, we recommend analyzing your billing history first. Check your bill details to identify the main sources of your costs and their usage patterns before selecting a resource plan's type, specifications, and validity period.

What to know before you buy

Before you purchase a resource plan, review its scope, validity period, and deduction rules to avoid mismatches and unexpected charges:

Deduction matching: A resource plan can only offset charges for resources that match its specified attributes, such as region, product/instance type, and billable item. Plans cannot be transferred across regions or products.
Validity period: Resource plans are active for a fixed period. After the expiration time, the plan becomes invalid and cannot be used or refunded.
Post-activation deduction: A resource plan takes effect after purchase and can only offset charges incurred after its activation. It cannot be retroactively applied to charges incurred before its activation.
Stacking plans: You can purchase multiple resource plans of the same type. The system always uses the one with the earliest expiration time first.
Usage overages: Alibaba Cloud automatically bills any usage exceeding the plan's quota at pay-as-you-go rates. To avoid unexpected costs, we recommend that you set remaining quota alerts.

How to choose the right resource plan

1. Analyze historical costs and usage

Log on to the Expenses and Costs console. On the Bill Details page, review your consumption data for the last three to six months or longer. Identify which pay-as-you-go billable items are your main cost drivers, and note key information such as their usage volume and region.

2. Estimate future usage

Forecast your future usage based on historical data and business plans, leaving a buffer for growth.

For workloads with fluctuating usage, choose a capacity based on your average usage plus a buffer for peaks. This helps prevent frequent overages and unexpected costs.

3. Determine the plan type

Choose a plan type based on your resource characteristics and billing patterns:

If your quota resets periodically and you need stable deductions each period (such as hourly, daily, or monthly), a recurring plan is usually the best choice.
If your usage is better measured as a cumulative total over the entire validity period, an aggregate plan is more suitable.

4. Compare capacity and validity period (cost comparison)

The method for comparing costs differs between plan types:

For a recurring resource plan, compare the cost of a larger plan against the combined cost of a smaller plan plus the estimated pay-as-you-go charges for overages.

Scenario example

Situation: A customer can reliably forecast their resource usage and wants to purchase a one-year resource plan to cover their "OSS Standard - Zone-Redundant Storage" usage. However, they are unsure which specifications and duration to choose.

Goal: Purchase the right resource plan to optimize and reduce costs for "OSS Standard - Zone-Redundant Storage".

Procedure

Match the plan type and usage amount based on billable items from your bill.
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and navigate to the Bill Details page. Review the expense and usage details to select a suitable resource plan. For example, your bill might show high costs for Standard Storage (Zone-redundant) Capacity, with hourly usage around 980 GB.
1. Match the required resource plan type and usage amount by using fields such as Region, Billable Item, and Usage.
  On the Expenses and Costs > Bill Details page, set Statistic by to Billable Item, Statistic Period to Billing Month, and Product to Object Storage OSS. Click Search. You can use the Usage Unit column in the results to help determine the required resource plan specification.
2. To view detailed resource usage, click View Usage Details in the upper-right corner of the Bill Details page and export the CSV file to evaluate your usage patterns.

Select a resource plan.

Log on to the OSS console, navigate to Resource Usage > Resource Plan Management in the left-side navigation pane, and click Purchase Resource Plan. View the available capacity and duration options for the Standard - Zone-Redundant Storage resource plan.

When selecting a plan specification, you have two options:

Option A: Purchase a smaller plan and pay for any overages on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Option B: Purchase a 1 TB resource plan directly. However, this may result in wasted capacity if your usage does not reach 1 TB.

Option	Actual cost
A: Tiered approach	Resource plan cost: A 500 GB plan for one year costs ¥177.99. Pay-as-you-go cost: The pricing page shows a unit price of ¥0.15 per GB per month. Assuming hourly usage is consistently 980 GB, the cost for overages is: (980 - 500) * 0.15 * 12 = ¥864. Note Actual usage is unlikely to remain constant at 980 GB, so consider future business growth in this calculation. Total cost: ¥177.99 + ¥864 = ¥1041.99
B: All-in-one approach	Resource plan cost: A 1 TB plan for one year costs ¥1242. Pay-as-you-go cost: Assuming usage stays around 980 GB, no pay-as-you-go fees are incurred. Total cost: ¥1242.

Comparing the costs of Option A and Option B, Option A is cheaper. Therefore, selecting a 500 GB resource plan is the more cost-effective choice.

For an aggregate resource plan, the common method is to compare the unit price across different capacity tiers (larger capacity usually means a lower unit price) and balance it against capital commitment and the risk of waste.

Scenario example

Situation: A user wants to reduce "DCDN egress traffic" costs by purchasing a one-year resource plan but is unsure which capacity and duration to choose.

Goal: Reduce DCDN egress traffic costs by purchasing a resource plan with the optimal capacity and validity period.

Procedure

Match the plan type and usage amount based on billable items from your bill
Log on to Expenses and Costs and check the Bill Details page. Review the Expense Details and Usage Details to select a suitable resource plan. For example, by checking fields like Billable Item and Usage, you find that your costs for DCDN egress traffic are high, with monthly usage around 70 GB.
To view detailed resource usage, click View Usage Details in the upper-right corner of the Bill Details page and export the CSV file to evaluate your usage patterns.
Select a resource plan.
Log on to the CDN/DCDN Resource Plan Purchase Page and view the capacity and duration options for egress traffic resource plans.
Based on step 1, your estimated monthly usage is about 70 GB of egress traffic, making your estimated annual usage 840 GB (70 GB × 12).
After you purchase the resource plan, your egress usage is covered as long as it is within the plan's quota and validity period. Hourly billing does not apply, so you do not need to compare the total cost of the plan plus pay-as-you-go fees. You only need to compare the unit prices of different capacities.
Generally, the larger the plan capacity, the lower the unit price. According to the prices shown on the page, the unit prices for a one-year DCDN traffic plan are as follows:
- 500 GB, ¥66.5, unit price ¥0.133
- 1 TB, ¥126.0, unit price ¥0.123
This comparison shows that the 1 TB plan is cheaper per unit. You can weigh the financial commitment against the available discount to choose the appropriate capacity.

Purchase and manage resource plans

Purchase a plan

Go to the management console or purchase page of the relevant product and select the appropriate specifications and validity period. Some products, such as Storage Capacity Unit (SCU), Global Accelerator (GA) resource plans, and Application Load Balancer (ALB) resource plans, allow you to set a specific activation time.

Set remaining quota alerts

When a resource plan's quota is depleted, billing automatically switches to pay-as-you-go, which can lead to unplanned expenses. We recommend setting a remaining quota alert to be notified before your quota is depleted. This gives you time to renew, repurchase, or adjust your usage. For more information, see Set remaining quota alerts.

Check expiration time

Important

You can only query for active resource plans or plans that expired within the last year.

Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and go to the Resource Plans page. On the Instances tab, click the icon and select the Expired At checkbox.
The Expired At column, which shows the expiration time for each resource plan, appears in the instance list.
To view detailed deduction records, go to the Details tab.

Renew or repurchase

Renewal: Before a resource plan expires, you can go to the Resource Renewal page to initiate a renewal. The renewed plan takes effect automatically after the current plan expires. For more information, see Renew an expiring resource.
Repurchase: If a plan has already expired, you must purchase a new one from the product console.

Unsubscribe from a plan

Some resource plans support unsubscription. Go to the Resource Unsubscription page and switch to the Resource Plans tab to view eligible instances. If your purchased plan is not listed, it typically means it does not meet the conditions for unsubscription.

To unsubscribe, follow the instructions in Initiate an unsubscription.

For details on how the refund is calculated, see unsubscription rules.

Introduction to resource plans and purchase guidance