Billing FAQ
Bill Query and Expense Reconciliation
How do I query charge or overdue information for cloud resources?
You can log on to the Expenses and Costs console and query the charge or overdue information for your cloud resources. The paths are as follows:
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and choose Bills > Bill Overview. On the Bill Overview page, filter by billing month and account scope to view the total outstanding amount for the corresponding month. You can also use the summary report by product dimension on the same page to view the outstanding amount of each cloud resource.
To further view the consumption of cloud resources, go to the Bills > Bill Details page, set Statistical Item to Billing Item and Statistical Period to Details, then filter by product name and commodity name to view the billing details for each cloud resource.
How do I query expenses for subscription and pay-as-you-go cloud resources separately?
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and use filters to query and analyze consumption data.
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console > Cost > Cost Analysis page.
Apply filters to view consumption data for subscription and pay-as-you-go resources. Set Billing Method to Subscription to view subscription (prepaid) resource expenses, or set it to Pay-As-You-Go to view pay-as-you-go (postpaid) resource expenses.
How do I query annual consumption?
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and use filters to query and analyze annual consumption data.
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console > Cost > Cost Analysis page.
Apply filters to view annual consumption data. To view by year, set Time Granularity to Month and Time Range to the full year.
Example: Time Granularity: Month; Time Range: 2022-01 to 2022-12.
How do I view the amount due?
The amount due is the amount you actually need to pay after discounts, subscriptions (Savings Plans), coupons, and other preferential measures are applied.
Amount Due = List Price Total - Savings Plan deduction against list price - Discount amount - Coupon deduction amount.
Each amount due is recorded in Bill Details at the billing item or instance level, and the total monthly amount due is recorded in Bill Overview.
Bill Overview: Shows the monthly amount due for your bills, which is the aggregated amount of all bills for that month. You can also view each product's monthly amount due. You can view the monthly amount due by Resource Owner Account, Product, Service Entity, or Discount Hit Status.
Bill Details: Shows the amount due for each individual bill. Each pay-as-you-go bill is generated based on the billing items and billing rules of the cloud resources used.
How do I query usage details?
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and retrieve usage details as follows:
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and go to Bills > Bill Details. On the Bill Details page, click View Usage Details in the upper-right corner. On the Usage Details page, filter and export the usage details of different cloud services.
How do I query which resources generated charges within a specified time range (for example, the past 7 days)?
To view which cloud products generated charges within a specified time range, go to the Expenses and Costs console and choose Bills > Bill Details. Set Statistical Item to Instance, set Statistical Period to Day, select the Billing Month you want to query, and click Search.
The amount due is the amount you actually need to pay after discounts, subscriptions (Savings Plans), coupons, and other preferential measures are applied.
In the bill details, you can view the resources that generated charges on specified dates. You can also export the current selection and download it locally for easier filtering.
How do I reconcile the amount due in Bill Overview with the amount due in Bill Details?
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console > Expenses > Bill Overview and filter by billing month and account to view the amount due and the rounding adjustment amount for the corresponding month and account.
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console > Expenses > Bill Details and filter the bills by billing month and account to view the rounding adjustment amount and amount due for the current month.
Reconciliation example:
Bill Overview
Bill Details
Reconciling the rounding adjustment amount
Reconciliation method: The rounding adjustment amount in Bill Overview equals the negative of the sum of the amounts due for rounded instances in Bill Details.
For example, if the rounding adjustment amount in Bill Overview is 0.2453770049, the sum of the amounts due for rounded instances in Bill Details should be -0.2453770049.
1. Filter conditions:
Billing Month equals "2024-01"
Account equals "test"
2. Data:
Select the summary report by resource owner account and look at the "Rounding Adjustment Amount".
1. Filter conditions:
Statistical Item equals "Billing Item"
Statistical Period equals "Billing Month"
Billing Month equals "2024-01"
Account equals "test"
Charge Type equals "Rounding Adjustment"
2. Data:
Sum the "Amount Due" and calculate its negative.
Reconciling the amount due
Reconciliation method: The amount due in Bill Overview is the rounded amount due, and it equals the amount due in Bill Details.
1. Filter conditions:
Billing Month equals "2024-01"
Account equals "test"
2. Data:
Select the summary report by resource owner account and look at the "Amount Due".
1. Filter conditions:
Statistical Item equals "Billing Item"
Statistical Period equals "Billing Month"
Billing Month equals "2024-01"
Account equals "test"
2. Data:
Sum the "Amount Due".
How do I verify the accuracy of a bill?
Reconciling a cloud resource bill involves List Price Total, Discounts, Coupon Deductions, Amount Due, and Subscription - Resource Plan / Savings Plan Deductions.
On the Bill Details page, reconcile the list price total.
The list price total is the sum of the catalog prices (publicly listed standard prices) for the configuration selected when you purchased the Alibaba Cloud resource. It does not include any discounts, promotions, or other preferential terms.
You can verify the calculation of the list price total based on the usage, usage duration, catalog price (unit price), and billing formula in the consumption details.
How do I query the rounding adjustment amount and its related bill details?
You can log on to the Expenses and Costs console and query bills that contain rounding adjustments. The paths are as follows:
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and go to Bills > Bill Overview. Filter by month and account to view bills aggregated by product for the corresponding month and account, along with the total rounding adjustment amount.
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and go to Bills > Bill Details. In the bills, filter by commodity name and search for the charge type "Rounding Adjustment".
Rounding adjustment amounts in Bill Details can only be queried after the full bill for the current month is issued at 12:00 on the 2nd of the following month.
How do I view unsettled consumption for the current month by product?
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console. On the Bills > Bill Overview page, set the billing month to the current month and select the By Product aggregation. The Outstanding Amount shown for each product is the consumption generated but not yet settled for the current month.
Click Details to view the specific consumption bill details.
How do I view OSS storage usage statistics in bills?
Object Storage Service (OSS) is billed hourly. The billed storage usage in a bill is the sum of usage over the billing period. For example, the total storage usage in a monthly bill is the sum of the month's usage, and the average daily storage can be calculated as "usage / days in the month / 24". Note that the usage field in the bill is the billable usage after resource plan deduction. To see the original usage, add back the "Resource Plan Deduction" portion.
You can view and analyze bucket-level cost data in split bills.
What should I do if the Income and Expense Details page is blank, returns a search error, or fails to load?
If the Income and Expense Details page is blank, returns a search error, or fails to load, try the following steps:
Check the filter conditions: Make sure the selected time range is correct. Avoid overly large time spans (we recommend querying no more than 3 months at a time) or incorrect time formats.
Refresh the page or switch browsers: Refresh the current page, or switch to a mainstream browser such as Chrome and try again.
Clear the browser cache: Clear your browser cache and cookies, then log on and access the page again.
Contact technical support: If none of the above resolves the issue, submit a ticket with a full-screen screenshot (including filter conditions and error message) for further investigation.
How far back can I query historical bills?
Alibaba Cloud Expenses and Costs provides different query ranges for bills at different granularities:
Bill Details: Supports querying and exporting consumption details for the past 18 months. Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and go to Bills > Bill Details, or use the
DescribeInstanceBilloperation of BSS OpenAPI. The operation enforces an 18-month limit on the query period; exceeding this range returns a parameter error.Monthly bills: The Expense Overview on the console home page shows the past 12 months by default. For monthly bill summaries, go to Bills > Bill Overview.
Historical bills older than 18 months: Cannot be queried directly by billing month on the Bill Details page or retrieved through the OpenAPI. First try the self-service export described in How do I export historical bill data older than 18 months? in this topic. If you still cannot retrieve the data you need, submit a ticket to request the export.
Bill Export Management
How do I export a monthly bill with the Alibaba Cloud finance seal?
The PDF monthly bill is stamped with the Alibaba Cloud finance seal and is typically used for finance records. To obtain a stamped Alibaba Cloud bill, follow these steps:
The PDF monthly bill with the finance seal for the current month can only be exported after the bill is fully issued at 12:00 on the 2nd of the following month. Exporting earlier will produce an empty bill file.
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and go to Bills > Bill Overview. On the Bill Overview page, click Export Bill. For export type, select Monthly Bill PDF and click OK. After exporting, go to the Export Records page to download the monthly bill.
The new console allows selecting a time span of up to 36 months, and the exported PDF includes the finance seal.
How do I export detailed bills?
Detailed bills are typically used to view charges at the instance or billing item level, see hourly usage and expense changes for each billing item, and reconcile against fully-issued historical bills.
Detailed bill data for the current month is finalized after 12:00 on the 3rd of the following month. Bills exported before that time may be incomplete due to billing delays.
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console. On the Bills > Bill Details page, set the statistical period to Details, then click the 
button in the upper right of the bill details report. In the Export Bill CSV dialog, export using the current selected dimension, or choose All Content to export full product bills across months, and click OK.
How do I export historical bill data older than 18 months?
On the Bill Details page, set Statistical Item to Billing Item, set Statistical Period to Details, then click the button on the right to export consumption details older than 18 months.
How do I export split bills?
Split bills are typically used when customers need more detailed cost allocation, such as splitting costs down to the OSS bucket level or CDN domain level. Some splittable products support viewing the usage of split items at various dimensions (common examples include OSS bucket, CDN domain, and SMS template). For splittable products, see Alibaba Cloud splittable cloud products.
Also, data aggregated at each split dimension (tag, resource group, cost center) is more accurate than Bill Details (detailed bills).
Split bill data for the current month is finalized after 12:00 on the 4th of the following month. Bills exported before that time may be incomplete due to billing delays.
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and go to Cost Allocation > Split Bill Details. Click the button in the upper right of the split bill details report, select the export range, and click OK.
You can export bills from the past 12 months, up to 6 months per export. Accounts upgraded to the enhanced split bill details (gradually rolled out) can export up to 18 months of data.
How do I download a monthly bill?
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console. On the Bills > Bill Overview page, click Export Bill. In the dialog, set Export Type to Monthly Bill PDF, select other conditions as needed, and click OK.
After exporting, go to the Export Records page to download the monthly bill. The downloaded monthly bill includes the Alibaba Cloud seal.
How do I download a monthly bill summarized by product?
Method 1: Download a Product Consumption Summary bill that includes accounts.
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console. On the Bills > Bill Overview page, click Export Bill. In the dialog, set Export Type to Product Consumption Summary CSV and click OK.
Method 1 lets you select the account scope to export. The exported monthly bill report includes account information.
Method 2: Download a product-summarized monthly bill (without account information).
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console. On the Bills > Bill Overview page, choose the By Product aggregation, and click the 
button in the upper right of the summary table.
Method 2 downloads a product bill summary within the enterprise / organization / account scope already set on the Bill Overview page. The exported report no longer contains account information.
After exporting, go to the Export Records page to download the product consumption summary or the product-summarized monthly bill.
What should I do if the resource instance name in split bill details is empty or incomplete?
Cause
The instance name in split bill details is empty or incomplete, typically because:
No name was set for the resource in the console (resource name is empty).
The instance itself does not have a "name" attribute (some resource types do not support names).
Solution
Use the following methods to help identify resources and reconcile bills:
View through Bill Details or My Orders: Go to Expenses and Costs console > Bills > Bill Details or My Orders and correlate the resource using the instance ID or order number.
Add tags for identification: Attach business identifier tags (such as department, project, or purpose) to resources, then filter by tag in split bill details and cost analysis. This solves reconciliation difficulties caused by missing names.
Why does the exported Bill Details data not include a cost center field? How do I export bills with cost center information?
Data exported from the new Bill Details page does not include a cost center field. This is a design limitation of the current version.
How to obtain data that includes cost center information
Use the following methods to view and export cost center data:
Split Bill Details page: Go to the Expenses and Costs console > Cost Allocation > Split Bill Details page. This page supports filtering, viewing, and exporting bill data by cost center.
Cost Analysis page: On the Expenses and Costs console > Cost > Cost Analysis page, aggregate statistics by the Cost Center dimension to summarize consumption by cost center.
Notes:
Split bill details data is updated approximately 48 hours after the bill is issued. Please wait before viewing.
Split bill details supports querying only the past 12 months of historical data.
What should I do if the split bill details download fails?
If the split bill details download fails, troubleshoot as follows:
Switch browsers: We recommend using Chrome to download. Other browsers may have compatibility issues that cause download failures.
Clear the browser cache: Clear your Chrome cache and try again.
Check download records: Go to the Export Records page to check the download task status. If the task shows "Completed" but the download did not start automatically, you can download it manually from the same page.
Resubmit the export: If none of the above works, resubmit the export request.
The usage details export succeeded but the file is empty. How do I view Model Studio (Bailian) token consumption?
If exporting usage details from the Expenses and Costs console reports success but the downloaded file is empty, you can view token consumption using one of the following methods:
View through Bill Details: Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and choose Bills > Bill Details. Select the corresponding billing month, filter by commodity name Model Studio, and view the specific models called in the Instance ID (billing granularity) column.
View through the Model Studio console: Log on to the Model Studio console and go to Usage Statistics > Model Usage to view model call counts and total tokens.
Discount and Deduction Rules
Deduction order for Subscription orders
The use and deduction rules vary slightly for different purchase channels or order types:
Manual orders paid in the console (deductions applied in the following order):
Contract or promotional discounts: Matched and applied automatically by the system.
Coupon deduction: At checkout, you select a coupon to apply (the coupon must meet usage conditions).
Stored-value card deduction: At payment, you select a stored-value card to apply (the stored-value card must meet usage conditions).
Cash balance deduction: At payment, you manually select the cash balance to apply.
Credit control deduction: At payment, you manually select the credit control line to apply (the credit control line must meet usage conditions).
Third-party payment channel: At payment, you manually select a payment method. Supported methods include Alipay, personal/corporate online banking, UnionPay, and others.
Auto-renewal (deductions applied in the following order):
Contract or promotional discounts: Matched and applied automatically by the system.
Coupon deduction: At checkout, the system matches an eligible coupon automatically (the coupon must meet usage conditions).
Stored-value card deduction: At payment, the system matches an eligible stored-value card automatically (the stored-value card must meet usage conditions).
Cash balance deduction: At payment, the system deducts automatically.
Credit control deduction: At payment, the system deducts automatically (the credit control line must meet usage conditions).
Orders placed through OpenAPI (deductions applied in the following order):
Contract or promotional discounts: Matched and applied automatically by the system.
Coupon deduction: At checkout, the system matches an eligible coupon automatically (the coupon must meet usage conditions).
Stored-value card deduction: At payment, the system matches an eligible stored-value card automatically (the stored-value card must meet usage conditions).
Cash balance deduction: At payment, the system deducts automatically.
Credit control deduction: At payment, the system deducts automatically (the credit control line must meet usage conditions).
Deduction order for Pay-As-You-Go bills
After pay-as-you-go resources are used, the following deductions are applied in order during metering and payment:
Resource plan / Reserved Instance coupon deduction: Offsets resource usage. Any remaining usage is billed (requires product support).
Contract or promotional discounts: Matched and applied automatically by the system.
Savings Plan deduction: After metering, the system automatically matches eligible Savings Plans (requires product support).
Coupon deduction: At checkout, the system matches an eligible coupon automatically (the coupon must meet usage conditions).
Stored-value card deduction: At payment, the system matches an eligible stored-value card automatically (the stored-value card must meet usage conditions).
Cash balance and credit control deduction: At payment, the system deducts automatically. If the account has both a cash balance and a credit control line, both are used in parallel and the total available amount is the sum of the two. They are applied together as the last step in the deduction order (the credit control line must meet usage conditions).
How do I verify whether a bill hit a discount?
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and verify discount application as follows:
On the Bill Overview page, select the Discount Hit Status tab to view bills that hit a discount and bills that did not. Click Details on the right to further view the details of bills that hit a discount, and the details and reasons for bills that did not hit a discount.
Why does the bill show a discount amount but the discount ID and discount content are empty?
When viewing bill details for a discount-hit bill, the discount amount may be greater than 0 while the discount ID, discount content, and discount conditions are empty. Possible reasons:
The bill did not hit a large-customer discount or official-site marketing promotion, but was deducted by a Savings Plan. Savings Plan deductions are currently included in the discount amount total.
Cloud services such as Cloud Virtual Hosting, SMS, Voice, Phone Number Privacy Protection, Phone Number Verification, Phone Number Information, Smart Contact Center, and 5G Interconnect Platform do not currently support querying discount ID or discount content.
Why can't I select or use a cash coupon when paying an order?
The inability to use a cash coupon is usually caused by one of the following reasons. Check each:
1. The cash coupon is held by an unpaid order
Check whether another unpaid order under your account is holding the cash coupon. If so, go to the Expenses and Costs console > My Orders and cancel that unpaid order to release the cash coupon, then place the order again.
2. The product or scenario does not match
Confirm that the cash coupon's "applicable products" and "applicable scenarios" cover the current order. For example, domain name renewal typically does not accept general-purpose cash coupons. The exact applicable scope is defined by the coupon details page or the automatic matching result on the payment page.
3. The charge was generated outside the cash coupon validity period
Confirm that the time the current order or pay-as-you-go bill was generated falls within the cash coupon's validity period. For pay-as-you-go bills, charges must be generated after the cash coupon is issued to be deducted.
4. The cash coupon is attached to a different account
Confirm that the cash coupon belongs to the currently logged-on account. Some promotional cash coupons may be issued to a linked account; switch to that account to use them.
Why does the cash coupon balance show decimals?
Cash coupon balances are accurate to 6 decimal places. If the cash coupon has been applied to a pay-as-you-go bill, the system deducts the exact consumption amount. Because pay-as-you-go amounts are often precise to many decimal places, the remaining cash coupon balance showing decimals is normal.
To view the deduction history and current balance of a cash coupon, log on to the Expenses and Costs console > Cards & coupons page.
Charge Inquiry Troubleshooting
Why are pay-as-you-go bills still generated after I purchased Subscription cloud resources?
If you have purchased Subscription cloud resources but bills continue to be generated, possible reasons include the following. Troubleshoot based on these:
Some services or billing items of Subscription cloud resources are billed pay-as-you-go. For example, after purchasing a Subscription ECS instance, if you continue to use pay-as-you-go services such as snapshot capacity or pay-by-traffic public bandwidth, you will still generate snapshot and traffic pay-as-you-go bills. Log on to the Expenses and Costs console > Expenses > Bills > Bill Details, set the Statistical Item filter to Billing Item and Statistical Period to Details to find the cloud resources and billing items that generated bills.
The Subscription cloud resource has auto-renewal enabled, and renewal bills are generated after auto-renewal. Log on to Expenses and Costs console > Expenses > Subscription Orders > Resource Renewal to view auto-renewed cloud resources.
Why are bills not deducted after I purchased a resource plan?
If bills are not deducted after you purchased a resource plan, possible reasons include the following. Troubleshoot based on these:
The purchased resource plan cannot deduct charges generated by pay-as-you-go services. Find the resource plan you purchased on the Alibaba Cloud official site and review its deduction rules.
The usage of pay-as-you-go services exceeded the usage that the resource plan can deduct. Log on to the Expenses and Costs console > Account > Resource Plans page to view the resource plan usage details.
Why are charges still generated after a cloud resource is deleted or released?
If charges are still generated after a cloud resource is deleted or released, possible reasons include the following. Troubleshoot based on these:
Some cloud resources, when deleted or released, do not automatically delete or release their associated cloud resources. For example, after you delete an ECS instance, if the snapshots are not deleted, the snapshots continue to incur charges. You can view the current status of a cloud resource in its product console.
The deletion or release of a cloud resource failed. You can view the current status of a cloud resource in its product console.
In pay-as-you-go mode, Alibaba Cloud bills you after you use the cloud service, based on the resource's billing cycle: usage is measured, then charges are calculated, and finally the bill is generated. Because there is a delay between consumption and bill generation, consumption that occurred before the resource was deleted or released may appear in bills generated after the deletion. Log on to the Expenses and Costs console > Bills > Bill Details, set the Statistical Item filter to Billing Item and Statistical Period to Details to find the resource that incurred the charge, and use the consumption time in the result to determine whether consumption occurred before the resource was released.
Although your cloud resource was deleted or released, you may have purchased an entitlement asset through semi-prepaid or zero-prepaid payment (What is a savings plan?, What is a reserved instance?). Once an entitlement asset takes effect, bills are generated and charged hourly. Log on to the Expenses and Costs console > Expenses > Bills > Bill Overview page. On the Bill Overview page, use the By Product summary report to view the outstanding amount of each resource and determine whether the overdue product is an entitlement asset.
Why am I still being charged or receiving overdue notifications after releasing or stopping a resource?
Charges or overdue notifications after releasing or stopping a resource typically come from the following causes:
1. Pay-as-you-go bill issuance delay
Pay-as-you-go products (such as ECS, OSS, Model Studio, and Security Center) use a "use first, pay later" model, with bill issuance typically delayed 1 to 3 hours. Some products (such as Log Service and Database Backup) bill daily; after a delete/stop action, bills for the previous day's charges may still be generated the next day, which is normal. Wait for the next full billing cycle to confirm whether billing has stopped.
2. Residual resources are still being billed
Releasing a primary resource (such as an ECS instance) does not automatically release associated independently-billed resources. Manually check and delete the following resources to avoid continued charges:
Snapshots
Pay-as-you-go disks
Elastic IP (EIP)
Database backup data
3. Verification method
Wait 24 hours after the operation, then log on to the Expenses and Costs console > Bills > Bill Details and filter by the corresponding product and time range to verify whether new bills are still being generated. If all resources are released and no new usage occurs, no further charges will be generated.
Why does my account show overdue even though it has a balance?
The overdue amount includes both "unsettled for the current month" and "unsettled historical" portions. "Unsettled for the current month" refers to charges consumed in the current month but not yet issued and awaiting settlement; "unsettled historical" refers to all previously-accumulated bill charges that remain unpaid up to now.
Possible reasons the account shows overdue despite having a balance:
Insufficient available credit: The available credit refers to the available balance in your current account. Formula:
Available Credit=Cash Balance+Credit Control Line+Credit Control Refund-Unsettled Current Month-Unsettled Historical. When the available credit is below 0, the account is marked as overdue.Credit control scenario: For credit control customers settled monthly, some bills issued mid-month will be deferred and settled together with the full monthly bill in the following month. Even though the account has a balance mid-month, it still shows "unsettled".
Auto settlement is disabled: When the "auto settlement" feature for an account's bills is disabled, auto settlement will not run even if the account has a balance.
NoteScenarios in which auto settlement is disabled include:
Credit control users turned off the Auto Settlement toggle in the Expenses and Costs console (for non-credit-control users, auto settlement is on by default and cannot be disabled).
The service manager or support operator disabled auto settlement through the backend.
Enabling consolidated billing automatically disables auto settlement.
After auto settlement is disabled, you need to create a custom bill settlement to specify which bills to settle. See Consolidated Billing.
Why does the monthly aggregated service duration for a billing item in the detailed bill differ from the instance's subscription duration?
Bills with a statistical period of billing-cycle/day are aggregated from the billing-item detailed bill. During aggregation, certain fields are simply summed, which can cause service duration to be double-counted. To reconcile service duration, use the data from the billing-item detailed bill with Statistical Item set to Billing Item and Statistical Period set to Details.
Example:
For the 2021.12 billing cycle, an ECS Subscription instance purchased for a single month should have a service duration of 31 days or less. However, the summary report shows a service duration of 270 days, which differs significantly from the expected 31 days. On closer inspection, the instance was upgraded or downgraded in December 2021, which produced multiple bills during the upgrade/downgrade process, each with a service duration ranging from 4 to 34 days. Summing all the data gives the monthly aggregated service duration: 4 + 34 + 31 + 33 + 34 + 34 + 33 + 34 + 33 = 270 days.
In Bill Details or Split Bill Details, why can't I find a resource's bill when filtering by resource group or tag?
The resource instance already has a resource group or tag configured, but filtering by resource group or tag in Bill Details or Split Bill Details does not return the resource's bill. The likely cause is that the resource group or tag was configured after the bill details or split bill was produced.
For example, if the resource group or tag was configured on November 25, 2024, but the bill or split bill for the resource was produced on November 20, 2024, the bill was issued before the configuration time, so filtering by resource group or tag in Bill Details or Split Bill Details will not find the resource's bill.
Why am I still charged or overdue after disabling auto-renewal or deleting resources?
1. Pay-as-you-go products are unrelated to auto-renewal
Pure pay-as-you-go products such as OSS and Model Studio do not support subscription. Their charges come from actual usage (storage capacity, traffic, API calls, and so on) and are unrelated to the "auto-renewal" setting. Turning off auto-renewal does not stop billing for these products.
To stop billing for such products, delete resources or clean up data. For example, to stop OSS billing, delete all objects in the bucket and then delete the bucket.
2. Trailing bills after resource release
After deleting an API Key or releasing a resource, the system may still generate a final bill for charges incurred within the last billing cycle, because pay-as-you-go bills are issued with a delay. After this bill is cleared, no further charges will be generated. This is normal.
Why do I still receive overdue SMS notifications after clearing the overdue amount?
If you receive an overdue SMS notification after topping up, possible reasons include:
1. SMS notifications have a time lag
Overdue SMS notifications are triggered when the overdue condition occurs. After topping up, SMS messages may still be in the sending queue, so you may receive notifications triggered before the top-up. Use the real-time Available Credit status in the console as the source of truth, not the SMS timestamp.
2. Pay-as-you-go bill issuance delay
Pay-as-you-go products have a bill issuance delay of several hours. After releasing resources or stopping services, the system may still issue bills for charges incurred before the stop, which can trigger new overdue notifications. This is a normal delayed-issuance behavior, not a system error.
3. How to judge
If the console shows Available Credit ≥ 0 and no new resource usage, you can ignore historical overdue SMS notifications. If available credit remains negative, top up to cover the difference.
In the billing data for instance XX, why are the amounts due for some billing items negative?
If the amount due for a billing item is less than 0.01 CNY, Alibaba Cloud performs a "rounding adjustment" during actual settlement: amounts between the 3rd and 10th decimal places are dropped per aggregation rules, which can result in a negative amount due for the billing item. In other scenarios, for prepaid (Subscription) instances, a negative billing-item amount may come from refunds after unsubscription or downgrade; for postpaid (pay-as-you-go) instances, it may come from adjustments or rounding operations. You can submit a ticket to request technical support's help in determining the cause.
When coupons and resource plans are applied together, can a negative amount occur?
No. Coupons and resource plans can offset a bill only up to its full amount. They cannot offset more than the bill amount. This means:
If the deduction amount is equal to or greater than the bill amount, the amount due is displayed as 0.
The deduction amount never exceeds the actual bill amount, so the amount due is never negative.
Bill Structure and Rules
Can I export bills to obtain a complete list of the products in use?
No. Bills exported from the Expenses and Costs console may not provide a complete and accurate product list. If an instance is not renewed or does not incur charges during a specific month, its resource information does not appear in that month’s bill and may therefore be omitted.
To view a complete list of product resources currently in use within your account, export the resource list from Resource Center.
Why is the "Amount Due" in the detailed bill greater than the "Official Price"?
Alibaba Cloud prices cloud products to 6 to 12 decimal places, but settles at the commodity granularity using a set of bill-issuance rules. During settlement, the 6- to 12-decimal amount is rounded down to 2 decimal places for settlement with the customer.
After settlement, to meet customers' needs for fine-grained reconciliation, the 2-decimal settled amount at commodity granularity is re-allocated back to resource instance and billing item granularity. Because arithmetic rounding may leave remainders that cannot be divided evenly, the remainder is randomly assigned to one of the resource instances or billing items. This causes some resource instance / billing item bills to show an Amount Due greater than the pre-discount Official Price.
This phenomenon occurs during the splitting of a settled bill into finer-grained data, and does not affect the actual settlement amount between the customer and Alibaba Cloud.
How are rounding adjustment amounts allocated across cost centers?
The allocation logic for rounding adjustment amounts is identical to that of regular consumption bills. As long as your cost center rules are already in effect, you do not need to handle rounding adjustment amounts separately. The system allocates them automatically based on the original ownership relationship (configured automatically or manually) of the resource.
Because rounding adjustment amounts are generated according to the rounding rules in the bill settlement process, they carry the resource owner account, product code, and commodity code. The system defaults the instance and billing item of the rounding adjustment to those that actually incurred charges that month, and automatically allocates it to your preset cost center. The two cases are:
Automatic allocation via cost center rules
If you have configured automatic allocation rules on the Cost Center page (for example, by account, product, resource group, or tag): the rounding adjustment amount is auto-matched to the rules, and the system allocates it to the corresponding cost center based on the related information (such as account or product) in the rule.
Manual allocation to the cost center of an instance ID
If you have manually bound an instance to a cost center: the rounding adjustment amount follows the instance, and the system associates the bill for that rounding adjustment with the instance's cost center.
What is the difference between an order and a bill?
Alibaba Cloud orders and bills serve different purposes. Key differences:
Order: The record generated when you purchase or renew an Alibaba Cloud product. It contains details such as the product type, configuration parameters, price, quantity, and payment method.
An order typically concerns a single purchase transaction. Each purchase generates a new order and shows the details of that single transaction.
Bill: A summary of all consumption behavior (including, but not limited to, charges from orders) within a given period. Bills are divided into Monthly Bill Overview and Bill Details.
Why does my bill status remain "Issuing"?
The Monthly Bill Overview page shows monthly bill summary information. The final monthly bill is issued after 12:00 on the 2nd of the following month. Mid-month, the bill is in a running-cumulative state, so the bill status remains Issuing.
What is the relationship between Bill Overview and Bill Details (consumption details)?
Bills reflect your monthly consumption on Alibaba Cloud and the usage details of corresponding cloud resources. Bills consist of Bill Overview and Bill Details:
Overview of Monthly Bill: The Monthly Bill Overview is the monthly aggregated bill data (this is the data actually settled with Alibaba Cloud), including the monthly amount due, monthly outstanding amount, and bill statistics across different accounts.
You can use Bill Overview data to pay or invoice. The exported PDF monthly bill carries the Alibaba Cloud finance seal and can be used for internal expense reimbursement.
Bill Details: Consumption details produced based on the billing cycle of cloud resources, with the ability to view bills aggregated by billing-item / instance dimension and by month / day.
Use Bill Details to reconcile the consumption amount and applied discounts of cloud resources, helping you accurately reconstruct how the charges were calculated.
How is the rounding adjustment amount in a bill produced, and what are the rounding rules?
Alibaba Cloud product prices are precise to 10 decimal places, so pay-as-you-go charges can be produced with 10 decimal places. During actual settlement with the customer, Alibaba Cloud aggregates per certain rules and drops amounts from the 3rd to the 10th decimal places. The dropped portion is called the "rounding adjustment amount".
Rounding is applied after aggregation by resource owner account, commodity code, and billing month.
Example: Assume the hourly price of a system disk is 0.00021000000 CNY/GB, and usage is 40 GB. The hourly amount due is 0.0084000000 CNY. The monthly amount due (assuming 30 days) is 0.0084000000 × 24 × 30 = 6.0480000000 CNY. Subtracting the rounding adjustment amount of 0.0080000000 CNY gives a final settlement amount of 6.04 CNY.
In Bill Details, what does the Order/Bill Number field mean?
In the Bill Details, the Order/Bill Number field differs across scenarios:
In the prepaid scenario, the Order/Bill Number matches the order number in My Orders.
In the postpaid scenario, the Order/Bill Number is the monthly settlement bill number.
What is the difference between "Billing Item + Day" and "Billing Item + Details"?
Billing Item + Day bills aggregate by account, billing month, bill date, product name, commodity name, instance ID, and billing item on a daily basis, helping you quickly understand overall daily consumption.
Billing Item + Details bills show the consumption record of each billing item in each billing cycle. In addition to all fields in Billing Item + Day bills, they also include when the consumption occurred and whether the bill used any discounts.
For an overview of aggregated statistics for the different bill views, see Bill details.
When are Alibaba Cloud bills issued each month?
Different bill dimensions have different issuance times:
Monthly Bill Overview: Based on the consumption details of cloud resources, aggregated monthly for charge review, reconciliation, and invoicing. This is the primary basis for settlement and payment. The monthly bill is issued no later than 12:00 on the 2nd of the following month and is published on the Bill Overview page.
Bill Details: Consumption details produced per cloud resource billing cycle. Consumption details for the current month are fully recorded no later than 12:00 on the 2nd of the following month, and the final full consumption details are published in Bill Details no later than 12:00 on the 3rd of the following month.
How do I change the customer name in a bill?
The customer name in a bill is tied to your Alibaba Cloud account information. To change the customer name shown in bills, update your account's verification information. For personal accounts, see Change the verified person for an individual account; for enterprise accounts, see Change enterprise entity or update enterprise name.
Expense Management Settings
How do I set a spending cap?
Alibaba Cloud does not support hard spending caps. You can use the Budget Management feature to monitor your cloud resource spending, set budgets and alert notifications, and have the system notify the account owner or other designated contacts by email, SMS, or in-site message when actual spending approaches or exceeds the budget. For details, see Budget management.
How do I view product cost growth?
Method 1: On the Monthly Bill Overview page, select a billing month and view each product's monthly amount due by product dimension.
Method 2: On the Cost Analysis page, filter the analysis dimension by product and view each product's amount due in the report.
What do I need to do after the bill is issued?
The final Alibaba Cloud monthly bill is issued no later than 12:00 on the 2nd of the following month (this is the latest issuance time; not every account is issued at this time, and some final monthly bills are issued earlier). You can view the monthly bill information on the Monthly Bill Overview page in the Expenses and Costs console, including the amount due for the current month and the consumption composition by product.
For credit control users: After the bill is issued, settle the bill before the repayment due date. For how the repayment due date is calculated, see What is a payment due date.
For non-credit-control users, the bill issuance date is the repayment due date. After the bill is issued, the system automatically deducts the previous month's bill from your account balance:
Prepaid products are paid upon order placement.
For pay-as-you-go products, the previous month's bill is deducted from your account balance starting on the 1st of the following month.
How do I obtain the "Total" amount for a cost center through the API?
The cost center summary page and the Cost Analysis feature do not currently support obtaining the "Total" amount for a cost center directly through the OpenAPI. Use the following alternatives:
View directly in the console: Log on to the Expenses and Costs console and view the summary amount for each cost center on the Cost Center page.
Export via Bill Subscription and calculate yourself: Use the Bill Subscription feature to periodically export split bill details, then calculate the summary amount by cost center on your own.