Billing FAQ
Querying bills and reconciling charges
Query charges and overdue payments
To check for charges or overdue payments for your cloud resources, log on to the Billing Management console and follow these steps:
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to Bills > Bill Overview. On the Bill Overview page, filter by billing month and account scope to view the total Amount to Be Repaid. You can also review the summary report by product to see the amount to be repaid for each cloud resource.
To view more detailed consumption data, go to Bills > Bill Details. Set Statistic Item to Billable Item and Statistic Period to Details. You can then filter by product name to view the billing details for each cloud resource.
Query subscription and pay-as-you-go charges
In the Billing Management console, you can use various filters to query and analyze your consumption data.
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to Costs > Cost Analysis.
Use filters to view your consumption data. To view charges for your subscription resources, set the Consumption Type filter to Prepaid. To view charges for your pay-as-you-go resources, set it to Post-paid.
Check annual spending
Use the Billing Management console to query and analyze your annual spending data with various filters.
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to Costs > Cost Analysis.
To view your spending for a full year, set the Granularity filter to Month and select a one-year Date Range.
For example, set Granularity to Month and Date Range from 2022-01 to 2022-12.
View amount payable
The amount payable is the final amount due after applying all discounts, coupons, and deductions from plans like Savings Plans.
Amount Payable = List Price - Savings Plan Deductions - Discounts - Coupon Deductions.
The amount payable for each line item is recorded in Bill Details, while the total monthly amount payable is shown in Bill Overview.
Bill Overview: In Bill Overview, you can see the total amount payable for your monthly bill. You can also group the data By Payer Account, By Product, By Service Provider, or By Promotion Status to view the monthly amount payable from different perspectives.
Bill Details: In Bill Details, you can view the amount payable for each line item. Each post-paid bill is based on the billable items and billing rules for the cloud resources you used.
Query usage details
You can find your usage details in the Billing Management console.
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to Bills>Bill Details. In the upper-right corner of the page, click View Usage Details.
On the View Usage Details page, you can use filters to query and export usage details for different cloud products.
Find charged resources by date
To see which cloud products generated charges within a specific time frame, go to the Bill Details page in the Billing Management console. Set Statistic Item to Instance, set Statistic Period to Day, select the desired Billing Month, and click Search.
The amount payable is the final amount due after all discounts and deductions are applied.
In the bill details, you can see which product resources incurred charges on a specific date.
You can also click Export Current Selection to download the data for local filtering.
Reconcile Bill Overview and Bill Details
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to Bills > Bill Overview. Filter by billing month and account to view the amount payable and rounding adjustment for that month and account.
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to Bills > Bill Details. Filter by billing month and account to view the rounding adjustment and amount payable for that month.
The following table provides an example of how to reconcile the data.
Bill Overview
Bill Details
Reconciling the rounding adjustment
Method: The rounding adjustment amount in Bill Overview should be equal to the negative sum of the amount payable for rounding-related line items in Bill Details.
For example, if the rounding adjustment in Bill Overview is 0.2453770049, the sum of the amount payable for rounding-related line items in Bill Details should be -0.2453770049.
1. Filters:
Billing Month: "2024-01"
Account: "test"
2. Data:
In the report grouped by payer account, find the "Rounding Adjustment" value.
1. Filters:
Statistic Item: "Billable Item"
Statistic Period: "Billing Month"
Billing Month: "2024-01"
Account: "test"
Expense Type: "Rounding Adjustment"
2. Data:
Sum the "Amount Payable" values and calculate the negative of the sum.
Reconciling the amount payable
Method: The amount payable in Bill Overview is the post-rounding amount and should equal the total amount payable from Bill Details.
1. Filters:
Billing Month: "2024-01"
Account: "test"
2. Data:
In the report grouped by payer account, find the "Amount Payable" value.
1. Filters:
Statistic Item: "Billable Item"
Statistic Period: "Billing Month"
Billing Month: "2024-01"
Account: "test"
2. Data:
Sum the "Amount Payable" values.
Verify bill accuracy
To verify your bill, check the following key components: list price, discounts, coupon deductions, amount payable, and deductions from subscriptions like resource plans or Savings Plans.
On the Bill Details page, check the list price.
The list price is the standard, undiscounted price for your Alibaba Cloud resources, based on their configuration.
To verify the list price, check the usage, service duration, unit price, and billing formula in your bill details.
Find rounding adjustments and related details
You can log on to the Billing Management console to find bills generated from rounding adjustments.
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to Bills > Bill Overview. Filter by month and account to view the bill summarized by product and the total rounding adjustment for that billing month.
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to Bills > Bill Details. Filter by product name and look for the "Rounding Adjustment" expense type.
The rounding adjustment amount in Bill Details can only be queried after the full monthly bill is generated at 12:00 (noon) on the 2nd day of the following month.
View unsettled charges by product
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to the Bills > Bill Overview page. Select the current month as the billing month and group the data By Product. The Amount to Be Repaid for each product represents the charges that have been incurred but not yet settled for the current month.
Click Details to view the detailed billing records.
Analyze OSS usage in your bill
Object Storage Service (OSS) is billed hourly. The storage usage shown on your bill is the sum of usage for the corresponding billing period. For example, the total storage amount in a monthly bill is the sum of usage for that month. To calculate the average storage usage, use this formula: Usage / Days in Month / 24. Note that the usage field in the bill reflects the billable usage after resource plan deductions. To see the original usage, you must add back the "Resource Plan Deduction" amount.
To view cost data at the bucket level, you can analyze it in Split Bill Details.
Managing bill exports
Export a sealed monthly bill
Monthly bills in PDF format include the official Alibaba Cloud financial seal and are typically used for accounting purposes. To download a sealed bill, follow these steps:
The sealed PDF bill for the current month is only available after 12:00 (noon) on the 2nd day of the following month. Exporting it before this time will result in an empty file.
Log on to the Billing Management 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. You can then download the monthly bill from the Export History page.
In the new console, you can select a time span of up to 36 months. The exported PDF will include the financial seal.
Export bill details
Use bill details to view hourly costs at the instance or billable item level and use finalized historical bills for reconciliation.
Detailed bills for the current month are finalized after 12:00 (noon) on the 3rd day of the following month. Exporting before this time may result in incomplete data due to billing delays.
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to the Bills > Bill Details page. Set the Statistic Period to Details and click the 
icon in the upper-right corner of the report. In the Export Bill CSV dialog box, you can export the currently selected view or export all content for a full multi-month bill. Click OK.
Export data older than 18 months
On the Bill Details page, set Statistic Item to Billable Item and Statistic Period to Details. Then, click the 
button on the right to export historical consumption details from more than 18 months ago.
If you are using the upgraded billing console, you need to click Return to Previous Version in the upper-right corner and then follow the steps above to get historical consumption details from more than 18 months ago.
Export split bills
Split bills are used for more detailed cost allocation needs, such as breaking down costs to the OSS bucket level or CDN domain level. Some products that support cost splitting allow you to view usage at a granular level in split bills, such as by OSS bucket, CDN domain, or SMS template. For a list of supported products, see Alibaba Cloud Products That Support Split-item Billing.
Additionally, data aggregated by cost allocation fields (tags, resource groups, cost centers) is more accurate in split bills than in Bill Details.
Split bills for the current month are finalized after 12:00 (noon) on the 4th day of the following month. Exporting before this time may result in incomplete data due to billing delays.
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to Cost Allocation > Split Bill Details. Click the icon in the upper-right corner of the report, select the export range, and click OK.
You can export bills for the last 12 months, with a maximum of 6 months per export. Some accounts that have been upgraded to the new Split Bill Details can export data from the last 18 months.
Download monthly bill
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to the Bills > Bill Overview page. Click Export Bill. In the dialog box, set Export Type to Monthly Bill - PDF, select other options as needed, and click OK.
After exporting, you can go to the Export History page to download the monthly bill. The downloaded bill will have the official Alibaba Cloud seal.
Download a monthly bill by product
Method 1: Download a product consumption summary bill that includes account information.
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to the Bills > Bill Overview page. Click Export Bill. In the dialog box, set Export Type to Product Consumption Summary - CSV and click OK.
Method 1 allows you to select the account scope, and the exported report will include account information.
Method 2: Download a monthly bill summarized by product (without account information).
Log on to the Billing Management console and go to the Bills > Bill Overview page. Group the data By Product and click the 
icon in the upper-right corner of the summary table.
With Method 2, the downloaded summary table reflects the Enterprise/Organization/Account scope already set on the Bill Overview page. The exported report will not include account information.
After exporting, go to the Export History page to download the product consumption summary or the monthly bill summarized by product.
Discount and deduction rules
Payment deduction order for subscription orders
Deduction rules vary by order type and payment method:
For manual orders placed in the console (deductions are applied in this order):
Contract/Promotional discounts: Applied automatically by the system.
Coupons: You can select a coupon during checkout if it meets the usage conditions.
Prepaid cards: You can choose to pay with a prepaid card if it meets the usage conditions.
Account balance: You can manually choose to pay with your account balance.
Credit limit: You can manually choose to pay with your credit limit if it meets the usage conditions.
Third-party payment: You can manually select a payment method such as Alipay, personal/corporate online banking, or UnionPay.
For automatic renewals (deductions are applied in this order):
Contract/Promotional discounts: Applied automatically.
Coupons: The system automatically applies the best available coupon.
Prepaid cards: The system automatically applies an eligible prepaid card.
Account balance: Deducted automatically.
Credit limit: Deducted automatically if eligible.
For orders placed via OpenAPI (deductions are applied in this order):
Contract/Promotional discounts: Applied automatically.
Coupons: The system automatically applies the best available coupon.
Prepaid cards: The system automatically applies an eligible prepaid card.
Account balance: Deducted automatically.
Credit limit: Deducted automatically if eligible.
Payment deduction order for pay-as-you-go bills
For pay-as-you-go resources, deductions are applied in the following order during billing and payment:
Resource plans/reserved instance vouchers: Resource usage is deducted first. Any remaining usage is billed. (The product must support these plans.)
Contract/Promotional discounts: Applied automatically.
Savings Plans: After billing, the system automatically applies Savings Plan deductions. (The product must support Savings Plans.)
Coupons: The system automatically applies the best available coupon.
Prepaid cards: The system automatically applies an eligible prepaid card.
Account balance: Deducted automatically.
Check for applied discounts
You can check if discounts were applied by logging on to the Billing Management console.
On the Bill Overview page, select the By Promotion Status tab to see which bills received a discount. Click Details on the right to view the bill details for both discounted and non-discounted items, including the reason why a discount was not applied.
Why discount details are empty
When you view the details of a discounted bill, you may see that the discount amount is greater than zero, but the discount ID, content, and condition fields are empty. This can happen for the following reasons:
The bill line item did not qualify for a key account discount or an official promotion, but it was covered by a Savings Plan. Currently, Savings Plan deductions are also included in the discount amount.
For certain cloud products such as Web Hosting, SMS, Voice Service, Phone Number Privacy, Phone Number Verification, Number Encyclopedia, Intelligent Contact Center, and 5G Interconnection Platform, the discount ID and content information are not currently displayed.
Investigating charges
Post-paid bills with subscription resources
If you purchased subscription resources but still receive bills, investigate these possible reasons:
Some services associated with subscription-based cloud resources are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. For example, if you purchase a subscription ECS instance and use services that are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis, such as snapshot capacity or pay-by-traffic public bandwidth, you will still receive pay-as-you-go bills for snapshots and data transfer. You can log on to the Billing Management > Billing > Bills > Bill Details page, set the Statistic filter to Billable Item, and the Billing Cycle filter to Details to query the cloud resources and their billable items that generated the bills.
Your subscription resource has auto-renewal enabled, which generates a renewal bill. You can log on to the Billing Management console and go to Orders > Renewal to check which resources are set to auto-renew.
Bills not offset by resource plans
If you purchased a resource plan but your bill has not been offset, it may be for one of the following reasons. You can investigate based on these points:
The purchased resource plan does not cover the charges generated by your pay-as-you-go services. You can find your purchased resource plan on the Alibaba Cloud website to learn more about its deduction rules.
Your usage of pay-as-you-go services has exceeded the amount covered by your resource plan. You can log on to the Billing Management console and go to Account > Resource Plans to view the usage details of your resource plan.
Charges after deleting resources
If you are still being charged after deleting or releasing cloud resources, it may be for one of the following reasons. You can investigate based on these points:
When you delete a cloud resource, its associated resources might not have been deleted or released. For example, if you delete an ECS instance but do not delete its snapshots, the snapshots will continue to incur charges. You can check the current status of your resources in the respective product console.
The resource was not successfully deleted or released. You can verify the current status of the resource in its product console.
In the pay-as-you-go billing method, you are billed for cloud services after you use them. Alibaba Cloud calculates your usage based on the billing cycle of your cloud resources and then generates a bill. Because there is a delay between resource consumption and bill generation, you may receive a bill for a resource's usage after you have already released that resource. You can log on to the Billing Management console > Bills > Bill Details, set the Item filter to Billable Item and the Billing Cycle filter to Details to find the charged resource. Then, check the consumption time in the query results to verify that the usage occurred before you released the resource.
Although you deleted your resources, you may have purchased commitment-based plans (like a Savings Plan or reserved instance voucher) with a partial or zero upfront payment. These plans generate hourly bills and charges after they become active. Log on to the Billing Management console and go to Bills > Bill Overview. In the summary report by product, check if the product with the overdue amount is a commitment-based plan.
Overdue status with a positive balance
An overdue amount consists of two parts: "unsettled for the current month" and "historically unsettled". Unsettled for the current month refers to charges incurred but not yet billed. Historically unsettled refers to the sum of all unpaid bills from previous months.
Your account can show an overdue balance despite having a positive cash balance for the following reasons:
Insufficient available credit: Your available credit is the amount you can currently spend. It is calculated as:
Available Credit=Cash Balance+Credit Limit+Credit Refunds-Unsettled for Current Month-Historically Unsettled. Your account is considered overdue if your available credit is less than zero.Credit control scenarios: For customers on a monthly settlement plan with a credit limit, some charges that are billed mid-month are deferred for settlement until all bills for the month are generated. Although your account may have a positive cash balance during the month, these charges will still appear as "unsettled".
Auto Bill Settlement is disabled: If the Auto Bill Settlement feature is turned off for your account, your balance will not be used to automatically pay your bills.
NoteAuto Bill Settlement may be disabled in the following scenarios:
A credit-based customer disables the Auto Bill Settlement toggle in the Billing Management console (for non-credit customers, this is enabled by default and cannot be disabled).
A service manager or other representative disables it through the backend.
Unified settlement is enabled, which automatically disables auto-settlement.
When Auto Bill Settlement is disabled, you must create a custom bill settlement to pay specific bills. For more information, see Unified Settlement.
Service duration mismatch in monthly bills
To check the service duration accurately, use the Billable Item + Details view.
Example:
In the December 2021 billing cycle, a subscription ECS instance was purchased for a single month, so the service duration should be 31 days or less. However, the summary report shows a service duration of 270 days. This is because the instance was upgraded and downgraded multiple times in December, generating several bill line items. The service duration for each line item ranged from 4 to 34 days. The monthly total is the sum of all these durations: 4 + 34 + 31 + 33 + 34 + 34 + 33 + 34 + 33 = 270 days.
Cannot find bills by tag or resource group
If you cannot find a bill by filtering for a resource group or tag, it may be because you configured the group or tag after the bill was generated.
For example, if you assigned a resource group or tag to an instance on November 25, 2024, but the bill for that resource was generated on November 20, 2024, the bill will not contain the new resource group or tag information. As a result, you will not be able to find the bill by filtering with the new group or tag.
Bill structure and rules
Exporting a complete list of products
No, a bill from the Billing Management console may not provide a complete list of your products. Resources that are not renewed or do not incur charges in a given month will not appear on that month's bill.
To get a complete list of all active product resources under your account, we recommend exporting the list from the Resource Center.
Amount payable higher than list price
Alibaba Cloud product pricing is precise, often extending to 6-12 decimal places. However, for settlement, charges are aggregated at the product level and rounded to two decimal places. The amount from the 3rd to 12th decimal place is dropped.
After settlement, to provide detailed billing data for reconciliation, this 2-decimal-place settled amount is allocated back down to the instance and billable item level. Because the amounts may not divide evenly during allocation, minor discrepancies can occur. Any remaining fraction is randomly assigned to a line item. This can occasionally cause the amount payable for a specific line item to appear slightly higher than its original list price after discounts.
This allocation anomaly only occurs after the final bill is settled and does not affect the total amount you pay.
Rounding adjustment allocation
Rounding adjustments are allocated automatically using your active cost center rules, just like regular consumption bills. No special action is required.
The system associates the adjustment with an instance that incurred charges that month, and then automatically assigns it to a cost center based on your rules in one of two ways:
Automatic allocation via cost center rules
If you have already set up automatic allocation rules on the Cost Center page (for example, allocation by account, product, resource group, or tag), the rounding adjustment will automatically match these rules and be assigned to the corresponding cost center.
Manual allocation to the instance's cost center
If you have manually assigned a cost center to a specific instance, the system will associate the rounding adjustment with that instance's cost center.
Order vs. bill
Orders and bills on Alibaba Cloud serve different functions:
Order: An order is a record created when you purchase or renew an Alibaba Cloud product. It contains details of a single transaction, such as the product type, configuration, price, quantity, and payment method.
A new order is generated for each purchase transaction.
Bill: A bill is a summary report of all your consumption activities over a specific period. It includes not only charges from orders but also costs from pay-as-you-go resources, applied discounts, and more.
A bill provides a comprehensive view of all charges and their details over a period, giving you a complete picture of your costs.
The 'In Progress' bill status
The Bill Overview page displays a summary of your monthly bill. The final monthly bill is generated after 12:00 (noon) on the 2nd day of the following month. Because the bill is still accumulating data mid-month, the status shows as In Progress.
Relationship between Bill Overview and Bill Details
Your bill reflects your monthly spending and resource usage details on Alibaba Cloud. It mainly consists of two parts: Bill Overview and Bill Details.
Bill Overview: This is a monthly summary of your billing data, which is used for the actual settlement with Alibaba Cloud. It includes the total monthly amount payable, the amount to be repaid, and statistical data for different accounts.
You can use the Bill Overview to make payments or request invoices. The exported PDF version includes the official Alibaba Cloud financial seal and can be used for internal expense reporting.
Bill Details: This provides a detailed breakdown of your consumption, generated based on the billing cycle of your cloud resources. It allows you to view your bill summarized by billable item or instance, and aggregated by month or day.
You can use Bill Details to verify charges, check applied discounts, and understand how your costs are calculated.
Generation and rules of rounding adjustments
Alibaba Cloud product pricing is precise, often extending to 10 decimal places. During billing, this can result in pay-as-you-go charges with high precision. For actual settlement, Alibaba Cloud aggregates these charges and rounds them, dropping the amounts from the 3rd to the 10th decimal place. This dropped amount is called a "rounding adjustment".
The rounding rule is applied after aggregating data by payer account, commodity code, and billing month.
Example: Assume the hourly price of a system disk is 0.00021000000 CNY/GB and the usage is 40 GB. The hourly amount payable would be 0.0084000000 CNY. For a 30-day month, the amount would be 0.0084000000 * 24 * 30 = 6.0480000000 CNY. After subtracting the rounding adjustment of 0.0080000000 CNY, the final amount payable to Alibaba Cloud is 6.04 CNY.
Meaning of the Order/Bill ID field
The meaning of the Order/Bill ID field in the bill details varies by scenario:
For prepaid resources, the Order/Bill ID matches the order number in My Orders.
For post-paid resources, the Order/Bill ID represents the monthly settlement bill number.
Difference between 'Day' and 'Details' views
The Billable Item + Day view provides a daily summary of your charges, aggregated by account, billing month, date, product, commodity, instance ID, and billable item. This helps you quickly understand your overall daily spending.
The Billable Item + Details view shows a record for each billing cycle of every billable item. It includes all the fields from the Billable Item + Day view, as well as information such as when the charge was incurred and whether any discounts were applied.
For more information about different bill views, see Bill Details.
Bill fields in the Billable Item + Day view:
| Bill fields in the Billable Item + Details view:
|
Monthly bill generation time
Different types of billing data are generated at different times:
Monthly Bill Overview: This is a monthly summary of your detailed consumption, used for cost checking, reconciliation, and invoicing. It is the primary document for settlement. The bill for a given month is finalized by 12:00 (noon) on the 2nd day of the following month and can be viewed on the Bill Overview page.
Bill Details: This contains the detailed billing data generated from the billing cycles of your cloud resources. The consumption details for a given month are fully recorded by 12:00 (noon) on the 2nd day of the following month, and the complete, final data is available in Bill Details by 12:00 (noon) on the 3rd day of the following month.
Change the customer name on a bill
The customer name on your bill is linked to your Alibaba Cloud account information. To change the name, you must update your account's real-name verification information. For individual accounts, see Change the verified individual of an individual account. For enterprise accounts, see Change the enterprise entity or update the enterprise name.
Cost management settings
Set a spending limit
Alibaba Cloud does not support setting a hard spending limit. However, you can use the Budgets feature to monitor costs. Set budgets and alerts to receive notifications via email, SMS, or internal message when your spending approaches or exceeds your budget. For detailed instructions, see Budgets.
Track product cost growth
Method 1: On the Bill Overview page, select a billing month and group by product to view the monthly amount payable for each product.
Method 2: On the Cost Analysis page, filter the analysis dimension by product to view the amount payable for each product in the report.
Actions after a bill is generated
The final monthly bill is generated by 12:00 (noon) on the 2nd day of the following month. This is the latest time, and some bills may be generated earlier. You can view your monthly bill information on the Bill Overview page in the Billing Management console, which includes the monthly amount payable and a breakdown of consumption by product.
For credit-based customers, you must settle the bill before the payment due date. For information on how the payment due date is calculated, see What is a payment due date?.
For non-credit customers: The bill generation date is also the payment due date. After the bill is generated, the system will automatically deduct the previous month's charges from your account balance:
Prepaid products are paid for upon placing the order.
Pay-as-you-go charges for the previous month are deducted from your account balance starting on the 1st day of the following month.