This topic describes why overdue payments occur when you use ApsaraVideo VOD, how to handle them, and how to view your overdue amount.
If a payment becomes overdue, your service may be suspended. The system sends alerts and notifications. Top up your account promptly to avoid service disruption. Service disruption can include the inability to use the service, the release of your buckets, and the permanent deletion of data in your buckets. This data cannot be recovered.
Handle overdue payments
When you receive an overdue payment alert or notice a service impact, use the following table to resolve the issue quickly.
Issue | Solution |
Service is suspended and videos cannot be played |
|
You received an overdue payment alert |
|
Prevent overdue payments |
|
Causes of overdue payments
An overdue payment occurs when your account balance is insufficient to cover pay-as-you-go charges:
You did not purchase any resource plans. All usage is billed on a pay-as-you-go basis.
You purchased resource plans, but your usage exceeded the quota of the plans, or you incurred charges for items not covered by the plans.
The core billing items for ApsaraVideo VOD are as follows:
Billing item | Description |
Media asset storage | Charges for storage space used by source files and transcoded files. |
Media asset transcoding | Charges for transcoding audio and video files. |
Acceleration service | Charges for outbound Internet traffic consumed when playing videos through accelerated domain names. |
Video AI | Charges for using AI features such as automated review and media fingerprint. |
Overdue payment process
Phase 1: Overdue payment alerts and service suspension protection
Overdue payment alerts
When your account has an overdue payment, the system notifies the contact person for your Alibaba Cloud account by text message, email, and internal message.
Service suspension protection
Definition: Service suspension protection is a feature that provides a grace period. If your overdue amount is within the allowed quota and time limit, your pay-as-you-go services continue to run for a short period. This gives you time to top up your account.
Check and enable: Your service suspension protection quota is automatically updated each month based on your historical usage. Log on to Expenses and Costs > Account > Account funds. In the Account settings section, you can enable and view the service suspension protection feature.
Rules: During the service suspension protection period, billing continues as normal. This quota is not the maximum overdue amount. For more information, see Service suspension protection.
Phase 2: Service stops
Trigger condition: Your ApsaraVideo VOD service is suspended when your overdue amount exceeds the available quota provided by service suspension protection.
Impact of service suspension:
Feature
Status and impact
Video upload
Stopped. Calls to upload-related APIs return errors.
Video playback
Stopped. Video playback returns failures.
Accelerated domain name
Unpublished. Domain name resolution pauses, making the service unavailable.
VOD bucket ACL
Changes to Private. After service resumes, manually change it back to Public-read.
ImportantAfter the service is suspended, files in ApsaraVideo VOD, such as source files and transcoded files, continue to incur storage fees. Your overdue amount continues to accumulate until you settle the payment or the resources are reclaimed.
Phase 3: Settle overdue payments and resume service
If you top up your account and settle the overdue amount within 15 days, your service resumes automatically, and you can use it again. The ACL of your VOD bucket remains Private. You can change it manually if needed. For details, see Manage buckets. Other configurations, such as accelerated domain names and video playback, also resume automatically.
Phase 4: Resource reclamation
If you do not settle the overdue amount within 15 days, the system considers this a voluntary termination of your ApsaraVideo VOD service. All buckets for this service are reclaimed. All data in those buckets, including source videos, transcoded files, and other assets, is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered. To avoid this risk, you must settle your overdue payments promptly.
FAQ
Why does my account keep charging after my service stopped?
Your ApsaraVideo VOD files, such as source videos and transcoded videos, continue to occupy storage space. Therefore, storage fees continue to be charged even after the service is suspended. This continues until the system automatically deletes the data after 15 days of overdue payments.
I paid my overdue amount, but my videos still do not play. Why?
After the service resumes, you must manually change the ACL back to Public-read. Otherwise, videos cannot be played.
Log on to the ApsaraVideo VOD console storage management page.
In the Actions column, click Manage next to the target storage address to open the management page.
In the Permissions section, confirm that the ACL is set to Public-read.
My data was deleted because my payment was overdue for more than 15 days. Can I recover it?
No, it cannot. Data deleted after 15 days of overdue payment is considered voluntarily abandoned and is permanently deleted.