VPC billing

Overview

Billable features: VPC peering connections, flow logs, traffic mirroring.
Public preview (free): IP Address Manager (IPAM), high-availability virtual IP addresses (HaVip).
Free features:
- VPCs, vSwitches, secondary CIDR blocks, reserved CIDR blocks
- DNS hostnames, DHCP options sets
- Route tables, prefix lists
- Shared VPCs
- ClassicLink, gateway endpoints
- IPv4 gateways, network ACLs

Creating Alibaba Cloud resources in a VPC or generating storage and data transfer traffic incurs charges. Each product has its own billing documentation.

VPC peering connections

Intra-region connections: Free regardless of account ownership.

Inter-region connections: Outbound traffic incurs data transfer fees charged by Cloud Data Transfer (CDT).

Pricing depends on source region, destination region, and link type. Choose from two service tiers:
- Platinum (99.995% SLA): Best for latency-sensitive workloads such as stock trading, voice calls, video conferencing, and real-time gaming.
- Gold (99.95% SLA): Best for workloads tolerant of variable link quality, such as data synchronization and file transfers.
Billing cycle: Hourly. Switching link types within a billing cycle applies the higher service tier price for that hour.

Pricing

Data transfer pricing is symmetric: Region A to Region B costs the same as Region B to Region A.

Gold tier

	Inbound region
Outbound region	Chinese mainland	Asia-Pacific	Europe	North America	South America	Middle East
Chinese mainland	CNY 0.48 per GB	CNY 5.6 per GB	CNY 5.6 per GB	CNY 5.6 per GB	CNY 5.6 per GB	CNY 5.6 per GB
Asia-Pacific	CNY 5.6 per GB	CNY 0.525 per GB	CNY 0.525 per GB	CNY 0.525 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB
Europe	CNY 5.6 per GB	CNY 0.525 per GB	CNY 0.131 per GB	CNY 0.35 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB
North America	CNY 5.6 per GB	CNY 0.525 per GB	CNY 0.35 per GB	CNY 0.131 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB
South America	CNY 5.6 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB
Middle East	CNY 5.6 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB	CNY 2.5 per GB

Platinum tier

	Inbound region
Outbound region	Chinese mainland	Asia-Pacific	Europe	North America	South America	Middle East
Chinese mainland	CNY 0.72 per GB	CNY 8.4 per GB	CNY 8.4 per GB	CNY 8.4 per GB	CNY 8.4 per GB	CNY 8.4 per GB
Asia-Pacific	CNY 8.4 per GB	CNY 0.788 per GB	CNY 0.788 per GB	CNY 0.788 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB
Europe	CNY 8.4 per GB	CNY 0.788 per GB	CNY 0.197 per GB	CNY 0.525 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB
North America	CNY 8.4 per GB	CNY 0.788 per GB	CNY 0.525 per GB	CNY 0.197 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB
South America	CNY 8.4 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB
Middle East	CNY 8.4 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB	CNY 3.75 per GB

Flow logs

Cost components

Flow log costs include log generation fees, Simple Log Service (SLS) fees, and NIS Traffic Analyzer processing and storage fees.

Log generation:

Billed hourly. Bills are generated 3 to 4 hours after each cycle ends (may vary).
Tiered pricing based on accumulated monthly log volume per region. Each account has a 5 GB monthly free quota per region.

Monthly usage	Price (CNY/GB)
0 TB to 10 TB (inclusive)	2.5
10 TB to 30 TB (inclusive)	1.25
30 TB to 50 TB (inclusive)	0.5
Greater than 50 TB	0.25

Simple Log Service: Charges apply after flow logs are delivered to SLS, including ingestion and storage fees.

SLS offers two billing methods: pay-by-ingested-data and pay-by-feature. Creating a flow log with a new Logstore in the VPC console defaults to pay-by-feature.
NIS Traffic Analyzer: Charges apply after delivering flow logs to NIS Traffic Analyzer, including analysis processing and storage fees.

Examples

Example 1

You enable a flow log in a region on September 1, 2022, 00:00:00. It delivers 3 GB of logs to SLS by October 1, 2022, 00:00:00.

The 5 GB monthly free quota covers log generation. You pay SLS fees only.
Example 2

You enable flow logs in China (Shanghai) on September 1, 2022, 00:00:00. 100 GB of logs are delivered to SLS by October 1, 2022, 00:00:00.

Log generation cost: (100 - 5) × CNY 2.5 = CNY 237.5. Total: CNY 237.5 + SLS fees.
Example 3

You enable flow logs in China (Beijing) on September 1, 2022, 00:00:00. 60 TB of logs are delivered to SLS by October 1, 2022, 00:00:00.
Log generation cost (tiered pricing):
- 0 to 10 TB (inclusive): (10 × 1024 - 5) × CNY 2.5 = CNY 25,587.5
- 10 TB to 30 TB (inclusive): 20 × 1024 × CNY 1.25 = CNY 25,600
- 30 TB to 50 TB (inclusive): 20 × 1024 × CNY 0.5 = CNY 10,240
- Greater than 50 TB: 10 × 1024 × CNY 0.25 = CNY 2,560
Total log generation cost: 25,587.5 + 25,600 + 10,240 + 2,560 = CNY 63,987.5. Total: CNY 63,987.5 + SLS fees.

Overdue payments

Enable low balance alerts to receive SMS or email notifications when your account balance falls below the threshold.

Overdue payments within the service suspension protection quota do not interrupt service. Instances continue running.

Service suspension protection lets you use pay-as-you-go services for a set period or quota after payments become overdue. Billing continues during protection.
Exceeding the service suspension protection quota triggers automatic suspension. Flow log operations are blocked, and billing stops.
Topping up within 7 days after suspension automatically restores service.
Failing to pay within 7 days after suspension releases flow log instances automatically. Instance configurations and data are permanently deleted.

Traffic mirroring

Cost components

Traffic mirroring cost = Instance fee + Traffic processing fee

Instance fee = Number of traffic mirror sources that have traffic mirror sessions enabled × Active duration of the traffic mirror sessions (in hours) × Unit price of instance fee (CNY/source/hour)
Traffic processing fee = Total amount of mirrored data (GB) × Unit price of traffic processing fee (CNY/GB)

Billable item	Unit price
Instance fee	0.1 CNY/unit/hour
Traffic processing fee	0.05 CNY/GB

Billing rules

Traffic processing fees: waived until March 31, 2027.
Instance fees: charged hourly per active traffic mirror source. Partial hours round up to full hours.
Multiple sessions per source: instance fee charged once. Active duration is cumulative. For example, 5 hours in session 1 + 4 hours in session 2 = 9 billable hours.

Example

Five ENIs in a VPC run traffic mirror sessions for 30 days, 24 hours/day. Total mirrored data: 20 GB.

Instance fee = 5 × 30 × 24 × 0.1 = 360 CNY
Traffic processing fee = 20 × 0.05 = 1 CNY
Total traffic mirroring fee = 360 + 1 = 361 CNY

Overdue payments

Overdue payments within the service suspension protection quota do not interrupt traffic mirroring.

Service suspension protection lets you use pay-as-you-go services for a set period or quota after payments become overdue. Billing continues during protection.
Exceeding the service suspension protection quota suspends traffic mirroring and closes active mirror sessions automatically.
Topping up within 15 days after suspension automatically restores service. Suspended mirror sessions resume.
Failing to top up within 15 days after suspension deletes mirror session instances. Instance configurations and data are permanently deleted.