Yearly/Monthly Billing

Yearly/Monthly is a prepaid billing mode. If you expect to use resources for a longer period, you can save money by selecting the yearly/monthly billing mode. You can pre-purchase cloud service resources at discounted prices. This section describes the billing rules for yearly/monthly ECS resources.

Application Scenarios

If you want to ensure resource stability over a certain period of time, yearly/monthly billing is a good choice for the following types of workloads:

Long-term workloads with stable resource requirements, such as official websites, online malls, and blogs. The yearly/monthly billing provides high cost-effectiveness.
Long-term projects, such as scientific research projects and large-scale events. The yearly/monthly billing ensures stable resource supply throughout the subscription period.
Workloads with predictable traffic bursts, for example, e-commerce promotions or festivals. The yearly/monthly billing allows you to purchase resources in advance to avoid resource insufficiency in peak hours.
Workloads with high data security requirements. The yearly/monthly billing ensures that you can use resources continuously within the subscription period.

Billed Items

A yearly/monthly ECS instance consists of compute resources (vCPUs and memory), EVS disks, an image, and an EIP. You are billed for the following items on a yearly/monthly basis.

**Table 1** Items billed on a yearly/monthly basis
Billed Item	Description
Compute resources	ECS vCPUs and memory are billed on a yearly/monthly basis.
Image	If an image was created along with a yearly/monthly ECS, the image is also billed on yearly/monthly basis. NOTE: Public images are free of charge. Private images: Private images for system disks and data disks can be used for free. For full-ECS images, you will be billed for using the server backup vault of CBR. Shared images: Shared images for system disks and data disks can be used for free. For full-ECS image shared by others, you will be billed for using the server backup vault of CBR.
EVS disks	If an EVS disk (a system disk or a data disk) is created along with a yearly/monthly ECS, the EVS is also billed on a yearly/monthly basis.
EIP	In some cases, you will be billed for the EIP reservation price. If an EIP is purchased along with a yearly/monthly ECS, you will not be billed for the reservation price.
EIP bandwidth	If an EIP is purchased along with a yearly/monthly ECS and the EIP is billed by bandwidth, the bandwidth is also billed on a yearly/monthly basis.
EIP traffic	If an EIP is purchased with a yearly/monthly ECS and the EIP is billed by traffic, you are billed for the actual traffic used.

If you want to purchase a yearly/monthly ECS with a Linux image, a data disk, and an EIP that is billed by bandwidth, the prices will be displayed as follows.

Figure 1 Example prices

The prices include:

The ECS flavor (vCPUs and memory)
The EVS disks (system disks and data disks)
The EIP bandwidth

Billed Usage Period

A yearly/monthly ECS is billed for the purchased duration (UTC+08:00). The billing starts when you activated or renewed the subscription, and ends at 23:59:59 of the expiration date.

For example, if you purchased a one-month ECS instance on March 08, 2023, 15:50:04, the billed usage period is from March 08, 2023, 15:50:04 to April 08, 2023, 23:59:59.

Billing Examples

Suppose you purchased a one-month ECS subscription (c6.large.2 with a CentOS 7.9 64-bit image and a bandwidth of 6 Mbit/s) on March 08, 2023, 15:50:04, and renewed the subscription for one more month before the initial subscription expired. That would include two usage periods:

March 08, 2023, 15:50:04 to April 08, 2023, 23:59:59
April 08, 2023, 23:59:59 to May 08, 2023, 23:59:59

You are billed for both usage periods. ECS resources are billed individually as follows:

**Table 2** Formulas for billing yearly/monthly ECS resources
Resource	Formula	Unit Price
ECS (compute resources including vCPUs and memory)	Unit price of the ECS flavor x Required duration	For details, see Specification Price in ECS Pricing Details.
Images	Unit price of the image x Required duration	See the price displayed on the purchase page or the KooGallery.
EVS disks (system disks and data disks)	Unit price of an EVS disk x Required duration	See EVS Pricing Details or Disk Price in ECS Pricing Details.
EIP bandwidth	Tiered pricing based on fixed bandwidth. 0 Mbit/s to 5 Mbit/s (included): billed at a fixed unit price per Mbit/s Greater than 5 Mbit/s: billed at a different price per Mbit/s	The unit price and whether tiered pricing is used vary depending on regions. For details, see EIP Pricing Details or Bandwidth Price in ECS Pricing Details.

Figure 2 shows how the total price is calculated.

The prices in the figure are just examples. The actual prices are those displayed on ECS Pricing Details.

Figure 2 Total price for a yearly/monthly ECS

Price Change After Specification Change

If the specifications of a yearly/monthly ECS instance no longer meet your needs, you can change the specifications on the console. The system will recalculate the price and either bill or refund you the difference.

If you upgrade your ECS specifications, you need to pay the difference in price.
If you downgrade your ECS specifications, Huawei Cloud will refund you the difference.
You are not advised to downgrade your ECS to a lower specification because ECS performance may be affected.

Suppose you purchased a one-month c6 ECS (2 vCPUs and 4 GiB) on April 8, 2023 and upgraded the specifications to 2 vCPU and 8 GiB on April 18, 2023. The price for the old specification is €45.52/month, and that for the new specification is €53.4/month. The price difference will be calculated as follows:

Specification upgrade fee = New specification price × Remaining period - Old specification price × Remaining period

The remaining period is the remaining days of each calendar month divided by the maximum number of days in each calendar month. In this example, remaining period = 12 (Remaining days in April)/30 (Maximum number of days in April) + 8 (Remaining days in May)/31 (Maximum number of days in May) = 0.6581. Cost of upgrade = $53.4 USD x 0.6581 – $45.52 USD x 0.6581 = $5.19 USD

For more information, see Prices for Changing Resource Specifications.

Impact of Expiration

Figure 3 shows the statuses a yearly/monthly ECS can have throughout its lifecycle. After an ECS is purchased, it enters the validity period and runs normally during this period. If the ECS is not renewed after it expires, before being deleted, it first enters a grace period and then a retention period.

Figure 3 Lifecycle of a yearly/monthly ECS

Expiration Reminder

The system will send you a reminder (by email, SMS, or in-app message) 7 days before a yearly/monthly ECS expires to remind you to renew the subscription.

Impact of Expiration

If your yearly/monthly ECS is not renewed after it expires, it changes to the Expired state and enters a grace period. During the grace period, you can access the ECS but cannot:
- Change the ECS flavor
- Change the OS
- Expand the EVS disk capacity
- Change the bandwidth size
If the yearly/monthly ECS is not renewed after the grace period ends, its status turns to Frozen and it enters a retention period. You cannot perform any operations on the ECS while it is in the retention period.
If the yearly/monthly ECS is not renewed by the time the retention period ends, the compute resources (vCPUs and memory), EVS disks, and EIPs will be released and data cannot be restored.