Help Center/ Elastic Cloud Server/ User Guide/ Instances/ Selecting an ECS Billing Mode/ Pay-per-Use Billing
Updated on 2026-05-18 GMT+08:00
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Pay-per-Use Billing

Concept

Pay-per-use billing is a postpaid billing mode in which an ECS will be billed based on usage frequency and duration. ECSs are billed by the second. The system generates a bill every hour based on the usage duration and deducts the billed amount from the account balance. A pay-per-use ECS can be provisioned and deleted at any time.

For more billing information, see Pay-per-Use Billing.

For a stopped pay-per-use ECS, the startup may fail due to insufficient resources. Start the ECS after a period of time or modify the ECS specifications and then try again.

Billing Examples

In the pay-per-use billing mode, ECSs are billed by the second. The price per second for each type of ECS can be obtained by dividing their hourly price by 3,600. Obtain the hourly price on the Product Pricing Details page.

For example, if you purchase a pay-per-use ECS priced $0.68 USD/hour, the ECS will be billed based on the usage duration by the second. The prices are examples only. The actual prices are those displayed on ECS Pricing Details.
  • If you use the ECS for 30 minutes, you need to pay $0.34 USD (0.68/3,600 × 30 × 60).
  • If you use the ECS for 1 hour and 30 minutes, you need to pay $1.02 USD (0.68/3,600 × 90 × 60).

Resources Supporting Pay-per-Use Billing

Resources billed on a pay-per-use basis include:

  • ECSs (vCPUs and memory)
  • Images, including KooGallery images as well as shared or customized images based on KooGallery images
  • EVS disks (system and data disks) purchased together with ECSs
  • Bandwidth purchased together with ECSs

    For details about ECS prices, see Price Calculator.

Parent Topic: Selecting an ECS Billing Mode