Help Center/ Elastic Cloud Server/ User Guide (ME-Abu Dhabi Region)/ Service Overview/ Billing
Updated on 2024-06-21 GMT+08:00
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Billing

Billing Items

ECSs are billed based on ECS specifications and usage duration.

Table 1 Billing items

Billing Item

Pricing Details

ECS

Pricing is based on the ECS type, flavor (including vCPUs and memory), service duration, and the number of purchased ECSs.

For details, see the Elastic Cloud Server pricing details.

Image

Public images of the community edition, such as Linux, are free of charge. Other commercial images, such as Windows, generate costs.

EVS disk

EVS disks are mandatory. A system disk is 40 GiB by default. EVS disks can be billed on a pay-per-use basis.

EIP

A public IP address is required only if the ECS accesses the Internet. For details about pricing, see the EIP billing.

Bandwidth

An EIP can be billed by bandwidth or traffic. For further details about pricing, see bandwidth billing.

Billing Modes

An ECS can be billed on a pay-per-use or reserved instance (RI) basis.

  • Pay-per-use: The ECS will be billed based on usage frequency and duration. This mode is ideal when you want more flexibility and control on ECS usage.
  • RI billing: When the attributes of your pay-per-use ECSs match those of an RI, you can benefit from the RI billing discount.

Table 2 describes the differences between the billing modes.

Table 2 Billing modes

Billing Mode

Pay-per-Use

RI

Payment Method

Postpaid

Billed by service duration.

No upfront payment

Billing Period

Billed by the second and settled by the hour.

Billed by the purchased duration specified in the order.

Billing for Stopped ECS
  • After a common ECS (without local disks or FPGAs attached) is stopped, basic resources (vCPUs, memory, and image) are not billed. Other resources (EVS disks, EIPs, and bandwidth) associated with the ECS will continue to be billed. The vCPU and memory resources of the stopped ECS are released. When the ECS is restarted, the vCPU and memory resources must be requested again. However, if the resources are insufficient, the startup may fail. In such a case, wait several minutes before trying to restart or modify specifications of the ECS.
  • An ECS with local disks attached, an FPGA-based ECS, or a bare metal ECS will continue to generate costs even after being stopped.

Billed by the purchased duration specified in the order, regardless of whether the ECS is stopped or not.

Billing Mode Change

Can be changed to RIs.

You can purchase RIs with the same specifications as the pay-per-use ECSs to change the billing mode without affecting the created ECSs.

Can be changed to pay-per-use.

The pay-per-use billing mode takes effect only after the reservation has expired. If early termination is required, early termination fee shall be paid.

Specification Modification

Supported

Not supported

Application Scenarios

This mode is ideal when you want more flexibility and control on ECS usage.

This cost-effective mode is ideal when the duration of ECS usage is predictable. This billing mode is recommended for long-term users.

Billing Examples

In the pay-per-use billing mode, ECSs are billed by the second. The price per second of each type of ECS can be obtained by dividing their hourly price by 3600. Obtain the hourly price on the Product Pricing Details page.

For example, if the price of a pay-per-use ECS is $0.4194 USD/hour, and you purchase such an ECS, the ECS will be billed based on the service duration by second.
  • If you use the ECS for 30 minutes, you need to pay for $0.2097 USD (0.4194/3600 × 30 × 60).
  • If you use the ECS for 1 hour and 30 minutes, you need to pay for $0.6291 USD (0.4194/3600 × 90 × 60).

Configuration Changes

  • Changing the billing mode
    • Changing from pay-per-use to RI: After you purchase an RI with the same specifications as the pay-per-use ECSs, the billing mode changes to RI without affecting the created ECSs. The new billing mode takes effect in the next month.
    • Changing from RI to pay-per-use: After the billing mode of an ECS is changed from RI to pay-per-use, the new billing mode takes effect only after the reservation has expired. If early termination is required, early termination fee shall be paid.
  • Modifying ECS specifications

    The specifications of a pay-per-use ECS can be modified, for example, its vCPU and memory specifications can be modified. However, an RI does not support specifications modification.

Parent topic: Service Overview