Updated on 2023-09-27 GMT+08:00

Overview

There are yearly/monthly and pay-per-use billing modes. Each one has different advantages and disadvantages.

  • Yearly/Monthly is a prepaid billing mode. You pay in advance for a subscription term, and in exchange, you get a discounted rate. The longer the subscription term, the bigger the discount. Yearly/Monthly billing is a good option for long-term, stable services.
  • Pay-per-use is a postpaid billing mode. You pay as you go and just pay for what you use. The instance usage is calculated by the second but billed every hour. Pay-per-use billing is a good option for scenarios where there are sudden traffic bursts, such as e-commerce promotions.

Table 1 lists differences between the two billing modes.

Table 1 Differences between billing modes

Billing Mode

Yearly/Monthly

Pay-per-use

Payment

Prepaid

Billed by the subscription term you purchase

Postpaid

Billed for what you use

Billing Method

Billed by the subscription term you purchase

Calculated by the second but billed every hour

Billed Items

Instance specifications (vCPUs and memory), storage space, backup space, and EIPs

Instance specifications (vCPUs and memory), storage space, backup space, and EIPs

Changing the Billing Mode

Yearly/Monthly can be changed to pay-per-use. The change takes effect only after the yearly/monthly subscription expires. For details, see Yearly/Monthly to Pay-per-Use.

Pay-per-use can be changed to yearly/monthly. For details, see Pay-per-Use to Yearly/Monthly.

Changing the Specifications

Supported

Supported

Application Scenarios

Recommended for resources expected to be in use long term. A cost-effective option for scenarios where the resource usage duration is predictable.

Recommended when the resource demands are likely to fluctuate and you want more flexibility.