Pay-per-Use Billing

Application Scenarios

Pay-per-use billing is good for short-term, bursty, or unpredictable workloads that cannot tolerate any interruptions, such as requests and data reads.

Billed Items

You are billed for the following resources on a pay-per-use basis.

**Table 1** Pay-per-use billing for storage
Billing Item		Description	Minimum Storage Duration	Minimum Eligible Size
Storage space	Standard storage	Space occupied by data in the Standard storage class (with single-AZ or multi-AZ redundancy).	N/A	64 KB
	Infrequent Access storage	Space occupied by data in the Infrequent Access storage class (with single-AZ or multi-AZ redundancy).	30 days	64 KB
	Archive storage	Space occupied by data in the Archive storage class.	90 days	64 KB
	Deep Archive storage	Space occupied by data in the Deep Archive storage class.	180 days	64 KB

Minimum storage duration: It refers to the minimum period for which storage costs apply. Even if an object is stored for a shorter time, it is still billed for the full minimum duration. For Infrequent Access objects, the minimum storage duration is 30 days. If you delete an Infrequent Access object or change its storage class before it has been stored for 30 days, you still need to pay for the full 30 days. If the object is stored for more than 30 days, you are billed for the actual number of days stored.

When an overwrite happens, OBS first deletes the original object and then stores the new object. If Infrequent Access, Deep Archive, or Archive objects are overwritten before their minimum storage duration is reached, you still need to pay for the remaining days.
Minimum eligible size: It refers to the minimum object size that is eligible for billing. For example, if the minimum eligible size is 64 KB, objects smaller than 64 KB will be billed as if they were 64 KB. Objects larger than 64 KB will be billed based on their actual size.

**Table 2** Pay-per-use billing for other items
Billing Item		Description
Requests	GET, PUT, and storage class transition requests	GET, PUT, and storage class transition requests, including PUT, POST, COPY, LIST, GET, and HEAD
Data transfer	Outbound Internet traffic	The amount of data (in the Standard storage class) transferred out of OBS over the Internet. After Deep Archive, Archive and Infrequent Access objects are restored, the outbound Internet traffic generated when you download those restored objects can only be billed on a pay-per-use basis. NOTE: Internet traffic is generated as long as data is downloaded from OBS over the Internet, regardless of whether the download is successful. The outbound Internet traffic generated when you download objects in the Infrequent Access, Deep Archive, and Archive storage class cannot be covered by outbound Internet traffic packages.
	Cross-region replication traffic	The amount of data transferred from one region to another
	CDN pull traffic	The amount of data pulled by Huawei Cloud CDN from OBS 3.0 buckets. Downloading data from OBS 2.0 buckets generates outbound Internet traffic, which can be covered by a matched outbound Internet traffic package.
Data retrievals	Restore traffic	Accessing objects in the Infrequent Access storage class will incur retrieval costs depending on the objects' size. Accessing Archive and Deep Archive objects will incur retrieval costs depending on the objects' size and restore speed (either standard or expedited). Downloading and replicating Archive objects from a bucket with direct reading enabled will generate data read traffic. You need to pay for data retrievals regardless of whether you access the objects over an intranet or the Internet. If you access the restored objects over the Internet, you will also be billed for the outbound Internet traffic generated. During the validity period, no more restore traffic costs are generated when you access the restored objects. NOTE: You can repeatedly restore Archive or Deep Archive data if you want to: Prolong the validity: If you do this, the new restore will be also billed. After a second restore, the validity period of Standard object copies will be prolonged, and you will be billed a one-time storage cost for these copies during the prolonged period. Suppose you restored an object yesterday and set its validity period to seven days. Today, at the same time, you made a second restore on the same object and set a new validity period of eight days. In this case, the final cost includes the cost for two restore operations, the cost for requests involved in both restore operations, and the cost for storing the Standard object copy over a total of nine days. Shorten the validity: If you do this, error code "409 ObjectHasAlreadyRestored" will be reported. In such case, no restoration costs or additional costs for storing Standard object copies are incurred.
Data processing	Image processing	The size of the processed image For details, see How Is Image Processing Billed?

Pricing Details

You are billed for using OBS on a pay-per-use basis by default. With this billing mode, you pay only for how long (hours) you actually use the resources. There is no minimum cost.

Billed Usage Period

The system collects usage of a previous hour (for example, 18:00–19:00) every hour and generates an SDR accordingly. An SDR generated at 19:30 usually records the cost from 18:00 to 19:00 or from 17:00 to 18:00 due to possible delays.

The minimum settlement duration is one hour regardless of when objects are uploaded. Specifically, if you uploaded an object between 18:00 and 19:00, you will be billed for its storage of a full hour (18:00 to 19:00).

Billing Formula

Cost = Used resources × Unit price

For detailed prices under pay-per-use billing, see Product Pricing Details. The Price Calculator can help you make a cost estimate for the resources you select.

If you want the price per hour, make a conversion. Taking Standard storage (single AZ) as an example, its hourly unit price is as follows: $0.0230 USD per GB-month × (1/24) × (1/30) = $0.00003194 USD per GB-hour.

Billing Examples

The prices in the following examples are for reference only. For the actual prices, see Pricing Details.

Suppose the unit price of Standard storage (single AZ) is $0.0230 USD per GB-month and there are 100,000 GB Standard objects in a single-AZ bucket. In this case, the cost for storing these objects in an hour is as follows: $0.0230 USD per GB-month × 100,000 GB × (1/24/30) months = $3.19 USD.

Impacts of Arrears

Figure 1 shows the statuses a pay-per-use OBS resource can have throughout its lifecycle.

Figure 1 Lifecycle of a pay-per-use OBS resource
Click to enlarge

Validity period: After a resource is purchased, it enters the validity period and runs normally during this period as long as your account balance is sufficient.
Grace period: If your account is insufficient to pay your amount due, your account goes into arrears, and your pay-per-use resources enter a grace period. The system then will notify the creator of the Huawei Cloud account of the arrears by email, SMS, or in-app message. You need to pay the outstanding amount as soon as possible. You can check the arrears on the Overview page in the Billing Center.
Retention period: If you do not bring your account balance current before the grace period ends, your pay-per-use resources enter a retention period and their status turns to Frozen. You cannot perform any operations on these resources.

If you do not bring your account balance current before the retention period ends, your OBS resources will be released and the data cannot be recovered.