Help Center> Relational Database Service> Billing> Billing Overview
Updated on 2023-09-15 GMT+08:00
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Billing Overview

In this document, you will learn about how RDS DB instances are billed, how you can renew subscriptions and manage costs, and what happens if your account goes into arrears.

  • Billing Modes

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

    • Yearly/Monthly: You pay upfront for the amount of time you expect to use the RDS DB instance for. You will need to make sure you have a top-up account with a sufficient balance or have a valid payment method configured first.
    • Pay-per-use: You can start using the RDS DB instance first and then pay as you go.

    For details about the two billing modes, see Overview.

    You can also change the billing mode later if it no longer meets your needs. For details, see Overview.

  • Billed Items

    You will be billed for instance classes, storage space, backup space, EIP bandwidths, Monitoring by Seconds (for RDS for MySQL only), database proxies (for RDS for MySQL only), images (for RDS for SQL Server only), and cross-region backup. The billed items vary depending on the DB engine. For details about the billing factors and formulas for each billed item, see Billed Items.

    For more information about the billing samples and the billing for each item, see Billing Examples.

  • Renewing Subscriptions

    If you want to continue using an RDS DB instance after it expires, you need to renew the DB instance subscription within the specified period. Otherwise, resources, such as compute and storage, will be automatically released, and data may be lost. You can renew your subscription manually or automatically. For more details, see Overview.

  • Viewing Bills

    You can choose Billing & Costs > Bills to check the RDS transactions and bills. For details, see Bills.

  • Arrears

    If there is not a sufficient account balance to pay for your bill and there is no other payment method configured, your account will go into arrears. If you want to continue using your cloud services, you will need to top up your account in a timely manner. For details, see Arrears.

  • Stopping Billing

    If you no longer need to use your cloud service, you can unsubscribe from or delete it to stop the billing. You can also stop pay-per-use DB instances to save money. For details, see Billing Termination.

  • Managing Costs

    RDS costs include resource costs and O&M costs. You can allocate, analyze, and optimize RDS costs to save more money. For details, see Cost Management.