Overview

DCS has two billing modes: yearly/monthly and pay-per-use.

Currently, the yearly/monthly billing mode is supported only in the CN-Hong Kong region.

Yearly/Monthly is a prepaid mode. You need to pay first, and will be billed for your subscription period. The longer the subscription, the bigger the discount. This mode is suitable for long-term, stable services.
Pay-per-use is a postpaid mode. You can pay after using the service, and will be billed for your usage duration. The fees are calculated in seconds and settled by hour. This mode allows you to adjust resource usage easily. You do not need to prepare resources in advance, and will not have excessive or insufficient preset resources. This mode is suitable for scenarios with traffic bursts, such as e-commerce.

Table 1 compares the two billing modes.

**Table 1** Billing modes
Billing mode	Yearly/Monthly	Pay-per-Use
Payment	Prepaid Billed by the required duration specified in your order	Postpaid Based on the usage duration of your DCS instance
Billing period	Billed by the required duration specified in your order	Calculated in seconds, settled by hour
Billing mode change	Can be changed to pay-per-use. The change takes effect only after the yearly/monthly subscription expires. From Yearly/Monthly to Pay-per-Use	Can be changed to yearly/monthly. From Pay-per-Use to Yearly/Monthly
Specification change	Supported	Supported
Scenario	Recommended when resource usage duration can be estimated. Yearly/Monthly billing is more cost-effective than pay-per-use billing.	Recommended if you want more flexibility. Suitable for scenarios where resource demands fluctuate.