Yearly/Monthly Billing

Recommended Scenario

In yearly/monthly mode, you need to first pay for a certain duration. This mode is suitable for services with the following characteristics:

• Running for a long time with constant resources: For example, enterprise official websites, online malls, and blogs. Yearly/Monthly billing provides higher cost-efficiency.
• Long-term: For example, scientific research projects and large-scale events. Yearly/Monthly billing ensures stable resource supply throughout the project period.
• Predictable service peaks: For example, e-commerce promotions, festivals, and holidays. Resources insufficiency can be avoided by purchasing resources in advance for peak demands.
• High data security requirements: For services with this characteristic, yearly/monthly billing ensures continuous resource supply to prevent data security risks caused by account arrears.

Billing Period

The billing period of yearly/monthly DCS instance is determined by purchase duration (GMT+8). The billing period starts from the time you activate or renew your subscription (precise to seconds), and ends at 23:59:59 on the expiration date.

For example, if you purchased a DCS instance for one month on Mar 08, 2023, 15:50:04, the billing period is from Mar 08, 2023, 15:50:04 to Apr 08, 2023, 23:59:59.

Billing Example

Assume that you purchased a yearly/monthly DCS instance on Mar 08, 2023, 15:50:04 (basic edition | Redis 5.0 | master/standby | x86 | 2 replicas | 8 GB). Assume the subscription is for one month, and will be manually renewed for one month before it expires:

• The first billing period: Mar 08, 2023, 15:50:04–Apr 08, 2023, 23:59:59
• The second billing period: Apr 08, 2023, 23:59:59–May 08, 2023, 23:59:59

You need to pay for each billing period in advance. The billing formula is as follows: Total fee = Unit price of instance specifications x Number of billing periods. For details about the unit price of instance specifications, see DCS Pricing Details.

For example, if the monthly price of the instance is USD106.85, the total fee for the preceding two billing periods is USD106.85 x 2 = USD213.7.

The prices are for reference only. Actual prices are subject to those in DCS Pricing Details.

Impact on Billing After Specification Change

If the current resource specifications of your yearly/monthly DCS instance no longer meet your needs, you can change the specifications on the DCS instance console. The system calculates the billing change according to the following rules:

• Specification upgrade: You need to pay the price difference.
• Specification downgrade: Huawei Cloud will refund you the price difference.

You are not advised to degrade to lower specifications because DCS instance performance may be affected. Take specification upgrade as an example. Assume that you purchased a DCS instance (basic edition | Redis 5.0 | master/standby | x86 | 2 replicas | 8 GB) on April 8, 2023 for one month, but changed the specifications to basic edition | Redis 5.0 | master/standby | x86 | 2 replicas | 16 GB on April 18, 2023. The price for the old specification is USD106.85/month, and the new one is USD213.7/month. The formula is as follows:

Specification upgrade fee = New specification price × Remaining period – Old specification price × Remaining period

The remaining period in the formula is the remaining days of each calendar month divided by the maximum days of the corresponding calendar month. In this sample, the remaining period = 12/30 (the remaining days of April/maximum days of April) + 8/31 (the remaining days of May/maximum days of May) = 0.6581. Then, the upgrade fees = 213.7 x 0.6581 – 106.85 x 0.6581 = USD70.31.

For more information, see Pricing of a Changed Specification.

Impact of Expiration

Figure 1 describes the status of each stage of a yearly/monthly DCS instance. After you purchase a resource, it runs properly during the billing period, which is also called "validity period". If the resource is not renewed after expiration, it goes into the grace period and then the retention period.

Figure 1 Life cycle of a yearly/monthly DCS instance

Expiration Reminder

From the 7th day before a yearly/monthly DCS instance expires, the system will send an expiration reminder through the email address or mobile number you used to create your Huawei Cloud account or through internal messages.

Impact of Expiration

If your yearly/monthly DCS resource is not renewed after expiration, it goes into the grace period and changes to the Expired state. Within the grace period, you can access your DCS instance, but the following operations will be restricted:

• Changing specifications
• Changing the bandwidth size

If you do not renew your yearly/monthly DCS instance before the grace period ends, it goes into the retention period and its status turns to Frozen. You cannot perform any operations on your yearly/monthly DCS instance in the retention period.

If you still do not renew your yearly/monthly DCS instance before the retention period ends, the instance will be released, and the data cannot be restored.

• Both the grace and retention periods are 15 days.
• For details about renewals, see Overview.