Pay-per-Use Billing

Scenario

Pay-per-use is suitable for applications or services that cannot be interrupted when facing temporary or sudden traffic increases or unpredictable demands, such as e-commerce flash sales, testing, and scientific computing.

Billing Items

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

Billing Method

The usage of pay-per-use IoTDA resources is billed on a daily basis. If a resource is used for less than a full day, the fee is calculated based on the actual duration of usage. Billing is settled at 00:00 every day (UTC+08:00), and a new billing cycle begins thereafter. The billing starts from the time when the standard instance is successfully created and ends at the time when the instance is deleted.

Billing Examples

Assume you subscribed to a standard SU1 instance at 09:59:30 on April 18, 2023 and then deleted it at 11:45:46 on April 20, 2023.

• The first billing cycle spans from April 18, 2023, 00:00:00 to April 19, 2023, 00:00:00. Fees are incurred from April 18, 2023, 09:59:30 to April 19, 2023, 00:00:00, resulting in a billing duration of 50,400 seconds.
• The second billing cycle spans from April 19, 2023, 00:00:00 to April 20, 2023, 00:00:00. Fees are incurred throughout this period, resulting in a billing duration of 86,400 seconds.
• The third billing cycle spans from April 20, 2023, 00:00:00 to April 21, 2023, 00:00:00. Fees are incurred from April 20, 2023, 00:00:00 to April 20, 2023, 11:45:46, resulting in a billing duration of 42,346 seconds.

You need to pay for each billing cycle. Table 2 lists the billing formula. The pricing details show the daily cost of a resource, which can be converted to the cost per second by dividing the daily price by 86,400.

Impact on Billing After Specifications Change

If you change the specifications of a pay-per-use instance, the original order will become invalid and a new order will be placed. You will be billed based on the new specifications.

If you change the instance configuration within one day after the purchase, the billing cycle information is generated based on the new configuration.

For example, if you subscribed to a standard SU1 unit at 09:00:00 on April 18, 2023 and upgraded it to a SU2 unit at 09:30:00 on April 18, 2023, two billing records are generated in the billing cycle on that day.

• The first record corresponds to the period from April 18, 2023 09:00:00 to April 18, 2023 9:30:00. The instance specifications are charged based on one SU1.
• The second record corresponds to the period from April 18, 2023 09:30:00 to April 19, 2023 00:00:00. The instance specifications are billed based on one SU2 unit.

A standard instance can be configured with multiple units of the same type, for example, five SU1 units, but cannot be configured with different types of units, for example, two SU1 units and three SU2 units. You can change the number and type of units at any time. For example, you can upgrade two SU1 units to five SU1 units or two SU1 units to two SU2 units. A free SUF unit can be upgraded to an SU1, SU2, SU3, or SU4 unit. After the upgrade, the original SUF unit is no longer retained.

Impact of Arrears

Figure 1 shows the statuses a pay-per-use IoTDA instance can have throughout its lifecycle. After an IoTDA instance is purchased, it enters the valid period and runs normally during this period. If your account goes into arrears, the IoTDA instance enters a grace period and then a retention period.

Figure 1 IoTDA instance lifecycle

• The system deducts fees from your account balance for pay-per-use resources at the end of each billing cycle. When your account is in arrears, you will be notified by email, SMS, and internal message.
• Impact of arrears
  • If your account is insufficient to pay your amount, your account goes into arrears. However, your resources will not be stopped immediately; instead, they enter the grace period. You are still responsible for fees incurred during the grace period. You can view the charges on the Billing Center > Overview page and pay any past due balances as needed. Huawei Cloud will automatically deduct this amount when you top up.
  • If you do not pay the arrears within the grace period, your resources will enter the retention period and become frozen. You cannot perform any operations on the pay-per-use resources during this period.
  • If you do not bring your account balance current before the retention period ends, your resource will be released and the data cannot be restored.

NOTE:

• Both the grace period and retention period for Huawei Cloud International are 15 days.
• For details about top-up, see Top-Up and Repayment.