Yearly/Monthly Billing

Application Scenarios

If you want to ensure resource stability over a certain period of time, yearly/monthly billing is a good choice. The yearly/monthly billing mode is recommended for the following workloads:

• Long-term workloads with stable resource requirements, such as official websites, online malls, and blogs.
• Long-term projects, such as scientific research projects and large-scale events.
• Workloads with predictable traffic bursts, for example, e-commerce promotions or festivals.
• Workloads with high data security requirements

Billed Items

You are billed for the following items on a yearly/monthly basis.

Billing Period

Yearly/monthly HSS is billed for the purchased duration (UTC+08:00). The billing starts when you activated or renewed the subscription (accurate to seconds), and ends at 23:59:59 of the expiry date.

For example, if you purchased a one-month HSS premium edition on March 08, 2023, 15:50:04, the billed usage period is from March 08, 2023, 15:50:04 to April 08, 2023, 23:59:59.

Billing Examples

Suppose you purchased a yearly/monthly HSS premium edition on March 08, 2023, 15:50:04, and renewed the subscription for one more month before the initial subscription expires. The following usage periods will be billed:

• March 08, 2023, 15:50:04 to April 08, 2023, 23:59:59
• April 08, 2023, 23:59:59 to May 08, 2023, 23:59:59

You will be billed for both usage periods. For details, see Table 2.

Figure 1 shows how the total price is calculated.

The prices in the figure are just examples. The actual prices are those displayed on HSS Pricing Details.

Figure 1 Total price for a yearly/monthly HSS subscription

Price Change After Specification Change

If the specifications of a yearly/monthly HSS edition no longer meet your needs, you can upgrade to a higher edition on the console. The system will recalculate the price.

If you upgrade your edition, you need to pay the difference in price.

Currently, HSS cannot be downgraded. You can unsubscribe from the current edition and then purchase a lower edition.

Suppose you purchased a one-month HSS professional edition on April 8, 2023 and upgraded it to the premium edition on April 18, 2023. The price of the old configuration is $4.5 USD/month, and that of the new configuration is $13.8 USD/month. The price difference will be calculated as follows:

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

The remaining period is the remaining days of each calendar month divided by the maximum number of days in each calendar month. In this example, Remaining period = 12 (Remaining days in April)/30 (Maximum number of days in April) + 8 (Remaining days in May)/31 (Maximum number of days in May) = 0.6581. Cost of upgrade = $13.8 USD x 0.6581 - $4.5 USD x 0.6581 = $6.1203 USD.

For more information, see Pricing of a Changed Specification.

Impacts of Expiration

Figure 2 shows the statuses a yearly/monthly HSS can go through throughout its lifecycle. After HSS is purchased, it enters the valid period and runs normally during this period. If HSS is not renewed after it expires, before being deleted, it first enters a grace period and then a retention period.

Figure 2 Lifecycle of a yearly/monthly HSS subscription

Expiration Reminder

The system will send you a reminder (by email, SMS, or in-app message) 7 days before a yearly/monthly HSS subscription expires to remind you to renew the subscription.

Impact of Expiration

If your yearly/monthly HSS subscription is not renewed after it expires, it changes to the Expired state and enters a grace period. During the grace period, you can access HSS but cannot:

• Upgrade the HSS edition

If the yearly/monthly HSS subscription is not renewed after the grace period ends, its status turns to Frozen and it enters a retention period. You cannot perform any operations on the yearly/monthly subscription while it is in the retention period.

If the yearly/monthly HSS subscription is not renewed by the time the retention period ends, HSS resources will be released and data cannot be restored.

• For details about renewal, see Overview.
• For details about the grace period, see What Is a Grace Period?
• For details about the retention period, see What Is a Retention Period?