Pay-per-Use Billing

Application Scenarios

Pay-per-use billing is good for short-term, bursty, or unpredictable workloads, such as applications for e-commerce flash sales, temporary testing, and scientific computing.

Billed Items

When using the CCE service, you can select a billing mode for items listed in Table 1 on the CCE console. The related cloud service resources automatically created on the CCE console are billed on a pay-per-use basis by default. For details, see their respective billing descriptions.

Billed Usage Period

A pay-per-use CCE resource is calculated by the second and billed every hour (GMT+08:00). Once settlement is complete, it enters a new billed usage period. The billing starts when a cluster or node is launched and ends when the cluster or node is deleted.

It takes a certain time to launch a CCE cluster or node. The billing starts from the time when the cluster or node is successfully created. You can view the time in Operation Records on the CCE console.

For example, if you purchased a pay-per-use CCE cluster at 08:45:30 and deleted it at 08:55:30, you are billed for the 600 seconds from 08:45:30 to 08:55:30.

Impact of Arrears

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

Figure 1 Lifecycle of a pay-per-use CCE resource

Arrears Reminder

You will be billed for pay-per-use resource after each billed usage period ends. If your account goes into arrears, we will notify you by email, SMS, or in-app message.

Impacts of Arrears

If there is no top-up account with sufficient balance and no other payment method configured to pay for the resource used, your account goes into arrears, and the resource enters the grace period. You are still responsible for expenditures generated during the grace period. You can view the charges on the Billing Center > Overview page and pay any past due balance as needed.

If you do not bring your account balance current before the grace period expires, the resource turns to Frozen and enters a retention period. You cannot perform any operations on a pay-per-use resource in the Frozen status.

After the retention period ends, CCE clusters and resources like nodes, EVS disks, and EIPs will be released and cannot be restored.

• Once a yearly/monthly subscription has expired or a pay-per-use resource becomes in arrears, Huawei Cloud provides a period of time during which you can renew or top up your accounts. For details, see What Is a Grace Period of Huawei Cloud? How Long Is It? What Is a Retention Period of Huawei Cloud? How Long Is It?
• For details about top-up, see Topping Up an Account.

Billing for a Hibernated Cluster

Generally, after a pay-per-use CCE cluster is hibernated:

• You will not be billed for the management of the cluster, but other cloud service resources like EVS disks and bandwidth in the cluster will still be billed in their own billing modes.
• ECSs in the cluster will not stop automatically. To stop all the nodes, select Shut down all nodes in the cluster. You can also stop a node on the ECS console. For details, see Stopping a Node. For details about the billing policies after the nodes are stopped, see Billing Policies for a Stopped Node.
• Resources on the master nodes will be released. If computing resources are insufficient, the subsequent cluster wakeup may fail.

For example, if you purchased a pay-per-use cluster with 50 worker nodes at 09:00:00 and hibernated it at 09:30:00, you are billed for the 30 minutes from 09:00:00 to 09:30:00 within the billed usage period from 09:00:00 to 10:00:00.

Billing Policies for a Stopped Node

Generally, after a pay-per-use node is stopped:

• Basic resources (vCPUs and memory) will not be billed.
• Other resources (EVS disks and bandwidth) used by the node are still charged.
• Basic resources (vCPUs and memory) will be released, so ECS startup may fail. Wait a moment and try again.
• Basic resources (vCPUs and memory) of ECSs created on a DeH or in an edge AZ will be retained.

If a local disk is attached to an ECS (such as a disk-intensive ECS or an ultra-high I/O ECS), basic resources (vCPUs, memory, and images) and other resources (EVS disks and bandwidth) are still billed after the ECS is stopped. To avoid any additional expenditures, delete the ECS and all its resources.