Help Center/ Object Storage Service/ Billing/ Billing Modes/ Pay-per-Use Billing
Updated on 2026-04-17 GMT+08:00
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Pay-per-Use Billing

Application Scenarios

Pay-per-use billing is good for short-term, bursty, or unpredictable workloads that cannot tolerate any interruptions, such as requests and data reads.

Billing Items

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

Table 1 Pay-per-use billing for storage

Billing Item

Description

Minimum Storage Duration

Minimum Eligible Size

Storage space

Standard storage

Space occupied by data in the Standard storage class (with single-AZ or multi-AZ storage).

N/A

64 KB

Infrequent Access storage

Space occupied by data in the Infrequent Access storage class (with single-AZ or multi-AZ redundancy).

30 days

64 KB

Archive storage

Space occupied by data in the Archive storage class.

90 days

64 KB

Deep Archive storage

Space occupied by data in the Deep Archive storage class.

180 days

64 KB
  • Minimum storage duration: During the minimum storage duration, if an object's storage class remains unchanged, you are billed for its actual storage duration. However, if the storage class is changed or the object is deleted, the minimum storage duration applies. For Infrequent Access objects, the minimum storage duration is 30 days. If you delete the object or change its storage class before it has been stored for 30 days, you must still pay for the full 30 days. If the object is stored for more than 30 days, you are billed for the actual number of days stored.

    When an overwrite happens, OBS first deletes the original object and then stores the new object. If Infrequent Access, Deep Archive, or Archive objects are overwritten before their minimum storage duration is reached, you still need to pay for the remaining days.

  • Minimum eligible size: It refers to the minimum object size that is eligible for billing. For example, if the minimum eligible size is 64 KB, objects smaller than 64 KB will be billed as if they were 64 KB. Objects larger than 64 KB will be billed based on their actual size.
Table 2 Pay-per-use billing for other items

Billing Item

Description

Requests

GET, PUT, and storage class transition requests

GET, PUT, and storage class transition requests, including PUT, POST, COPY, LIST, GET, and HEAD

Data transfer

Outbound Internet traffic

The amount of data (in the Standard storage class) transferred out of OBS over the Internet.

After Deep Archive, Archive and Infrequent Access objects are restored, the outbound Internet traffic generated when you download those restored objects can only be billed on a pay-per-use basis.

NOTE:
  • Internet traffic is generated as long as data is downloaded from OBS over the Internet, regardless of whether the download is successful or not.
  • The outbound Internet traffic generated when you download objects in the Infrequent Access, Deep Archive, and Archive storage class cannot be covered by outbound Internet traffic packages.

Cross-region replication traffic

The amount of data transferred from one region to another

CDN pull traffic

The amount of data pulled by Huawei Cloud CDN from OBS 3.0 buckets. Downloading data from OBS 2.0 buckets generates outbound Internet traffic, which can be covered by a matched outbound Internet traffic package.

Data retrievals

Restore traffic
  • The traffic generated for restoring Infrequent Access objects. It is billed based on the amount of data restored.
  • The traffic generated for restoring Archive objects. It is billed based on the amount of data restored and the restore speed (either expedited or standard). If an object is already in its restored state, making another restore will not incur any additional costs.
  • Downloading or replicating Archive objects from a bucket with direct reading enabled generates data read traffic. The traffic is billed based on the amount of data retrieved.
    CAUTION:

    The amount of data restored is determined by the range specified in the request header when the HTTP connection is established. Even if the transmission is interrupted early, the system calculates usage based on the full range defined in the original request. For example, if the request specifies a range from 50 MB to 100 MB, the system still bills you for the range of 50 MB to 100 MB, even if only one byte is actually transmitted.

You need to pay for data retrievals regardless of whether you access the objects over an intranet or the Internet. If you access the restored objects over the Internet, you will also be billed for the outbound Internet traffic generated. During the validity period, no more restore traffic costs are generated when you access the restored objects.

NOTE:

You can repeatedly restore Archive or Deep Archive data if you want to:

  • Prolong the validity: If you do this, the new restore will be also billed. After a second restore, the validity period of Standard object copies will be prolonged, and you will be billed a one-time storage cost for these copies during the prolonged period.

    Suppose you restored an object yesterday and set its validity period to seven days. Today, at the same time, you made a second restore on the same object and set a new validity period of eight days. In this case, the final cost includes the cost for two restore operations, the cost for requests involved in both restore operations, and the cost for storing the Standard object copy over a total of nine days.

  • Shorten the validity: If you do this, error code "409 ObjectHasAlreadyRestored" will be reported. In such case, no restoration costs or additional costs for storing Standard object copies are incurred.

Data processing

Image processing

The size of the processed image

For details, see How Is Image Processing Billed?

Pricing Details

You are billed for using OBS on a pay-per-use basis by default. With this billing mode, you pay only for how long (hours) you actually use the resources. There is no minimum cost.

Billed Usage Period

The system collects usage of a previous hour (for example, 18:00–19:00) every hour and generates an SDR accordingly. An SDR generated at 19:30 usually records the cost from 18:00 to 19:00 or from 17:00 to 18:00 due to possible delays.

The minimum settlement duration is one hour regardless of when objects are uploaded. Specifically, if you uploaded an object between 18:00 and 19:00, you will be billed for its storage of a full hour (18:00 to 19:00).

Billing Formula

Cost = Used resources × Unit price

For detailed prices under pay-per-use billing, see Product Pricing Details. The Price Calculator can help you make a cost estimate for the resources you select.

If you want the price per hour, make a conversion. Taking Standard storage (single AZ) as an example, its hourly unit price is as follows: $0.0230 USD per GB-month × (1/24) × (1/30) = $0.00003194 USD per GB-hour.

Billing Examples

The prices in the following examples are for reference only. For the actual prices, see Pricing Details.

Suppose the unit price of Standard storage (single AZ) is $0.0230 USD per GB-month and there are 100,000 GB Standard objects in a single-AZ bucket. In this case, the cost for storing these objects in an hour is as follows: $0.0230 USD per GB-month × 100,000 GB × (1/24/30) months = $3.19 USD.

Impacts of Arrears

Figure 1 shows the statuses a pay-per-use OBS resource can have throughout its lifecycle.

Figure 1 Lifecycle of a pay-per-use OBS resource
  • Validity period: After a resource is purchased, it enters the validity period and runs normally during this period as long as your account balance is sufficient.
  • Grace period: If your account is insufficient to pay your amount due, your account goes into arrears, and your pay-per-use resources enter a grace period. The system then will notify the creator of the Huawei Cloud account of the arrears by email, SMS, or in-app message. You need to pay the outstanding amount as soon as possible. You can check the arrears on the Overview page in the Billing Center.
  • Retention period: If you do not bring your account balance current before the grace period ends, your pay-per-use resources enter a retention period and their status turns to Frozen. You cannot perform any operations on these resources.

    If you do not bring your account balance current before the retention period ends, your OBS resources will be released and the data cannot be recovered.

Parent topic: Billing Modes