Billing Modes
Last updated: 2025-11-04 08:55:52
Billing Mode Overview
Tencent Cloud provides five billing modes for CVM instances: yearly/monthly subscription, pay-as-you-go, spot instances, reserved instances, and underwriting. They are suitable for different scenarios to meet users' needs.
Differences among the five billing modes are shown in the table below:
Instance Billing Mode | Monthly Subscription | Pay-as-You-Go | Spot Instance | Reserved Instance | Underwriting |
Payment method | Prepaid | Amount freezing upon purchase, billed hourly | Amount freezing upon purchase, billed hourly | Prepaid | Prepaid |
Billing unit | USD/month | USD/second | USD/second | USD/year | USD/month |
Minimal use time | Used for at least one month | Charged by the second and billed by the hour. Purchase and release at any time. | Instances are billed by second and settled by hour and can be purchased and terminated at any time. They may also be proactively reclaimed by the system.
| One year | One year |
Changing instance configurations | The configuration can be upgraded or downgraded at any time. Up to 5 times of downgrades can be performed for each CVM instance and the upgrade can be performed for unlimited times. | No limit. Change at any time. | Not supported. | Not supported. | Not supported. |
Use case | Suitable for mature businesses with long-term and stable device demands. | Suitable for scenarios with sudden and significant device demand fluctuations, such as e-commerce flash sales. | Suitable for scenarios such as big data computing and online and website services with load balancing. | Suitable for mature businesses with long-term and stable device demands. It is a discount applied to pay-as-you-go instances, ensuring both flexibility and cost-effectiveness. | Suitable for mature businesses with predictable and stable long-term device demands. |
Conversion of billing modes | Converting to the underwriting billing mode is supported. For details, see Converting Yearly/Monthly Subscription to Underwriting. | Converting to the yearly/monthly subscription billing mode is supported. For details, see Converting Pay-as-You-Go to Yearly/Monthly Subscription. | Converting to other billing modes is not supported. | Converting to other billing modes is not supported. | Converting to other billing modes is not supported. |
Yearly/Monthly Subscription
Yearly/Monthly subscription is a prepaid mode for CVM instances, requiring prepayment for at least one month. This mode is suitable for scenarios where device demands can be estimated in advance, and it has a lower average price per hour compared to the pay-as-you-go billing mode.
Billing Rules
Yearly/Monthly subscription CVM instances use a prepaid mode: When users purchase the cloud service using a prepaid method, the system deducts the corresponding amount from the users' cloud accounts based on the selected resource hardware (including CPU, memory, and data disks) and network fees. If all resources configured for the instance are using the yearly/monthly subscription billing mode, there are no additional charges during the subscription period, and the instance is shut down automatically upon expiration.
Therefore, before purchasing a CVM instance, users can check the available balance of their account. If the balance is insufficient for system deduction, top up first before the purchase.
Pricing
Pay-as-You-Go
Pay-as-you-go is an elastic billing mode for CVM instances, where you can enable or terminate instances at any time and pay for actual usage. The billing time granularity is accurate to the second, with no advanced payment required. Fees are settled hourly at the top of the hour. This billing mode is suitable for scenarios with sudden and significant device demand fluctuations, such as e-commerce flash sales, and it generally has a higher unit price compared to yearly/monthly subscription.
Billing Rules
When you enable pay-as-you-go for a CVM instance, the hardware fees (including CPU, memory, and data disks) for one hour are frozen in advance for the CVM instance. Fees are settled at the top of the hour (UTC+8), and charging is based on the actual instance usage duration in the previous hour. The unit price for the instance is billed by hour during purchase, and fees are settled based on the actual usage in seconds and rounded to 2 decimal places. The start time of billing is the successful creation time of the instance, and the end time is the instance termination time.
Pricing
Freezing Fees
When you create a pay-as-you-go CVM instance, the system freezes the instance fees for one hour. When the configuration of a pay-as-you-go instance is adjusted, the previously frozen instance fees will be unfrozen during purchase, and fees will be frozen based on the newly configured unit price. Upon instance termination, the system will unfreeze the frozen fees.
Billing Suspension Upon Shutdown
Under qualifying conditions, pay-as-you-go instances will no longer incur charges for resources (CPU and memory) after being shut down. For details, see Explanation of Pay-as-You-Go Billing Suspension Upon Shutdown. If the conditions are not met, charges will be incurred as normal after shutdown.
Spot Instances
The spot instance is a new postpaid billing mode for CVM instances. It is similar to the pay-as-you-go mode (billed by second and settled at the top of the hour).
Pricing
The spot instance uses the market-driven fluctuating price, where prices of spot instances fluctuate based on supply and demand relationships of the market. Compared to pay-as-you-go, it provides significant discounts, and the price usually ranges from 3% to 20% of the pay-as-you-go instance price.
Proactive Reclamation
The spot instance may be proactively reclaimed by the system due to reduced resource inventory or competitive bidding from other users.
Reserved Instances
The reserved instance is a prepaid billing mode. It is not an actual physical instance, but a bill discount applied to the pay-as-you-go physical instances used by users. In essence, it is still the pay-as-you-go billing mode.
Billing Rules
Pay-as-you-go instances should fall within the normal lifecycle of reserved instances and have exactly matching attributes with the reserved instance to enjoy the bill discounts. Reserved instances provide more favorable pricing compared to the pay-as-you-go billing mode.
When the pay-as-you-go physical instances you are using have matching attributes with the reserved instances, your instances can enjoy the bill discounts. You can either purchase and enable reserved instances based on your existing resources or purchase new reserved instances directly.
Pricing
After prepayment for reserved instances, you can enjoy the corresponding specific discounts during the purchased period. Compared to the traditional yearly/monthly subscription and pay-as-you-go billing modes, the combined billing modes of reserved instances and pay-as-you-go instances ensure both flexibility and cost-effectiveness, providing you with the greatest discount.
Underwriting
Note:
Underwriting is a beta billing mode. If you want to use it, contact your business manager.
Underwriting is a prepaid billing mode for CVM instances, which is similar to yearly/monthly subscription but more long-term and stable. This mode is suitable for scenarios with long-term and stable demands, such as enterprise-level applications or large-scale projects, which require resource stability and availability.
Billing Rules
Under the underwriting billing mode, users are required to prepay the fee for one month at the time of purchase and the subscription will automatically renew monthly. The system deducts the corresponding amount from the users' cloud accounts based on the selected resource hardware (including CPU, memory, and data disks) and network fees. The deduction amount is calculated as follows: Deduction amount for purchasing CVM instances = Number of applied CVM instances x Unit price of each CVM instance.
Features
The feature of the underwriting billing mode is stability. Under this mode, users are required to lock the yearly underwriting duration, pay the fees for one month in advance, and enable automatic renewal by month. Before the underwriting mode expiration, the instance return entry is disabled. Users cannot return instances, convert to other billing modes, or change the configuration.
Was this page helpful?
You can also Contact Sales or Submit a Ticket for help.
Yes
No
Feedback