A Savings Plan (SP) is a discount mode provided by Tencent Cloud, which can be used to offset bills of pay-as-you-go instances charged on an hourly basis. This plan allows you to get lower prices (close to the cost for monthly subscriptions) for pay-as-you-go instances in exchange for a commitment to use a consistent amount of resources every hour during a specified period (such as 1 year or 3 years), saving more cost. A combination of a savings plan and pay-as-you-go instances is more flexible in use than monthly subscriptions.
Advantages
Flexible use of resources: A savings plan can be applied to pay-as-you-go instances for flexible specification modification on pay-as-you-go instances.
Cost-effectiveness: You can get a lower pay-as-you-go price in exchange for a commitment to spend a consistent amount within 1 year or 3 years.
Flexible payment: The SP allows you to use the zero upfront, partial upfront, or all upfront mode, easing your cash flow pressure.
Large discounts: You are charged by the lowest price for bills within the hourly commitment amount. The parts exceeding the hourly commitment are still billed at the regular pay-as-you-go unit price and are invoiced separately.
How It Works
As you commit to a certain expenditure per hour, you are charged for resource usage within the hourly commitment based on the SP discount, and charged for resource usage beyond your commitment at the regular pay-as-you-go unit price. When you use a savings plan, you will be fully charged for the hourly commitment, even if the resource usage does not reach the commitment within the hour.
Example:
For example, the regular pay-as-you-go unit price for each instance is 0.4 USD/hour,the deduction coefficient of the current instance corresponding to the savings plan is 0.5, and the pay-as-you-go discount is 0.8. If you use a savings plan with an hourly commitment of 4 USD, you will be charged as follows.
Note:
When offsetting the pay-as-you-go fees of an instance, the savings plan applies a discount based on the pay-as-you-go list price and does not stack with the discount of the pay-as-you-go mode itself.
Billing Mode
First Hour (Running 30 Instances)
Second Hour (Running 20 Instances)
Third Hour (Running 10 Instances)
Total regular pay-as-you-go price without any SP
Total amount = 0.4 x 0.8 x 30 = 9.6 USD
Total amount = 0.4 x 0.8 x 20 = 6.4 USD
Total amount = 0.4 x 0.8 x 10 = 3.2 USD
Total price with a savings plan applied
0.4 x 0.5 x 30 = 6 USD > Hourly commitment of 4 USD
The hourly commitment can offset up to 20 instances (4/0.5/0.4)
After the commitment fee per hour is offset by a coefficient of 0.5, there are still 10 instances exceeding the limit that require payment. This excess usage needs to be paid at pay-as-you-go price * pay-as-you-go discount = 0.4 * 0.8 * 10 = 3.2 USD
Partially offset, total amount is 4 + 3.2 = 7.2 USD.
0.4 x 0.5 x 20 = 4 USD (hourly commitment)
Fully offset, total amount is 4 USD.
0.4 x 0.5 x 10 = 2 USD < Hourly commitment of 4 USD
At this point, the instance consumption cost is less than 4 USD,but you still need to pay the committed 4 USD.
The total amount is still 4 USD.
Application Scenarios
Business Scenario
Diagram
Suggested Billing Mode
Stable business
A savings plan is used for pay-as-you-go instances.
In stable business scenarios, all resources are managed as needed, without the need for batch maintenance.
You can adjust resources and calculate budgets at any time, without the need for capacity estimation.
Hybrid business
A savings plan is used for pay-as-you-go instances.
In hybrid business scenarios, all resources are managed as needed, without the need for batch maintenance.
You can adjust resources and calculate budgets at any time, without the need for capacity estimation.
Flexible configuration
A savings plan is used for pay-as-you-go instances.
In flexible configuration scenarios, the complex monthly subscription can be converted to the billing mode for pay-as-you-go instances with SP applied.
The unlimited specification feature of a savings plan will ease resource management.
Continuous growth
A savings plan is used for pay-as-you-go instances.
In continuous growth scenarios, SP packages can be continuously stacked to support business expansion.
Purchasing and Using the Savings Plan
Supported Cloud Products
Note:
Cloud Virtual Machine (CVM) | Cloud Virtual Machine (CVM) - Standard S5 ||; Cloud Virtual Machine (CVM) refers to the product, while Cloud Virtual Machine (CVM) - Standard S5 is a sub-product.
The all-product savings plan is available across all regions, but only supports standard availability zones in public cloud. Cloud products in dedicated zones or EC edge nodes cannot use the all-product savings plan for offset temporarily.
Cloud Block Storage (CBS) | Universal SSD Cloud Disk ||;
Cloud Block Storage (CBS) | Enhanced SSD Cloud Disk ||;
Cloud Block Storage (CBS) | ultra-fast SSD CBS ||.
None
How to Purchase a Savings Plan
You can go to Billing Center > Savings Plan page, click Purchase Savings Plans to buy a savings plan.
Note：
Due to the product characteristics, once a savings plan is purchased, it cannot be canceled or refunded.
All-Product Purchase page:
Single Product Purchase page:
Using and Managing the Savings Plan
My Savings Plan - Overview
You can go to Billing Center > Savings Plan > My Savings Plan > Overview . The overview page displays a general description of all SP packages purchased by the current customer.
Meanwhile, the Savings plan supports deduction across products. On the Overview webpage, click Set Deduction Product in the operation column to customize the product scope as needed.
Note:
Savings plan deduction products cannot have a fixed priority order. The deduction logic follows first billing, first deduction. When modifying the scope of deductible products, at least one product must be retained.
Adjusted deduction rules will take effect immediately. However, due to delayed billing, the operation may apply to your ongoing billing period bills.
For an all-product savings plan,new deductible products are set to deductible status by default here.
My Savings Plan — Usage Details
You can go to Billing Center > Savings Plan > My Savings Plan > Usage Details, Usage Details page supports viewing deduction information of the current account or shared person using the savings plan.
My Savings Plan - Utilization
You can go to Billing Center > Savings Plan > My Savings Plan > Utilization. The utilization overview displays the actual usage of all SP packages purchased by the current customer.
Note:
Accurate utilization overview data need to be queried after T+1.
My Savings Plan — Coverage
Go to Billing Center > Savings Plan > My Savings Plan > Coverage. The coverage shows the offset coverage of all savings plan packages currently purchased by the customer for pay-as-you-go instance resources that meet the deduction criteria.
Note:
Accurate coverage overview data need to be queried after T+1.
Bill Display
1. You can go to Billing Center > Viewing Bills, select Bill Details, click the top right of the list
, select Blended Discount Multiplier, SP Deduction (Cost)(USD) two fields.
The final discount rate after combining various discount deductions. Hybrid discount rate = total discounted price/original price.
SP deduction original price = SP package deduction face value/SP deduction rate. This refers to the original price of pay-as-you-go instances that can be deducted by the SP package. When fully deducted, SP deduction original price = original price.
2. After selecting the fields, you can query or download your SP billing usage details on the Bill Details page by different dimensions.
Introduction to SP-based Discounts
Selecting an Hourly Commitment
For each SP application, you must select an hourly commitment. Within the commitment, your instance consumption amount will be calculated and offset at the SP-based discounted unit price. Beyond the commitment, fees will be calculated at the regular pay-as-you-go unit price.
SP-based Billing
A savings plan supports three payment modes, including all upfront, partial upfront, and zero upfront. Based on the attributes of the purchased SP, you can receive the corresponding pay-as-you-go discount. Within the validity period, the system automatically offsets the bills of pay-as-you-go instances according to certain rules. For the 0 upfront mode, please contact a business manager to assist with enabling it.
All Upfront
Partial Upfront
Zero Upfront
Make a one-time payment for N years to offset the pay-as-you-go bills.
Total cost supported = Hourly commitment x 24 x 365 x Number of years
Supported upfront cost = Total cost
Supported hourly cost = 0 USD
Pay 50% of the total cost for N-year upfront. From the next full hour after successful payment, 50% of the hourly commitment will be offset by hour, until the SP expires.
Total cost supported = Hourly commitment x 24 x 365 x Number of years
Supported upfront cost = Total cost x 50%
Supported hourly cost = Hourly commitment x 50%
Offsets start from the next full hour after the savings plan service is successfully activated (the committed amount per hour) until the savings plan expires.
Total cost supported = Hourly commitment x 24 x 365 x Number of years
Supported upfront cost = 0 USD
Supported hourly cost = Hourly commitment
SP Types
Comparison Item
All-Product Plan
Single-Product Plan
Use across products
Support for cross-product offset
Support for no limit on the model, instance size, and operating system
Limit on specific products and product combinations
Support for no limit on the instance size and operating system
For example, Cloud Virtual Machine (CVM), support products include two major categories: package and single product:
Product package: CVM standard bundle. The large offset range supports some standard models. However, the SP actually supports offset for computing resources of fixed models, including the CPU, memory, and GPU but not the network and disk.
Single product: such as the SP supports offset of the above computing resources within standard model S1, excluding the network and disk.
Region limit
Support for cross-region offset
Limit on single regions but not availability zones
Offset rules
Generally higher offset coefficient
Deduction coefficient is normally lower than all product types，meaning discount strength is larger
Lifecycle Management
When you purchase a savings plan, the actual business offset starts immediately after the purchase.
For example, when you purchase a one-year SP, the SP will take effect (first offset time) at the next hour and expire (offset time estimated by the last post-paid) before the next hour of the next year.
When you select partial upfront or hourly payment for the SP, the first offset will occur at the next hour, and the final offset will occur at the last hour of the next year.
For example, if you purchased a one-year SP at 13:45:00 on May 29, 2020, the SP would take effect at 13:00:00 on May 29, 2020 and expire at 12:59:59 on May 29, 2021. If you already have eligible pay-as-you-go instances, the SP is applied to offset the bills of your pay-as-you-go instances generated between 13:00:00 and 14:00:00 on May 29, 2020, until the SP expires. When you select partial upfront or hourly payment, the first hourly offset would occur at 14:00:00 on May 29, 2020, and the final hourly offset would occur at 13:00:00 on May 29, 2021.
Note:
Expired SPs cannot continue to offset the bills of pay-as-you-go instances. However, the pay-as-you-go instances are not released, which ensures that your business is not interrupted. Make sure that your account balance is sufficient to ensure the service availability of your pay-as-you-go instances.
Limits
Item
Description
Quantity for each account
You can purchase up to 40 SPs for each UIN.
Order of application when multiple discount plans coexist
When multiple discount plans are effective at the same time, they are applied in the following order:
Reserved instances (RIs) (quantity offset first)
SPs (amount offset next)
Vouchers, free credit, and then cash
Whether SPs can be used with other discount modes
SPs cannot be concurrently used with billing-level discount plans (official website, user, and promotional discount plans) for pay-as-you-go instances.
To use more favorable user discount plans for SP bundles, you need to contact business personnel for a quotation.
SPs cannot be simultaneously used with finance-level discount plans.
If a finance-level discount plan is available, you cannot purchase any SPs, and vice versa.
Limit on offset for pay-as-you-go instances
SPs can be used only for pay-as-you-go instances billed hourly (excluding spot instances and instances billed daily or monthly).
Cross-account usage scenario
Support cross-account deduction via savings plan sharing.
