Alibaba Cloud (Simple Application Server, international site)
- Free allowance
- No free tier on the international site; the smallest Linux plan is USD 3.5 per month for 1 CPU, 0.5 GB RAM, 20 GB SSD
- Verdict
- ★ qualifiesusable as stated; the read path was probed
- Cost
- USD 4.5/monthparsed from the record, in USD
- Identity
- cardcard required, phone required
- Binding limit
- per-ip-shapinglimited peak bandwidth 4 Mbit/s
- Evidence
- documented9 sources; a first-party page was read and the sentence quoted
- Freshness
- stale on 2026-12-03checked 2026-11-02 (live); stale on 2026-12-03
| Free tier | no free tier on the international site; the smallest Linux plan is USD 3.5 per month for 1 CPU, 0.5 GB RAM, 20 GB SSD unit none; metered on none |
|---|---|
| Price | none stated |
| Limits | |
| Binding | per-ip-shaping 4 Mbit/s is about 500 KB/s sustained, so the 1 TB quota is roughly what the port can move in a month anyway; the port is the ceiling, not the quota |
| Identity | card email plus a mobile number from outside the Chinese mainland for security verification; real-name verification is required only for resources located in the Chinese mainland or for a credit line, not for an overseas region. A card is bound at signup and 'The system may place a temporary authorization hold on your bank card (only for verification; no money is deducted)'. The payment FAQ gives the amount and the outcome: 'A USD 1.00 pre-authorization (or local currency equivalent) verifies your card', and that charge is returned, so the card is verified rather than charged. Prepaid and virtual cards fail that check on https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/user-center/support/payment-faq: 'Prepaid, gift, virtual, and UnionPay-only cards are not supported.' |
| Egress | 1 TB a month on the USD 4.5 plan, then the excess is billed pay-as-you-go by outbound GB; the page lists Japan (Tokyo) at USD 0.087 per GB free allowance: 1 TB |
| Retention | the instance and its disk persist while the subscription is paid; the plan is sold monthly or yearly prepay |
| Interface | ssh, rest root SSH; the vendor's web console; a REST API where documented |
| Tooling | any SSH client |
| Composes with | an English-language Chinese cloud with a Tokyo and Singapore region: the card gate is a real bank card because virtual cards are refused, but there is no passport and no national ID for an overseas region |
| Reliability | no reliability event recorded |
| Notes | The 4 Mbit/s port is the worst bandwidth on any qualifying row and the reason the price is low. The yearly prepay price is not on the page read, so the annual figure is unverified. Whether a debit card passes the 'physical bank card' test is not stated. |
| Evidence note | documented price table and the card and identity rules are from first-party Alibaba pages read |
| Parsed numbers |
|
Evidence 9
| date | source | what it proved |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-24 | www.alibabacloud.com/en/product/swas/pricing | quoted: '| Price (monthly) | USD 3.5 per month | USD 4.5 per month | USD 9 per month |' with '| RAM | 0.5 GB | 1 GB | 2 GB |', '| SSD | 20 GB | 20 GB | 40 GB |', '| Limited peak bandwidth | 4 Mbit/s | 4 Mbit/s | 6 Mbit/s |' and '| Monthly data transfer | 1 TB | 1 TB | 1.5 TB |' |
| 2026-10-24 | www.alibabacloud.com/en/product/swas/pricing | quoted: 'if the traffic exceeds the upper limit of the package in the current month, the exceeding traffic will be charged at the Pay-As-You-Go rate' and the Tokyo excess rate 'Japan(Tokyo) | USD 0.087 per GB' |
| 2026-10-24 | www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/account/aliyun-vs-alibaba-cloud | quoted: 'Requires an email address for registration, plus a mobile number from outside the Chinese mainland (including Hong Kong (China), Macao (China), and Taiwan (China)) for security verification.' and 'Real-name verification ... Required in specific scenarios ... to purchase or use cloud resources located in the Chinese mainland, or to apply for a credit line.' |
| 2026-10-24 | www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/account/step-1-register-an-alib | quoted: 'The system may place a temporary authorization hold on your bank card (only for verification; no money is deducted).' and 'the system does not support using virtual credit cards for payment verification or card binding' |
| 2026-11-02 | www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/user-center/support/payment-faq | the card gate is a USD 1.00 pre-authorization that verifies the card instead of charging it, and an unsupported or unfunded card fails there |
| 2026-11-02 | www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/user-center/support/payment-faq | prepaid, gift and virtual cards are refused as payment methods |
| 2026-11-02 | www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/user-center/support/payment-faq | the verification is a statement line of up to USD 1.00 that the customer re-enters, so it is a card check rather than a plan charge |
| 2026-11-02 | www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/user-center/support/payment-faq | the verification charge is refunded, so the card is verified and not charged |
| 2026-11-02 | www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/user-center/support/payment-faq | the accepted set is credit and debit bank cards, so the identity gate is still a card |
More fields 12
| shape | {"vcpu": 1,"ram_gib": 1,"disk_gib": 20,"gpu_class": null,"gpu_count": null} |
|---|---|
| billing model | monthly |
| term | monthly or yearly prepay |
| m10h usd | 4.5 |
| m24h usd | 4.5 |
| price arithmetic | USD 4.5 a month, subscription billed monthly; a VPS bills whether it runs or not, so 10 h/day costs the same 4.5 |
| renewal usd | 4.5 |
| free tier kind | none |
| network out | {"allow_outbound": true,"allow_inbound_listen": true,"ports": "all","static_ip": true,"ipv6": false,"per_session_bytes": null} |
| session cap | {"wall_clock_min": null,"idle_reap_s": null,"restart_required": false,"note": "none; it is a VPS that bills whether it runs or not"} |
| english | yes, the whole international site and console |
| payment methods | bank card and PayPal; prepaid, gift and virtual cards refused; the card is verified by a pre-authorization and the charge is returned |
Unknown values 2
- per object cap stated: the field does not apply to this kind of offer
- reliability note: nothing of this kind was observed