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Free Tier

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Last updated: 2026-09-07 14:31:54
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Introduction

COS provides a certain amount of free quota resource packages to all new users (that is, users who activate the COS service for the first time). These packages can be used to offset the STANDARD storage usage fees incurred by data in the STANDARD storage class. See the table below for details of the free quota resource packages.
Target Audience
Free Tier Resource Package
Validity period
New user
50GB STANDARD storage capacity package
6 months (180 days)
Note:
Storage usage is calculated in binary. For example, 1 TB = 1,024 GB.

Free Tier Scope

By region, the free quota resource packages apply only to public cloud regions and do not include financial cloud regions.
Note:
Public cloud regions include Chengdu, Chongqing, Beijing, Beijing Zone 1, Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong (China), Singapore, Seoul, Bangkok, Jakarta, Tokyo, Riyadh, Silicon Valley(US West), Virginia(US East), Frankfurt, and Sao Paulo.
Financial cloud regions include Beijing Finance, Shanghai Finance, and Shenzhen Finance.
Based on the scope of billable items that can be offset, the free quota resource packages provided by COS can only be used to offset STANDARD storage usage, as shown in the table below.
Attention:
The free quota resource packages cannot be used to offset billable items for non-STANDARD storage usage, such as STANDARD_IA storage usage, ARCHIVE storage usage, requests, and traffic. For more information about billable items, see the Billable Items documentation.
If a user account is suspended due to violations or overdue payments, the free quota resource packages can no longer be used. They can be used again only after the service is reactivated and within the validity period.
Fee Item
Metering Item
Free Tier Resource Package Available or Not
Storage Usage Fee
STANDARD storage capacity
Yes. New users can store 50 GB of data in the STANDARD storage class for free for 6 months (180 days).
MAZ_STANDARD storage capacity
No. The free tier resource pack cannot be used to offset billable items of non-STANDARD storage capacity.
STANDARD_IA storage capacity/MAZ_STANDARD_IA storage capacity
INTELLIGENT_TIERING storage capacity/MAZ_INTELLIGENT_TIERING storage capacity
ARCHIVE storage capacity/MAZ_ARCHIVE storage capacity
DEEP_ARCHIVE storage capacity
Request Fee
Number of requests
Data retrieval fees
Data retrieval volume
Traffic fees
Public network downstream traffic, CDN origin-pull traffic, cross-region replication traffic, global acceleration traffic
Management fee
Inventory feature fees, search feature fees, batch processing fees, object tag fees


Examples

Note:
For how fees are calculated after the free quota resource packages expire, see the Billing Example documentation.
The billing unit prices in the following examples are for reference only. For actual prices, see COS Product Pricing.
Assume that user Xiao Yun activated the COS service on March 10, 2019, and uploaded 50 GB of files in the STANDARD storage class to a bucket in the Beijing region on March 16, generating 100 requests. On March 20, the user downloaded 10 GB of data over the public network, generating 100 requests. Apart from these operations, no other actions were performed until the end of September. The analysis is as follows:
Date
Description
Billing unit price
Billed Usage
Cost (USD)
March 10, 2019
User Xiao Yun will receive 50 GB of STANDARD storage capacity free of charge for 6 months (180 days), with 50 GB available each month (30 days).
-
-
Free
March 17, 2019 - September 7, 2019
Starting March 17, 2019, STANDARD storage usage fees are settled daily. However, because user Xiao Yun has a free quota of 50 GB of STANDARD storage capacity from March 10, 2019 to September 5, 2019 (180 days in total), no additional fees are charged.
-
-
Free
March 17, 2019
Settle the fee for 100 STANDARD storage requests.
0.024 USD / 10,000 requests
100 times
0.024 x 100 / 10000 = 0.00024
March 21, 2019
Settle the public network downstream traffic fee for a total of 10 GB.
0.1 USD/GB
10G
0.1 x 10 = 1
March 21, 2019
Settle the fee for 100 STANDARD storage requests.
0.01 USD / 10,000 requests
100 times
0.01 x 100 / 10000 = 0.0001
September 6, 2019
Starting from September 6, 2019, user Xiao Yun no longer has a free quota. Therefore, the storage usage fees from September 6, 2019 to September 30, 2019 (25 days in total) will be billed on a pay-as-you-go basis, with fees for 50 GB of STANDARD storage capacity charged each day.
0.024 USD/GB/month
50GB
0.024 / 30 x 50 x 25 = 1

Claiming and Querying

After a user registers a Tencent Cloud account through Signing Up for a Tencent Cloud Account and activates the COS service by logging in to the COS console, the system automatically grants the free quota to the user's account.
Users can go to the console Resource Package Management > Free Quota Resource Packages page to view the arrival status, effective time, and expiration time of free quota resource packages.

Validity Period Calculation

The free quota validity period is 6 months (180 days) from the date when the user activates COS.
For example, if a user activates COS at 17:13:14 on March 10, 2019, the free quota resource package covers the STANDARD storage usage from March 10 - September 5, calculated as 6 months (180 days).

Settlement Order

Even with existing free quota resource packages, users may still incur other fees, such as request fees and traffic fees. Therefore, the system uses different settlement orders for different scenarios during bill settlement.
By default, the system settles bills using the pay-as-you-go method.
If a user already has a free quota resource package for STANDARD storage capacity and has not purchased any resource packages, the settlement order is as follows: free quota resource package > pay-as-you-go. This means the system prioritizes deducting from the free quota resource package, and the remaining usage beyond the free quota is settled using the pay-as-you-go method.
If a user already has a free quota resource package for STANDARD storage capacity and has also purchased resource packages, the settlement order during the validity period of the resource packages is as follows: free quota resource package > self-purchased resource package > pay-as-you-go. This means the system prioritizes deducting from the free quota resource package and self-purchased resource packages, and the remaining usage beyond these packages is settled using the pay-as-you-go method.

Encountering Issues?

If you have any questions about free quotas or billing, see the Billing and Metering documentation for details or contact us.

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