Power states and billing
Understand the states a virtual machine moves through, the power actions you can take in each, and which charges continue while it's stopped or paused.
An instance moves through states as you create, start, stop, and delete it. Its state decides which power actions you can take and whether its compute is billed. Disks, Floating IPs, monitoring, and add-ons have their own billing, which doesn't depend on the power state.
Instance statuses
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Building | The platform is creating the instance. |
| Running | The instance is powered on. |
| Stopped | The instance is shut down. Its disks and IP addresses are kept. |
| Paused | The instance is paused. Its memory is held in place, and it doesn't serve traffic. |
| Resizing and Verify resize | The instance is changing size. The platform confirms the new size automatically when the change finishes. |
| Error | The instance is in an error state, for example after a failed operation. When the provider reports a reason, the instance page shows it under What the provider reported. |
| Deleting | The platform is deleting the instance. |
The console refreshes an instance automatically while it's Building, Resizing, Verify resize, or Deleting.
The console can also show Suspended or Rescue. You can't put an instance into either state from the console.
Power actions
| Action | Available when the instance is | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Start | Stopped | The instance is powered on. |
| Stop | Running | The guest is shut down. Anything running on it is interrupted, and open connections drop. |
| Restart | Running | The guest reboots gracefully. Connections drop until it's back up. |
| Hard restart | Running | The instance is power-cycled without a guest shutdown. Unsaved data in the guest can be lost. |
| Pause | Running | The instance stops serving traffic at once. Its memory is held in place. |
| Resume | Paused | The instance continues from where it was paused. |
The instance list and the instance page ask you to confirm every power action. In the command palette, stopping, restarting, and pausing ask first; starting and resuming run at once. An instance runs one lifecycle action at a time: while a start, stop, restart, pause, resume, or resize is in progress, another one is refused with Another action is already in progress on this resource. Wait for it to finish, then try again.
For the procedures, see Start, stop, reboot, and delete a virtual machine.
How compute is billed
Compute is billed per second at the hourly rate of the instance's size:
- Creation. Billing starts when you create the instance and is recorded once the instance first runs. An instance that fails before it ever runs isn't billed.
- Running and stopped. Compute is billed while the instance is Running or Stopped. A stopped instance keeps its size's capacity reserved, so stopping it doesn't pause compute billing.
- Paused and error. Compute isn't billed while the instance is Paused or in Error. It isn't billed in the Suspended or Rescue states either.
- Resize. From the moment a resize completes, compute is billed at the new size's rate.
- Deletion. Billing ends when the deletion completes, and at most 10 minutes after you request it.
- Minimum charge. Every resource is billed for at least 60 seconds over its lifetime. The minimum applies once, from creation; stopping and starting, or pausing and resuming, doesn't apply it again.
Important
Stopping an instance doesn't stop its billing. To stop all charges for an instance, delete it, and delete what it leaves behind. See Stop all charges for an instance.
What keeps being billed
Only compute depends on the power state. The other dimensions are billed in every state, for as long as the resource exists or the option is on. An instance that never ran isn't charged for monitoring or add-ons.
| Dimension | Running | Stopped | Paused |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compute | Yes | Yes | No |
| OS disk and data disks | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Floating IP | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Monitoring, while on | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Add-ons and licenses | Yes | Yes | Yes |
- Disks are Block Storage volumes, billed per GB-month at each volume's tier rate, attached or not.
- A Floating IP is billed per hour while it's allocated, associated or not.
- Monitoring is billed per hour while it's on, when monitoring has a price in your region.
- Add-ons and licenses are billed while they're attached. Hourly items accrue per hour. Monthly and yearly items bill a full period at the start of each period, counted from when they were attached.
Stop all charges for an instance
When you delete an instance:
- Compute billing ends.
- The OS disk is deleted, unless you choose to keep it or you booted from an existing volume. A kept disk is billed until you delete it.
- Data disks are detached and kept. Delete them in Block Storage when you no longer need them.
- A Floating IP that the creation wizard allocated is released. A Floating IP that you allocated separately stays allocated and billed until you release it.
- Add-ons and licenses are detached. A monthly or yearly period that has already started is billed in full.
- Restore points and images that you captured from the instance are kept, and they're billed until you delete them. While they exist, the instance's OS disk can't be deleted. See What is Snapshots?.
For the procedure and what happens to each resource, see Delete an instance.