For individuals, the free trial includes up to $1,700 in credits; verified enterprises can get up to $8,500. ECS free trial packages can run up to 12 months, while other PAYG product credits typically expire after 60 days, so “worth” depends on what you activate. Practically, it’s enough to run ECS plus common building blocks like OSS and ApsaraDB long enough to validate an MVP architecture. If you’re here mainly for GenAI, Model Studio also has a separate free inference quota for Qwen models that lasts 90 days (Singapore region only).

Yes. Alibaba Cloud requires a credit card and verifies it with a small temporary hold (under $1) and a verification code.

ECS trial packages can be valid for up to 12 months, while other PAYG product credits expire after about 60 days.

Yes. If you have Alibaba Cloud credits you won’t use before they expire, you can list them on AI Credit Mart and sell them at up to 70% of face value. Companies regularly list surplus credits from startup programs and enterprise agreements.

AI Credit Mart has discounted Alibaba Cloud credits available from companies with surplus allocations. Prices are typically 30-70% below retail.

ECS trial packages won’t auto-bill after expiration, but PAYG products can start charging at standard rates if you keep using them or exceed the free credits. If you do not upgrade after the trial ends, Alibaba Cloud may delete your data.

No. Individual and Enterprise trials are mutually exclusive, so you can’t switch the same trial after signup.

No. The free inference quota for Model Studio is available only in the Singapore region, and the quota covers real-time inference only (not batch calls or context cache). Usage in the console updates hourly, which means you should leave some buffer if you’re trying to stay strictly within the free tier. Also, your Alibaba Cloud account and RAM users share the same free quota, so one noisy test script can burn it for everyone.

The core value is typically 1,000,000 tokens per available model for 90 days (Singapore region), plus 100 images for qwen-image-max and qwen-image-edit-max, and 50 seconds of video for the wan2.6 video models. Because the token quota is granted per model (and not shared), you can test several Qwen variants without them cannibalizing each other. In practical terms, that’s enough for a real prototype: chat flows, toolcalling experiments, and a decent amount of multimodal testing. The “worth” depends on which models you lean on and how output-heavy your prompts are, but it’s far more than a tiny demo tier.

No.

The free quota is typically valid for 90 days from activation for activations after September 8, 2025, and the clock starts the moment you activate Model Studio.

Yes. If you have Alibaba Cloud credits you won’t use before they expire, you can list them on AI Credit Mart and sell them at up to 70% of face value. Companies regularly list surplus credits from startup programs and enterprise agreements.

AI Credit Mart has discounted Alibaba Cloud credits available from companies with surplus allocations. Prices are typically 30-70% below retail.

Once your free quota expires or is depleted, usage can be billed at standard rates unless you enable “Free Quota Only,” which forces requests to error instead of charging you.

Singapore (International Edition) is the only region that includes the free token quota. Mainland China (Beijing) does not include it, and the US (Virginia) region is typically available without the free quota.

Yes, it’s compatible with the OpenAI SDK. You swap in Alibaba’s base URL for Singapore (https://dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1) and use your DashScope API key as the API key. There’s also a newer Responses API with a different base URL (https://dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com/api/v2/apps/protocols/compatible-mode/v1), so double-check which API style your code is using. If you already have an OpenAI-based integration, this can be a fast way to evaluate Qwen models without rewriting your whole client.

Up to $120,000 total across four tiers: $1,000 (Launcher), $20,000 (Gold), $40,000 (Platinum), and $59,000 (Diamond). The value is real because service credits apply to most core products (compute, databases, storage, networking, AI/ML), not just a narrow subset. What you can do depends on what you run, but the practical use is covering pay-as-you-go infrastructure while you build and scale. If you join via the AI Catalyst variant, you also get up to 2 billion Model Studio tokens for Qwen-series models, which can offset a lot of inference testing.

Yes. Account creation requires a payment method.

It depends on the tier and starts from redemption: Launcher lasts 3 months, Gold 6 months, Platinum 9 months, and Diamond 12 months.

Yes. If you have Alibaba Cloud credits you won’t use before they expire, you can list them on AI Credit Mart and sell them at up to 70% of face value. Companies regularly list surplus credits from startup programs and enterprise agreements.

AI Credit Mart has discounted Alibaba Cloud credits available from companies with surplus allocations. Prices are typically 30-70% below retail.

Unused credits expire per tier, and pay-as-you-go services can start billing your payment method at standard rates once the credits are exhausted. Excluded services (like domains, CDN, Marketplace, Academy courses, and prepaid products) are billed normally even before expiration, so you can still see charges. If you are not upgrading to paid plans, back up data first because resources may be deleted if you don’t move to a paid setup.

Yes. It includes the same tiered service credits, plus AI-specific perks like up to 2 billion Model Studio tokens, 1:1 AI office hours, and additional program benefits.

Not completely. The free tokens cover real-time inference only, not batch calls or context cache, and the quota is shared across the Alibaba Cloud account and its RAM sub-users.