# Subscription

Subscription is a billing method that allows you to use resources only after you pay for them. You must pay for subscription resources at the beginning of each subscription term before you can use them.

You don't need to manually renew subscription resources. As long as you have sufficient balance, Zenlayer will deduct the fees automatically before resources expiration for auto-renewal.

See [**Subscription Stages**](/welcome/pricing/general-lifecycle-rules/subscription-stages.md) for more information about the general lifecycle rules of subscription resources.

## Scenarios <a href="#title-mls-lcm-zcp" id="title-mls-lcm-zcp"></a>

It's recommended to choose the cost-effective subscription pricing model when:

* you have workloads with consistent resource requirements.
* you need to use resources in the mid- to long-term.

## Subscription Term

A subscription term is a billing cycle that determined by the subscription duration of resources. You can subscribe resources for 1 month, 3 months, 6 months or 1 year on zenConsole. The longer you subscribe, the more term-based discounts you have.

Your subscription resources will be auto-renewed when they expire if you have sufficient account balance; if the balance is insufficient, you need to refill your balance and go to **Billing > Subscriptions** to **Resubscribe** your resources in case of service suspension or deletion.

If you resubscribe the resources, the new subscription term starts at the end of the previous one.

{% hint style="info" %} <mark style="color:blue;">**Note**</mark>

<mark style="color:blue;">Please note that here 1 month refers to the calendar month.</mark>

<mark style="color:blue;">For example, you subscribe resources at 00:00:00 on Jan. 1st for one month, then the expiration date is 23:59:59 on Jan. 30.</mark>
{% endhint %}

## Overdue Payment

If you have overdue bills, existing subscription resources are not affected. However, you will be unable to purchase new resources and services, or upgrade your configurations.


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