Alibaba Cloud Model Studio new-user free quota

This dated editorial record includes superseded conditions. Use the current facts above for eligibility and access.

Verified 2026-10-10 from scratch (the 2026-09-19 capture was not available in the repo or journal, so nothing was carried forward). AMOUNT: www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/new-free-quota (Last Updated: Sep 22, 2026; rendered HTML and .md agree) — "Each model (such as qwen-plus, qwen3.6-plus, or qwen3.6-plus-2026-04-02) has its own independent free quota (typically 1,000,000 tokens)." The model-pricing page (Last Updated: Oct 09, 2026) renders a "Free quota (Note) Valid for 90 days from the date of Model Studio activation, model release, or application approval, whichever is later" column; tallied today across all region tables: "1 million tokens" 388x, "No free quota" 109x, plus non-text units (images, seconds, characters) for media models; text-embedding-v3 shows "500,000 tokens". Singapore-table rows checked with "1 million tokens": qwen3.8-max, qwen3.8-flash, qwen-plus, qwen-flash, deepseek-v4-pro, glm-5.3. Some Singapore tables (e.g. Kimi: "kimi-k3 International $3 $15") carry no free-quota column at all, so not every model on the international site qualifies. REGION: "Only models in the Singapore region with the service deployment scope set to International are eligible for a free quota." and on model-pricing "The following models offer a free quota only in Singapore. No free quota is available in other regions." The China site (help.aliyun.com/en/model-studio/new-free-quota) runs a separate programme: "Only models in the China (Beijing) region with the service deployment scope set to China (Mainland) are eligible" with identity verification — not this offer. DRIFT: the international llms.txt index summarises the page as "(Beijing and Singapore regions only)"; the rendered page says Singapore only — publish Singapore only. VALIDITY: "The free quota is valid for 90 days"; notice page (Last Updated: Sep 28, 2026): "Starting September 8 (2025, per Alibaba's release notes), 3:00 UTC , the new user free quota validity period will be 90 days for first-time Model Studio activations (Singapore region). For users who activated the service before 03:00 UTC on September 8 , the validity period remains unchanged." The pages do not print the year; the page dates imply 2026. "Once the free quota expires, it automatically becomes invalid regardless of whether it has been fully used." CARD (ADR-0037, true via a stated prerequisite): the Model Studio page says "You must complete your account information before you can activate Model Studio" (and "Starting September 15, you must complete your account information before activating Model Studio"), linking to account.alibabacloud.com/intl/supply_userinfo. Alibaba's account doc (help/en/account/step-1-register-an-alibaba-cloud-account, Last Updated: Sep 21, 2026) defines that stage: "Complete sign-up | Mobile number, payment method, billing address, tax information (optional)"; "you must also complete security authentication and add payment information before you can ... activate the free trial of most paid services. If you skip this step ..., the system reports that your account information is incomplete"; its FAQ lists "Payment information | Payment method (such as a credit card or PayPal)". The /en/free Free Tier page, which lists Model Studio ("Free Tokens · 400+ Models"), adds in its Terms & Conditions: "During the free tier period, you must add a payment method to continue using the service for free. These payment methods include the credit card, and debit card." and "PayPal is not supported for Alibaba Cloud Free Tier ... add a credit card, debit card, or PayTM account". The Model Studio page itself never says "payment method" — the requirement comes from Alibaba's account/free-tier pages. No page says no card is needed. OVERAGE: "After the free quota is exhausted, you are automatically billed on a pay-as-you-go basis." "Worry-free mode (Free Quota Only) is disabled by default". what-is-model-studio (Last Updated: Sep 28, 2026) still has older wording ("Users who have not completed their profile cannot continue using the service after the free quota is depleted"), which matches the new-free-quota page's carve-out for users who activated before September 15; it does not conflict for new users. NOT SOURCED: any USD value of the quota; a list of exactly which models qualify (it changes with releases — the console's blue quota bar is authoritative). LEAD, not part of this record: the page mentions "OAuth authentication provides an independent free quota for model inference (2,000 calls per day)", separate from the API-key quota, with no eligibility details on that page. Claim URL modelstudio.console.alibabacloud.com/ap-southeast-1 returns HTTP 200 (console sign-in). Not yet adversarially re-read: this needs a refute pass before publication, and provider 'alibaba-cloud' needs a new provider record. ADVERSARIALLY RE-VERIFIED 2026-10-10: amount ('typically 1,000,000 tokens', per model), the Singapore/International rule, 90-day validity, real-time-inference-only scope, automatic pay-as-you-go after exhaustion, 'Free Quota Only' off by default, and the account-sharing and re-registration rules all re-found verbatim. CARD (ADR-0037 prerequisite chain, true): Model Studio requires completed account information ('You must complete your account information before you can activate Model Studio'); Alibaba's Account Center registration doc says skipping the security and payment step leaves 'your account information is incomplete', and its FAQ lists 'Payment method (such as a credit card or PayPal)' — so the copy says 'payment method', never 'credit card required'. Inconsistencies in Alibaba's own docs, logged not followed (V59): model-pricing's China (Beijing) tab shows '1 million tokens' for qwen3-vl-embedding; what-is-model-studio says 'DeepSeek is available only in the China (Beijing) region' while pricing lists deepseek-v4-pro in Singapore with a free quota; the llms.txt index says 'Beijing and Singapore'. The rendered free-quota page (Singapore only) is the source of record. The 'Starting September 15' account-information rule prints no year. Re-verified 2026-10-21 in the audit-remediation source sweep: current primary offer page and the material eligibility, validity, unit and payment evidence recorded in SOURCE-VERIFICATION.csv. Historical notes above are retained as history, not current terms. No account was created and no claim was submitted.

Dated change log and sources