Alibaba Cloud Model Studio Free Token Quota

Overview

Alibaba Cloud Model Studio (DashScope) grants a new-user free quota the first time Model Studio is activated in the Singapore region. Activation itself triggers the quota: there is no manual claim or purchase step. The API is OpenAI-compatible, so existing SDK code works after changing the base URL and key.

Free Tier Quotas & Limits

• Typically 1,000,000 tokens per model, valid for 90 days from whichever is later: activation, model release, or approval of a model request.
• Every model has its own allowance, and a dated snapshot counts as a separate model from the unsuffixed latest version, each with its own quota.
• The quota covers real-time inference only. Batch invocation, fine-tuning, model deployment, custom models, PAI-DSW and OSS storage/request fees are excluded.
• Usage is shared between the main Alibaba Cloud account and all RAM users; the console shows one combined total for input and output tokens.
• Alerts are sent when remaining quota drops to 20% and when it is fully exhausted. Enabling "Free Quota Only" stops service at exhaustion with the error AllocationQuota.FreeTierOnly instead of billing.
• The free quota is limited to models in the Singapore region with the service deployment scope set to International. Re-registering does not grant an additional quota.

How to Get Started

1. Create an Alibaba Cloud International account.
2. Open Model Studio in the Singapore region and accept the Terms of Service.
3. Generate a DashScope API key and call the OpenAI-compatible endpoint https://dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1.