Interesting...our new monthly bill is showing a strange ~$.30/day charge increase over everything else which averages out to about $9/mo. I'm looking forward to them fixing the new billing preview a bit more and will take another look.
If you are right, their solution sounds optimal. It's been my understanding that what the $9/mo was really for was the SLA, but frankly I could give a hoot about the SLA, but I need the instance scalability.
The $9, as far as I can recall, was for the three always-on instances you got. Since they're retiring those, allowing you to set your own, you can take that off the bill. It sounds to me like you can be on the free plan with enabled billing and only pay for overages.
If you are right, their solution sounds optimal. It's been my understanding that what the $9/mo was really for was the SLA, but frankly I could give a hoot about the SLA, but I need the instance scalability.