This topic describes the pay-as-you-go billing method of elastic IP addresses (EIPs). Pay-as-you-go EIPs are billed based on the data usage or bandwidth usage.

Overview

The pay-as-you-go billing method requires you to pay fees based on the usage. Pay-as-you-go EIPs support the following rules:
  • A pay-as-you-go EIP can be released at any time. After an EIP is released, the bill of the current hour or day is generated the next hour or day, and then fees are deducted from your account.
  • If an EIP is associated with an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance, you are not charged a configuration fee. However, you are charged a configuration fee when you associate an EIP with a NAT gateway, a Server Load Balancer (SLB) instance, a secondary Elastic Network Interface (ENI) instance, or a High-Availability Virtual IP Address (HAVIP).
Pay-as-you-go EIPs are billed based on the data usage or bandwidth usage. The maximum bandwidth varies based on the metering methods that are described in the following table.
Pay-by-data-transfer EIPs Pay-by-bandwidth EIPs
The maximum bandwidth is for reference only. It is not a guaranteed performance indicator of the service. In scenarios where demands exceed resources, the maximum bandwidth may be limited. The maximum bandwidth is a guaranteed performance indicator of the service. In scenarios where demands exceed resources, the maximum bandwidth is guaranteed.
The cumulative sum of the maximum bandwidth values of all pay-by-data-transfer EIPs in a single region cannot exceed 5 Gbit/s. If your business requires a higher maximum bandwidth, you must use pay-by-bandwidth EIPs instead. The cumulative sum of the maximum bandwidth values of all pay-by-bandwidth EIPs in a single region cannot exceed 50 Gbit/s. To increase the maximum bandwidth, contact your product manager.

Pay-by-data-transfer

Total fee = Configuration fee + Data usage fee. The billing cycle is one hour. That is, fees and bills are calculated and generated on an hourly basis. If you use an EIP for less than one hour, the usage duration is rounded up to one hour.

The configuration fee and data usage fee are calculated in the following ways:
  • Configuration fee = Unit price of EIP (USD/hour) × Usage duration (hours)

    Usage duration is the time period from when the EIP is created to when it is released.

  • Data usage fee = Unit price of data usage (USD/GB) × Data usage (GB)

    Data usage refers to the cumulative outbound traffic of an EIP. Inbound traffic is not charged. Outbound traffic refers to the traffic that is transmitted from the data center of Alibaba Cloud to the Internet.

Note After you change the maximum bandwidth of an EIP, the unit price of EIP and unit price of data usage remain unchanged. We recommend that you set the maximum bandwidth based on your requirements. This avoids excessive data usage fees caused by malicious requests or program errors.
EIP supports BGP (Multi-ISP) and BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro. EIPs of different line types are charged at different unit prices of EIP and different unit prices of data usage.
Note If the information in the following table is different from that displayed in the console, refer to the buy page in the console.
Table 1. Unit prices of EIP and unit prices of data usage for EIPs of BGP (Multi-ISP)
Region Unit price of EIP (USD/hour) Unit price of data usage (USD/GB)
China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Beijing), China (Zhangjiakou-Beijing Winter Olympics), China (Hohhot), China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), and China (Chengdu) 0.0031 0.125
China (Qingdao) 0.0031 0.113
China (Hong Kong) 0.0088 0.156
Singapore (Singapore) 0.0063 0.117
Japan (Tokyo) 0.0047 0.120
US (Virginia) 0.0047 0.078
US (Silicon Valley) 0.0047 0.078
Germany (Frankfurt) and UK (London) 0.006 0.070
UAE (Dubai) 0.009 0.153
Australia (Sydney) 0.006 0.130
Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) 0.003 0.125
Indonesia (Jakarta) and India (Mumbai) 0.006 0.117
Table 2. Unit prices of EIP and unit prices of data usage for EIPs of BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro
Region Unit price of EIP (USD/hour) Unit price of data usage (USD/GB)
China (Hong Kong) 0.0088 0.452

Pay-by-bandwidth

Total fee = Configuration fee + Bandwidth usage fee. The configuration fee and bandwidth usage fee are billed on an hourly basis. If you use the service for less than one hour, the usage duration is rounded up to one hour. The billing cycle is one day. Bills are generated on a daily basis.

The configuration fee and bandwidth usage fee are calculated as the following:
  • Configuration fee = Unit price of EIP (USD/day) × [Usage duration (hours)/24] (days)

    Usage duration refers to the time period from when the EIP is created to when it is released.

  • Bandwidth usage fee
    • .If 1 Mbit/s ≤ Peak bandwidth ≤ 5 Mbit/s, Bandwidth usage fee = Unit price of bandwidth usage (USD per day per Mbit/s) × [Usage duration (hours)/24] (days) × Peak bandwidth.
    • .If Peak bandwidth > 5 Mbit/s, Bandwidth usage fee = Unit price of bandwidth from 1 to 5 Mbit/s (USD per day per Mbit/s) × [Usage duration (hours)/24] (days) × 5 + Unit price of bandwidth higher than 5 Mbit/s (USD per day per Mbit/s) × [Usage duration (hours)/24] (days) × (n-5).

      In the preceding formulas, n represents the peak bandwidth value.

    The bandwidth usage fee is calculated based on a tiered pricing model with 5 Mbit/s as the base bandwidth.

    You can modify the maximum bandwidth at any time. If you increase or decrease the maximum bandwidth, the bandwidth fee is calculated based on the highest maximum bandwidth of the current day.

EIP supports BGP (Multi-ISP) and BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro. EIPs of different line types are charged at different unit prices of an EIP and unit prices of bandwidth usage.
Note If the information in the following table is different from that displayed in the console, refer to the buy page in the console.
Table 3. Unit prices of EIP for EIPs of BGP (Multi-ISP)
Region Unit price of EIP (USD/day)
China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Beijing), China (Zhangjiakou-Beijing Winter Olympics), China (Hohhot), China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), China (Chengdu), and China (Qingdao) 0.0744
China (Hong Kong) 0.2112
Singapore (Singapore) 0.1512
Japan (Tokyo), US (Virginia), and US (Silicon Valley) 0.1128
Germany (Frankfurt), UK (London), Australia (Sydney), Indonesia (Jakarta), and India (Mumbai) 0.144
Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) 0.072
Table 4. Unit prices of bandwidth usage for EIPs of BGP (Multi-ISP)
Region Bandwidth unit price (USD/day)
1 Mbps 2 Mbps 3 Mbps 4 Mbps 5 Mbps 6 Mbit/s and higher (n is the bandwidth value)
China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Beijing), China (Zhangjiakou-Beijing Winter Olympics), China (Hohhot), China (Shenzhen), China (Chengdu), Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), China (Hong Kong), Singapore, Indonesia (Jakarta), US (Virginia), US (Silicon Valley), Germany (Frankfurt), UK (London), and Australia (Sydney) 0.14 0.28 0.43 0.57 0.71 0.71+(n-5)× 0.5
China (Qingdao) 0.11 0.21 0.32 0.43 0.53 0.53+(n-5)× 0.46
Japan (Tokyo) 0.17 0.34 0.51 0.68 0.85 0.85+(n-5)× 0.57
Table 5. Unit prices of EIP and unit prices of bandwidth usage for EIPs of BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro
Region Unit price of EIP (USD/day) Unit price of bandwidth usage (USD/day)
China (Hong Kong) 0.2112 1.430

Examples

Assume that you create an EIP in the China (Hangzhou) region at 9:30 (UTC+8) and set the maximum bandwidth to 10 Mbit/s. Then, you associate the EIP with a NAT gateway and use services that incur data usage fees. You modify the maximum bandwidth twice on the same day:
  • At 17:00 (UTC+8), you change the maximum bandwidth from 10 Mbit/s to 20 Mbit/s.
  • At 23:00 (UTC+8), you change the maximum bandwidth from 20 Mbit/s to 15 Mbit/s.
The bandwidth-time graph

The following table describes how fees are calculated based on the metering method you select.

Billing method Configuration fee Data usage fee or bandwidth usage fee Total fee
Pay-by-data-transfer The configuration fee is calculated as the following:
  • Unit price of EIP: Assume that the unit price of an EIP in the China (Hangzhou) region is USD 0.003 per hour.
  • Usage duration: Assume that the EIP is used for 14.5 hours on that day. The Usage duration is rounded up to 15 hours.
  • Configuration fee = Unit price of EIP (USD per hour) × Usage duration (hours) × Number of EIPs = 0.003 (USD per hour) × 15 (hours) × 1 (the number of EIPs) = USD 0.045
Data usage fees are calculated in the following ways:
  • Unit price of data usage: Assume that the unit price of data usage in the China (Hangzhou) region is USD 0.123 per GB.
  • Data usage: Assume that data usage is 60 GB on that day.
  • Data usage fee = Unit price of data usage (USD per GB) × Data usage (GB) = 0.123 (USD per GB) × 60 (GB) = USD 7.38
Total fee = Configuration fee (USD) + Data usage fee (USD) = USD 0.045 + USD 7.38 = USD 7.425
Pay-by-bandwidth The configuration fee is calculated as the following:
  • Unit price of EIP: Assume that the unit price of an EIP in the China (Hangzhou) region is USD 0.074 per day.
  • Usage duration: Assume that the EIP is used for 14.5 hours on that day. The Usage duration is rounded up to 15 hours.
  • Configuration fee = 0.074 (USD per day)/24 (hours) × 15 (hours) × 1 (the number of EIPs) = USD 0.04625

The bandwidth usage fee is calculated as the following:

  • Maximum bandwidth: This indicates the maximum bandwidth set for the EIP on that day, which is 20 Mbit/s in this example.
  • Unit price of bandwidth usage: 0.14 (the unit price of bandwidth from 1 to 5 Mbit/s is USD 0.14 per day) × 5 + 0.5 (the unit price of bandwidth higher than 5 Mbit/s is USD 0.5 per day) × (20-5) = USD 8.2 per day
  • Usage duration: Assume that the EIP is used for 14.5 hours on that day. The Usage duration is rounded up to 15 hours.
  • Bandwidth usage fee = 8.2 (USD per day)/24 (hours) × 15 (hours) = USD 5.125
 Total fee = Configuration fee (USD) + Bandwidth usage fee (USD) = USD 0.04625 + USD 5.125 = USD 5.17125