Edge Security Acceleration (ESA) uses a hybrid billing model that combines a monthly subscription with pay-as-you-go for overage. Each monthly base plan provides a fixed resource package and feature set. If your usage exceeds your plan's quota, we bill the overage based on your actual consumption.
Plan specifications
Different plans offer different features and quotas. For a detailed comparison of the plans, see Choose the right plan for you.
Plan type | Core features | Price | Accelerated data transfer quota |
Entrance |
| USD 0/month | Not applicable |
Pro |
| USD 15/month | 500 GB |
Premium |
| USD 249/month | 1,500 GB |
Enterprise |
| Contact us to customize the Enterprise plan. | |
Free data transfer
SLA guaranteedBilling rules
Billable items
Billable data transfer: The total volume of request and response traffic between clients and ESA points of presence (POP).
Includes: Traffic from HTTP/HTTPS requests and responses, WebSocket transmissions, and more.
Excludes: Malicious requests blocked by WAF, and origin traffic from POPs to your origin server.
NoteIf the origin is Alibaba Cloud OSS, OSS charges for Origin traffic.This OSS charge is waived if the OSS region and the ESA POP fetching the resource are both outside the Chinese mainland.
Unit of measurement: Data transfer is measured in decimal units (base 1000): 1 GB = 1,000 MB, 1 TB = 1,000 GB, and such.
Subscription period: A plan is valid from the day you subscribe, and the expiration date is calculated based on the subscription duration. For example, if you subscribed to a 3-month plan at 14:32:10 on June 25, 2024, the plan expires at 00:00:00 on September 26, 2024.
Plan data transfer allocation rules
After you purchase a plan, the system allocates data transfer according to the following rules:
For any partial month of service, data transfer is prorated based on the remaining hours in that calendar month.
Data transfer calculations are always rounded up.
The monthly data transfer allowance is valid for the current month only and does not roll over to the next month.
Example
User A subscribes to a 3-month Pro plan at 13:37:10 on June 26, 2024. The plan is valid until 00:00:00 on September 27, 2024. The system allocates data transfer to User A each month as follows.
Month | Remaining hours in the month | Total hours in the month | Ratio of remaining hours | Allocated data transfer for the month (GB) |
June | 11 + 4 × 24 = 107 | 30 × 24 = 720 | 14.86111111% | 75 GB |
July | 31 × 24 = 744 | 31 × 24 = 744 | 100% | 500 GB |
August | 31 × 24 = 744 | 31 × 24 = 744 | 100% | 500 GB |
September | 26 × 24 = 624 | 30 × 24 = 720 | 86.666667% | 433 GB |
Rules for overage billing
If your monthly data transfer exceeds the amount in your plan, the system automatically switches to the pay-as-you-go billing. The excess usage is billed hourly. The overage rates vary by plan as follows:
Plan type | Rate |
Entrance | None |
Pro | USD 0.03/GB |
Premium | USD 0.166/GB |
Higher-tier plans offer more features, a greater number of rules, and more capabilities. Therefore, the plans' unit price for data transfer overages is higher.
Billing examples
Example 1
Customer B needs to connect their personal website to ESA. They estimate about 2 TB of data transfer per month and require WAF protection, including custom rules, a whitelist, rate limiting, and managed rules. They have specific requirements for WAF but do not need DDoS protection. They want to enable smart routing and real-time log delivery. For these needs, we recommend the Premium plan. If the customer's actual usage for the month is 2.7 TB, the charges are calculated as follows:
Item | Usage | Quota in Premium plan | Fee description |
Data transfer | 2.7 TB | 1.5 TB | The plan includes 1.5 TB. The pay-as-you-go data transfer is 1200 GB. The monthly cost is: 249 + 1200 × 0.166 = USD 448.2. |
WAF requests | 20 million | Unlimited | Included in the plan |
Static requests | 8 million | Unlimited | Included in the plan |
Dynamic requests | 20 million | Unlimited | Included in the plan |
Pay-as-you-go for value-added services | Smart routing is a paid service billed based on the number of requests. The rate is USD 0.015 per 10,000 requests, billed daily. | ||
In summary, the customer's total monthly fee is USD 448.2 (excluding smart routing).
Example 2
Customer C runs a website with mixed dynamic and static workloads. Some services require Layer 4 acceleration. The website uses about 10 TB of data transfer per month. They need protection against large-volume DDoS attacks and want to prevent business risks like fraud and resource abuse. They also require protection against SQL injection, XSS attacks, and Webshell uploads.
An Enterprise plan is customized for this case.
Bandwidth limits
As your business grows, your domain may experience sudden bandwidth spikes. The table below shows the peak bandwidth limits for each plan:
Entrance | Pro | Premium | Enterprise | |
Peak bandwidth limit | 1 Gbps | 10 Gbps | 10 Gbps | None |
Contact your Alibaba Cloud account manager or submit an application to request a higher bandwidth limit. If your request is approved, Alibaba Cloud bills you at the newly agreed-upon rate. If your request is denied or you do not make one, Alibaba Cloud bills you at your current rate. Your ESA bill will show the final charges.