Edge Security Acceleration (ESA) uses a hybrid billing model that combines a monthly subscription with pay-as-you-go for overage. You subscribe to a base plan each month, which provides a fixed package of resources and features. When your usage exceeds your plan's allowance, the overage is billed based on your actual consumption.
Plan specifications
Different plans offer different features and data transfer quotas. For a detailed comparison, see Choose the right plan.
Plan type | Core features | Price | Accelerated data transfer |
Entrance |
| USD 0/month | None |
Pro |
| USD 15/month | Included: 500 GB |
Premium |
| USD 249/month | Included: 1,500 GB |
Enterprise |
| Contact us to customize an Enterprise plan. | |
Billing rules
Billable items
Billable data transfer: The total data from requests and responses exchanged between clients and Edge Security Acceleration (ESA) points of presence (POPs).
Includes: Traffic from HTTP/HTTPS requests and responses, and WebSocket transmissions.
Excludes: Traffic from malicious requests blocked by WAF and origin traffic from POPs to your origin server.
NoteWhen your origin server is Alibaba Cloud OSS, OSS bills for outbound origin traffic. This charge does not apply if both the Alibaba Cloud OSS bucket and the requesting ESA point of presence (POP) are outside the Chinese mainland.
Unit of measurement: Data transfer is measured in decimal (base 1000) units: 1 GB = 1,000 MB, 1 TB = 1,000 GB, and so on.
Subscription period: A plan is active from the day you subscribe and expires based on its duration. For example, if you subscribe to a 3-month plan at 14:32:10 on June 25, 2024, the plan expires at 00:00:00 on September 26, 2024.
Data transfer allocation rules
After you purchase a plan, data transfer is allocated according to the following rules:
For any partial month, your data transfer is prorated based on the remaining hours in that calendar month.
Data transfer calculations are always rounded up.
Your monthly data transfer allowance is valid for the current month only and does not roll over to the next month.
Allocation example
A user 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 the user each month as follows:
Month | Remaining hours | Total hours | Usage ratio | Allocated data (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 |
Overage billing rules
If your monthly data transfer exceeds your plan's quota, you are automatically billed for the overage on a pay-as-you-go basis. The overage is billed hourly. Overage rates vary by plan:
Plan type | Overage rate |
Entrance | None |
Pro | USD 0.03/GB |
Premium | USD 0.166/GB |
Higher-tier plans include more features, a greater number of rules, and more powerful capabilities. Therefore, the per-unit price for data transfer overages on these plans is higher.
Billing examples
Example 1
Customer B wants to use the ESA service for their personal website. They estimate about 2 TB of data transfer per month. They require comprehensive WAF protection, including custom rules, whitelists, rate limiting, and managed rules. DDoS protection is not a concern, but they want to enable smart routing and real-time log delivery. We recommend the Premium Edition plan for these needs. If the customer's actual usage for the month is 2.7 TB, the fees are calculated as follows:
Item | Usage | Included | Fee description |
Data transfer | 2.7 TB | 1.5 TB | The plan includes 1.5 TB. The overage is 1,200 GB. Monthly cost: 249 + (1,200 * 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 by the number of requests. The rate is USD 0.015 per 10,000 requests, billed daily. | ||
Therefore, the customer's total monthly fee is USD 448.2 (excluding smart routing).
Example 2
Customer C runs a website with a mix of dynamic and static content. Some services require Layer 4 acceleration. The website uses about 10 TB of data transfer per month. They require protection against large-volume DDoS attacks, business risks such as fraudulent activities and resource abuse, and common web threats like SQL injection, XSS attacks, and webshell uploads.
For this use case, a customized Enterprise Edition plan is recommended. Please contact us for details.
Bandwidth limits
Your site may experience sudden bandwidth spikes as your business grows. The following tables show the peak bandwidth limit for each plan.
Limit item | Pro | Premium | Enterprise |
Peak bandwidth | 10 Gbps | 10 Gbps | Unlimited |
To request a higher burst bandwidth quota, contact your Alibaba Cloud account manager or inquire through other Alibaba Cloud channels and submit an application. 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, you are billed at your current rate. Your final charges are subject to the ESA bill.