Smart Routing probes Alibaba Cloud's global edge network in real time and selects the optimal request path to reduce latency and failure rates. Combined with a high-performance protocol stack, it improves response speed and business continuity.
Use cases
Smart Routing suits latency-sensitive, globally distributed workloads:
Trading platforms -- low-latency data delivery.
Online gaming -- latency directly affects gameplay.
API services -- globally distributed clients require optimized paths.
Mixed dynamic and static content -- each request type gets an optimized path.
Cross-region and cross-carrier networks -- path quality fluctuates.
Dynamic content and API acceleration
For dynamic content such as API calls and Function Compute (FC) endpoints, Smart Routing automatically identifies dynamic resources and optimizes the return-to-origin path using intelligent routing and persistent connections. No manual cache configuration is required.
Key considerations:
Performance — Cross-region dynamic request latency can be reduced by 30%–50%. For example, requests from Singapore to Silicon Valley may drop from approximately 700 ms to around 400 ms.
Same-region access — Smart Routing does not support region-based exclusion. If the client and origin are in the same region, routing through ESA edge nodes may slightly increase latency. Enabling Smart Routing is still recommended to optimize global link quality.
Cross-border scenarios — For workloads involving traffic between mainland China and overseas regions, combining Smart Routing with Global Accelerator (GA) is recommended for best results.
Billing
Billing cycle | Price |
Daily | USD 0.015 per 10,000 requests |
Billing details
Smart Routing is billed daily. Each day's usage is settled independently—usage does not roll over to the next day or accumulate toward your subscription expiration date.
Actual charges are calculated based on daily request counts (billing item: Smartrouting_Request_Postpaid). Do not use the monthly cumulative figure to estimate your daily costs.
Enable Smart Routing
In the ESA console, select Websites, and in the Website column, click the target site.
In the left navigation pane, choose .
Turn on the Smart Routing switch.
FAQ
Q: How do I completely disable Smart Routing to avoid extra charges?
Smart Routing has two separate configuration entry points. You must disable both to stop all billing:
Global switch: Go to Traffic > Smart Routing and turn off the switch.
Domain-level rules: Go to Rules > Network Optimization Rules and check whether any rules enable Smart Routing for specific domains. Delete or disable any such rules.
If you selected API Acceleration Mode when creating your site, the system automatically creates Smart Routing rules. If you no longer need these rules, manually delete or disable them under Rules > Network Optimization.
Q: Why does Smart Routing appear enabled in Network Optimization but show as disabled in the Traffic menu?
Smart Routing has two independent configuration levels:
The switch in the Traffic menu is a global setting that applies to all domains by default.
Rules under Rules > Network Optimization are domain-level settings that apply to specific domains only.
The two levels operate independently. When a domain-level rule exists, that domain follows its own rule regardless of the global switch state. The global switch status does not reflect the effective state for domains that have domain-level rules configured.