Elastic IP Address:Billing overview - Elastic IP Address

Elastic IP Address (EIP) supports two billing methods: pay-as-you-go and subscription.

Billing methods

Billing method	Pay-as-you-go		Subscription
Billing method	Pay-as-you-go (pay-by-data-transfer)	Pay-as-you-go (pay-by-bandwidth)	Subscription (pay-by-bandwidth)
Billable item	Public network fee (data transfer fee) Scenarios where CDT is used by default for billing. Outbound data transfer (from Alibaba Cloud data centers to the internet) is billable. Inbound data transfer is free. EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) Scenarios where the EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) is waived.	Public network fee (bandwidth fee) EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) Scenarios where the EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) is waived.	Public network fee (bandwidth fee)
Billing cycle and bill generation time	The billing cycle is 1 hour. Partial hours are billed as full hours. Bills are generated within one hour of the billing cycle ending.	The billing cycle is 1 day. Bills are generated early the next day. The exact bill generation time is determined by the system.	Billing cycle: The subscription period of your order (UTC+8). The cycle starts at the exact time of creation or renewal and ends at 24:00:00 on the expiration date. Bill generation time: A bill is generated when you purchase or renew your subscription.
Use cases	Workloads with significant or unpredictable traffic spikes (common in gaming or video streaming) Temporary or sporadic resource usage Use pay-by-data-transfer when your data transfer usage is unpredictable	Workloads with stable peak traffic. Temporary or unpredictable resource usage.	Predictable resource usage periods. Workloads with stable peak traffic. Long-term resource usage. This method is more cost-effective than pay-as-you-go (pay-by-bandwidth).
Cost optimization	Upgrade to CDT for a free data transfer quota and tiered pricing. Add the EIP to a Common Bandwidth Package. Purchase a Data Transfer Plan to reduce data transfer costs.	Add the EIP to a Common Bandwidth Package.	-

Product pricing

For EIP pricing details, see the following topics:

The buy page in the console shows the final prices.

View bills and usage

View bills: Log on to the Expenses and Costs console to view your Consumption by bill.
View product-specific bills: Go to the billing details page. In the Product drop-down list, select Elastic IP Address. Select a time range to view the billing details of your EIPs.
View usage: On the Elastic IP Addresses page, find the desired EIP and click the icon in the Monitor column to view real-time bandwidth and data transfer. You can also go to the CloudMonitor console to view more detailed monitoring data.
Invoices and tax rates: You can request an invoice after you pay for an order or a bill is settled. For more information, see Obtain an invoice.

Switch billing methods

For details on the procedure and impact, see Switch the billing method for a subscription EIP and Switch the billing method for a pay-as-you-go EIP.