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Elastic IP Address:FAQ about billing

Last Updated:Feb 14, 2025

This topic provides answers to some frequently asked questions about the billing of Elastic IP Address (EIP).

Can I downgrade a subscription EIP?

You can only increase the maximum bandwidth of a subscription EIP and cannot decrease the maximum bandwidth.

To downgrade a subscription EIP, use the following methods:

Can I renew multiple subscription EIPs at a time?

Yes.

You can go to the Renewal page in the Expenses and Costs console to renew subscription EIPs.

Can I switch the billing method of a pay-as-you-go EIP to subscription?EIP

Yes.

You can switch subscription EIPs to pay-as-you-go (pay-by-data-transfer) EIPs. For more information, see Switch from subscription to pay-as-you-go (pay-by-data-transfer).

You can switch subscription EIPs to pay-as-you-go (pay-by-bandwidth) EIPs. For more information, see Switch from subscription to pay-as-you-go (pay-by-bandwidth).

If I release an EIP on the day when I switch the billing method of the EIP from subscription to pay-as-you-go (pay-by-bandwidth), how am I charged?EIP

Important
  • Pay-as-you-go (pay-by-bandwidth) EIPs can be metered on an hourly basis and billed on a daily basis. If the usage duration of an EIP is less than 1 hour, the usage duration is rounded up to 1 hour.

  • The metering methods and unit prices of the bandwidth fee varies based on the bandwidth tier (5 Mbit/s per tier) and line type, such as BGP (Multi-ISP) and (Multi-ISP) Pro.

  • Whether you are charged an EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) is determined by the type of resource associated with your EIP. Click to learn more details.

    • You are not charged an EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) in the following scenarios:

      • The EIP is associated with an elastic container instance or an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance in a virtual private cloud (VPC). The number of EIPs that your Alibaba Cloud account can own does not exceed 2,000.

      • The EIP is allocated from an IP address pool. Such as public IP addresses are billed based on the billing rules for public IP addresses. For more information, see the "Billing" section of Create and manage an IP address pool.

      • The public IP address range is brought to Alibaba Cloud by you.

    • You are charged an EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) in other scenarios.

  • Whether you are charged an EIP association fee is determined by the number of times that your EIPs are associated with resources per account per region on the day. Click to learn more details.

    • Free of charge: EIP association times ≤ five times the quota

    • Charged: EIP association times > five times the quota

      • You are charged USD 0.149 for each extra association. Association fees are calculated and bills are generated on a daily basis.

      • If the quota on EIPs is changed, EIP association fees are still charged based on the original quota on the day when the change is made. EIP association fees are charged based on the new quota starting the next day.

Example: Alice has a subscription EIP whose line type is BGP (Multi-ISP) and maximum bandwidth is 300 Mbit/s in the China (Beijing) region. The EIP is not associated with a resource. Alice switches the billing method of the EIP from subscription to pay-as-you-go (pay-by-bandwidth) at 08:15:0) on November 20, 2024. After the switch, Alice releases the EIP at 22:30:00 on November 20, 2024. In this case, Alice will receive a bill on November 21, 2024. The fee of the pay-as-you-go EIP on November 20, 2024 is calculated based on the following rules:EIPEIP

Note

The prices described in the examples are for reference only. The prices on the buy page shall prevail.

  • Billing duration of the EIP on November 20, 2024: 15 hours.

  • Bandwidth unit prices for the EIP that uses BGP (Multi-ISP) in the China (Beijing) region: USD 0.14 per Mbit/s-day between 1 and 5 Mbit/s and USD 0.5 per Mbit/s-day for bandwidth higher than 5 Mbit/s.

  • The unit price of each EIP that uses BGP (Multi-ISP) in the China (Beijing) region is USD 0.003 per hour.

  • EIP bandwidth fee (maximum bandwidth > 5 Mbit/s) = (Unit price of bandwidth between 1 and 5 Mbit/s) × [Usage duration (hours) ÷ 24] (days) × Unit price of bandwidth higher than 5 Mbit/s (USD per Mbit/s-day) × [Usage duration (hours) ÷ 24] (days) × (N - 5) = 0.14 × (15 ÷ 24) × 5 + 0.5 × (15 ÷ 24) × (300 - 5) = USD 92.625.

  • EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) = Unit price of the public IP address (USD per hour) × Usage duration (days) × Number of public IP addresses = 0.003 × (15 ÷ 24) × 1 = USD 0.001875.

Total fee = EIP bandwidth fee + EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) = USD 92.625 + USD 0.001875 = USD 92.626875.

Is an EIP still billed if the Alibaba Cloud account to which the EIP belongs has overdue payments?

Yes. The billing of an EIP is stopped only after the EIP is released.

The EIP is still billed if the Alibaba Cloud account to which the EIP belongs has overdue payments. To continue to use the EIP, top up your account. If you no longer need the EIP, you can release the EIP. For more information about how to release an EIP, see Release a pay-as-you-go EIP.

After I release a pay-as-you-go EIP, why am I still charged for the EIP?

For a pay-as-you-go EIP, the bill for the current hour is generated within the next hour or next day. Although the bill is sent to you after the EIP is released, the billing is already stopped when the EIP is released. Example:

  • If you release a pay-by-data-transfer EIP at 10:30:00, you will receive the EIP bill for the data transfer fee from 10:00:00 to 11:00:00 after 11:00:00.

  • If you release a pay-by-bandwidth EIP on December 30, 2020, you will receive a bill on December 31, 2020 for the bandwidth fee on December 30, 2020.

Why do I need to specify a maximum bandwidth value for a pay-by-data-transfer EIP?

For a pay-by-data-transfer EIP, we recommend that you specify a maximum bandwidth value to prevent unnecessary fees caused by excessive outbound traffic.

The maximum bandwidth is not guaranteed for a pay-by-data-transfer EIP. For example, if the maximum bandwidth value of a pay-by-data-transfer EIP is set to 200 Mbit/s, the peak bandwidth may not reach 200 Mbit/s. If you want to use an EIP with a guaranteed maximum bandwidth value, you must purchase a pay-by-bandwidth EIP or an Internet Shared Bandwidth instance.

Can I switch the metering method of a pay-as-you-go EIP from pay-by-data-transfer to pay-by-bandwidth or from pay-by-bandwidth to pay-by-data-transfer?

Yes.

Take note of the following limits before you switch the metering method:

  • The new metering method takes effect at 00:00:00 (UTC+8) the next day.

  • Before the new metering method takes effect, you cannot modify the maximum bandwidth of the EIP.

For more information, see Switch metering methods.

Am I immediately charged an EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) when my application for an EIP is approved?

  • Billing rules for pay-as-you-go EIPs:

    • After your application for an EIP is approved, you are immediately charged an EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee). You are not charged an EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) if the EIP is allocated from a specific IP address pool.

    • When the EIP is associated with a resource, you are not charged an EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) only of the EIP is directly associated with an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance in a virtual private cloud (VPC) or an elastic container instance and the number of EIPs that your Alibaba Cloud account can own does not exceed 2,000.

    Note

    To prevent unnecessary fees, we recommend that you apply for EIPs only when you need to use them.

  • If you use a subscription EIP, you are not charged an EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee).

Am I still charged an EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) after I associate an EIP with an Internet Shared Bandwidth instance?

Whether you are charged an EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) is determined by the type of associated resource and number of EIPs, regardless of whether the EIP is associated with an Internet Shared Bandwidth instance. For more information, see EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee).

Am I charged only for an outbound data transfer fee for my pay-by-data-transfer EIP?

Yes.

If you use a pay-by-data-transfer EIP, you are charged based on the amount of data transfer over the Internet per hour.

  • Outbound data transfers (charged): Internet data transfers from EIPs to the Internet. For example, an ECS instance uses an EIP to provide services, or clients use the EIP to download resources from an ECS instance.

  • Inbound data transfers (free): Internet data transfers from the Internet to EIPs. For example, an ECS instance uses an EIP to download resources from the Internet, or clients use the EIP to upload resources from an ECS instance.

The data transfers generated by the interaction between an EIP and the associated cloud resource are excluded from the EIP fees.

image

How does a data transfer plan offset the data transfer fees of pay-by-data-transfer EIPs?

After you purchase a data transfer plan, it immediately takes effect, without additional configurations. The data transfer plan automatically offsets EIP data transfer fees of pay-by-data-transfer EIPs, excluding data transfers over BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro.

  • If Cloud Data Transfer (CDT) is enabled for EIP:

    The billing of pay-by-data-transfer EIPs is managed by CDT. The fee of CDT Internet data transfers within the first tier (0 to 10 TB) can be offset by EIP data transfer plans. Data transfers that exceed this tier are billed by CDT. For more information about the billing rules and discount information about CDT, see Internet data transfers.

  • If CDT is not enabled for EIP:

    Pay-by-data-transfer EIPs are billed based on the billing rules described in the "Data transfer fee (for pay-by-data-transfer EIPs)" section of Pay-as-you-go. The data transfers of these EIPs can be offset by data transfer plans until the data transfer plans are exhausted or expire.

Which factors can cause unexpected increases in EIP data transfer fees?

Traffic spikes on EIPs can cause increases in EIP data transfer fees. Troubleshooting methods:

Possible causes

  • Business-related causes: system updates or traffic increases caused by business growth.

  • System vulnerabilities: application errors generate a large number of requests.

  • Attacks or scanning: unauthorized access from attacks, crawlers, and other sources causes increases in data transfers.

  • Improper network configurations: improper security group or firewall configurations allow a large number of unexpected requests.

Troubleshooting procedure

  1. View the monitoring data

    Log on to the CloudMonitor console and view the data transfers and bandwidth usage of your EIP. Analyze the error trend based on the monitoring data. For more information, see the "View the monitoring data of an EIP" section of Monitoring and alerting.

    In addition, you can take the following measures to facilitate error locating:

  2. Locate the abnormal process

    • CloudMonitor: Use the process monitoring feature of CloudMonitor to locate abnormal processes during the time range in which traffic spikes are detected. For more information, see Process monitoring.

    • Network monitoring utilities: Use a suitable monitoring utility based on the operating system used by the server associated with the EIP to locate processes that occupy a large amount of network resources.

  3. Analyze log data

    View the log data of the server to identify traffic sources and request types.

    Sample command for query server logs

    Query logs of a Linux server

    • Query the NGINX access log: cat /var/log/nginx/access.log

    • Query the Apache access log: cat /var/log/apache2/access.log

    Query logs of a Windows server

    The path of the access log on an NGINX or Apache server varies based on the installation and configuration methods.

    • If the path of the NGINX access log is C:\Program Files\nginx\logs\access.log, use the following command: type C:\Program Files\nginx\logs\access.log.

    • If the path of the Apache access log is C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.4\logs, use the following command: type C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.4\logs\access.log.

  4. Check the security group and firewall configurations

    Check the configurations of the security group and firewall. Make sure that idle ports and services are disabled to enhance access control.

    For information about how to configure a security group rule, see Add security group rules. If you require tailored or finer-grained access control, add the following firewall configurations:

    • Firewall for Linux servers: Block untrusted IP addresses and ports

      # View the firewall rules (iptables).
      sudo iptables -L -n -v
      # Add Firewall rules to block untrusted IP addresses and ports.
      sudo iptables -A INPUT -s <suspicious-ip> -j DROP
    • Firewall for Windows servers: Configure firewall rules on the Windows Defender page.

  5. Check the processes

    Use anti-virus software or security tools to check for malicious software and vulnerabilities on the servers and update the system and software in a timely manner.

    You can use Security Center to detect and block security threats, including viruses, attacks, ransomware, vulnerabilities, AccessKey leaks, and mining.