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Elastic IP Address:Pay-as-you-go

Last Updated:Sep 29, 2024

Elastic IP Address (EIP) supports the pay-as-you-go billing method, which includes the pay-by-data-transfer and pay-by-bandwidth metering methods. This topic describes the billing rules and billable items of pay-as-you-go EIPs.

Overview

The pay-as-you-go billing method allows you to use resources before you pay for them. The following table describes the billing rules for each metering method of pay-as-you-go EIPs.

Feature

Pay-by-data-transfer

By bandwidth

Billing rules

You are charged based on the amount of data transfer per hour. You can release pay-by-data-transfer EIPs anytime.

You are charged based on the maximum bandwidth value and the usage duration. You can release pay-by-bandwidth EIPs anytime.

Use scenarios

Traffic fluctuates and short-term usage duration is required, such as the gaming and video industries.

Traffic does not fluctuate and short-term usage duration is required.

Billing cycles and bill generation time

You are charged on an hourly basis. Bills are generated on the hour. After a billing cycle ends, a new one begins. If the usage duration in a billing cycle is less than 1 hour, the usage duration is rounded up to 1 hour.

A bill is typically generated about 1 hour after the current billing cycle ends. The actual time when bills are issued is determined by the system.

You are charged on a daily basis. The resources consumed on a day are billed at 00:00:00 (UTC+8) on the next day.

A bill is generated in the early hours of the next day. The time when bills are generated is determined by the system.

Billable items

Fees:

Fees:

Modify instance configurations and switch billing methods

  • You can modify the maximum bandwidth of a pay-as-you-go EIP. For more information, see Modify the configuration of a pay-as-you-go EIP.

  • Switch between billing methods

    • You can switch the metering method between pay-as-you-go and pay-by-bandwidth. The switch takes effect at 00:00:00 (UTC+8) on the next day.

    • You can switch the billing method from subscription to pay-as-you-go. However, the metering method of the pay-as-you-go billing method must be pay-by-bandwidth instead of pay-by-data-transfer.

    For more information, see Switch metering methods.

Maximum bandwidth

  • Bandwidth guarantee: The maximum bandwidth is not a guaranteed value. It indicates the upper limit of bandwidth and is for reference only. In scenarios where demand outstrips resource supplies, the bandwidth may not reach the maximum value.

  • Total peak bandwidth: In each region, the sum of bandwidth consumed by all pay-by-data-transfer EIPs within each Alibaba Cloud account cannot exceed 5 Gbit/s. If you require a higher bandwidth value, we recommend that you set your EIP to the pay-by-bandwidth metering method.

  • Bandwidth guarantee: The maximum bandwidth is a guaranteed value. In scenarios where demand outstrips resource supplies, the bandwidth can reach the maximum value.

  • Total peak bandwidth: In each region, the sum of bandwidth consumed by all pay-by-bandwidth EIPs within each Alibaba Cloud account cannot exceed 50 Gbit/s. If you require a higher bandwidth value, contact your account manager.

Note

The EIP association fee is not exclusive for pay-as-you-go EIPs. The billing cycle and bill generation time are irrelevant to the Internet resource metering method of EIPs.

Internet data transfer fees

Data transfer fee (for pay-by-data-transfer EIPs)

You are charged based on the amount of data transfer over the Internet per hour. Fees are calculated and bills are generated on an hourly basis. Within a billing cycle, if the usage duration of an EIP is less than 1 hour, the usage duration is rounded up to 1 hour.

Within a billing cycle:
Data transfer fee = Unit price of data transfer (USD/GB) × Amount of data transfer (GB)

The amount of data transfer refers to the cumulative outbound data transfer of an EIP. You are not charged for inbound data transfer. Outbound data transfer refers to the data transfer that is transmitted from Alibaba Cloud to the Internet.

Note

We recommend that you set the maximum bandwidth value based on your business requirements to prevent unexpected data transfer fees caused by malicious requests or program errors.

EIPs support the following line types: BGP (Multi-ISP) and BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro. The data transfer unit price of each line type is different.

Note

The prices and regions listed in the following table are for reference only. The actual information on the buy page shall prevail.

Table 3: Unit prices of data transfer over EIP BGP (Multi-ISP) lines

Area

Region

Data transfer unit price (USD/GB)

China

China (Beijing)

China (Zhangjiakou)

China (Hohhot)

China (Hangzhou)

China (Shanghai)

China (Shenzhen)

China (Heyuan)

China (Guangzhou)

China (Chengdu)

China (Ulanqab)

0.123

China (Qingdao)

0.110

China (Hong Kong)

0.153

Asia Pacific

Japan (Tokyo)

0.087

Singapore

Philippines (Manila)

Thailand (Bangkok)

0.081

Australia (Sydney) Closing Down

0.096

Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)

0.077

Indonesia (Jakarta)

0.090

South Korea (Seoul)

0.123

Europe & Americas

US (Virginia)

0.076

US (Silicon Valley)

0.077

Germany (Frankfurt)

UK (London)

0.070

Middle East

UAE (Dubai)

0.153

SAU (Riyadh - Partner Region)

Important

The SAU (Riyadh - Partner Region) region is operated by a partner.

0.097

Table 4: Unit prices of data transfer over EIP BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro lines

Area

Region

Data transfer unit price (USD/GB)

China

China (Hong Kong)

0.452

Asia Pacific

Japan (Tokyo)

Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)

Philippines (Manila)

Indonesia (Jakarta)

Thailand (Bangkok)

0.452

Singapore

0.778

Bandwidth fee (for pay-by-bandwidth EIPs)

You are charged based on the maximum bandwidth and the usage duration. Fees are calculated and bills are generated on a daily basis. Fees can also be calculated on an hourly basis and settled on a daily basis. The usage duration refers to the amount of time that the EIP runs in pay-by-bandwidth mode. If the usage duration of your pay-by-bandwidth EIP is less than 1 hour, the usage duration is rounded up to 1 hour. For example, Alice created a pay-by-bandwidth EIP at 09:00:00, and released the EIP at 12:30:00. In this case, the usage duration is 4/24 days.

  • The bandwidth fee of an EIP that uses a BGP (Multi-ISP) line is calculated based on a tiered pricing model with 5 Mbit/s as the threshold. The following formulas show how to calculate the bandwidth fee in different scenarios:

    • 1 Mbit/s ≤ Maximum bandwidth value ≤ 5 Mbit/s:

      Bandwidth fee = Unit price for the bandwidth that ranges from 1 Mbit/s to 5 Mbit/s (USD/day per Mbit/s) × [Usage duration (hours)/24] (days) × Maximum bandwidth value (Mbit/s)
    • Maximum bandwidth value > 5 Mbit/s:

      Bandwidth fee = (Unit price for the bandwidth that ranges from 1 Mbit/s to 5 Mbit/s (USD/day per Mbit/s) × [Billing duration (hours)/24] (days) × 5 + Unit price for the bandwidth greater than 5 Mbit/s (USD/day per Mbit/s) × [Billing duration (hours)/24] (days) × (n - 5)

      In the preceding formula, n represents the maximum bandwidth value.

  • The bandwidth fee of an EIP that uses a BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro line is calculated by using the following formula:

    Bandwidth fee = Bandwidth unit price (USD/day per Mbit/s) × [Usage duration (hours)/24] (days) × Maximum bandwidth (Mbit/s)

You can adjust the maximum bandwidth value of an EIP as needed. If you change the maximum bandwidth value of an EIP, the bandwidth fee for the day is calculated based on the highest maximum bandwidth value on that day.

EIP

Note

The prices and regions listed in the following table are for reference only. The actual information on the buy page shall prevail.

Table 7: Bandwidth unit prices of EIP BGP (Multi-ISP) lines

Area

Region

Bandwidth unit price (USD/day per Mbit/s)

1~5 Mbps

> 5 Mbit/s

China

China (Beijing)

China (Zhangjiakou)

China (Hohhot)

China (Hangzhou)

China (Shanghai)

China (Shenzhen)

China (Heyuan)

China (Guangzhou)

China (Chengdu)

China (Hong Kong)

China (Ulanqab)

0.14

0.5

China (Qingdao)

0.11

0.46

Asia Pacific

Japan (Tokyo)

0.17

0.57

Singapore

Australia (Sydney) Closing Down

Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)

Philippines (Manila)

Indonesia (Jakarta)

South Korea (Seoul)

Thailand (Bangkok)

0.14

0.5

Europe & Americas

US (Virginia)

US (Silicon Valley)

Germany (Frankfurt)

UK (London)

0.14

0.5

Middle East

SAU (Riyadh - Partner Region)

Important

The SAU (Riyadh - Partner Region) region is operated by a partner.

0.17

0.60

Table 8: Bandwidth unit prices of EIP BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro lines

Area

Region

Bandwidth unit price (USD/day per Mbit/s)

China

China (Hong Kong)

1.430

Asia Pacific

Japan (Tokyo)

Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)

Philippines (Manila)

Indonesia (Jakarta)

Thailand (Bangkok)

1.430

Singapore

2.460

EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee)

You are charged an EIP configuration fee based on the unit price of public IP addresses and usage duration.

  • You are not charged an EIP configuration 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.

    • You are not charged an EIP configuration fee for EIPs allocated from an IP address pool. For more information, see Billing.

  • In other scenarios, you are charged an EIP configuration fee by default.

Note

The billing cycle and bill generation time for EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) with different billing methods:

  • If pay-by-data-transfer is used, the EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) is charged on an hourly basis and bills are generated on an hourly basis. Unit: USD/hour/address.

  • If pay-by-bandwidth is used, the EIP configuration fee (public IP retention fee) is charged on an hourly basis and bills are generated on a daily basis. Unit: USD/day/address.

EIP configuration fee = Unit price of public IP addresses × Usage duration × Number of EIPs

EIP support the following line types: BGP (Multi-ISP) and BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro. The unit price of public IP addresses varies with line type.

Note

The prices and regions listed in the following table are only for reference. The actual information on the buy page shall prevail. In the following table, "-" indicates that the item does not apply.

Table 10. Unit price of public IP addresses for BGP (Multi-ISP) EIPs

Area

Region

Unit price (USD/hour per address)

Unit price (USD/day per address)

China

China (Qingdao)

China (Beijing)

China (Zhangjiakou)

China (Hohhot)

China (Hangzhou)

China (Shanghai)

China (Shenzhen)

China (Heyuan)

China (Guangzhou)

China (Chengdu)

China (Ulanqab)

0.003

0.074

China (Hong Kong)

0.009

0.211

Asia Pacific

Singapore

Australia (Sydney) Closing Down

Philippines (Manila)

Indonesia (Jakarta)

Thailand (Bangkok)

0.006

0.151

Japan (Tokyo)

0.005

0.113

Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)

South Korea (Seoul)

0.003

0.074

Europe & Americas

US (Virginia)

US (Silicon Valley)

0.005

0.113

Germany (Frankfurt)

UK (London)

0.006

0.151

Middle East

UAE (Dubai)

0.009

-

SAU (Riyadh - Partner Region)

Important

The SAU (Riyadh - Partner Region) region is operated by a partner.

0.008

0.181

Table 11. Unit price of public IP addresses for BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro EIPs

Area

Region

Unit price (USD/hour per address)

Unit price (USD/day per address)

China

China (Hong Kong)

0.009

0.211

Asia Pacific

Japan (Tokyo)

0.005

0.113

Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)

0.003

0.074

Philippines (Manila)

Thailand (Bangkok)

Singapore

0.006

0.151

Indonesia (Jakarta)

0.006

0.144

Example: Account A has a quota of 500 EIPs and purchased 450 EIPs in the China (Beijing) region, of which 400 EIPs are associated with Classic Load Balancer (CLB) instances (configuration fee charged) and 50 EIPs are associated with Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances (configuration fee not charged). In this example, the configuration fee charged for one hour is 400 × USD 0.003/hour × 1 hour + 50 × USD 0/hour × 1 hour = USD 1.2.

Account A submits an application to increase the EIP quota to 2,500. After the application is approved by Alibaba Cloud, the configuration fee is charged for all the preceding 450 EIPs. The configuration fee charged for 1 hour is 450 × USD 0.003/hour × 1 hour = USD 1.35

EIP association fee

Important

If you purchased EIPs for the first time after 00:00:00 (UTC+8) on January 15, 2020, you are charged an EIP association fee. If you purchased EIPs before 00:00:00 (UTC+8) on January 15, 2020, you are not charged an EIP association fee.

In a calendar day, whether you are charged an EIP association fee is determined based on the number of times that EIPs are associated by each account in each region.

  • 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.

Note

The quota is equal to the default number of EIPs that your Alibaba Cloud account can own. For more information about how to view quotas, see View and manage quotas.

Example: Assume that your account has a default quota of 20 EIPs. On May 6, 2024, the quota is increased to 30.

  • On and before May 6, 2024, the number of times that you can use this account to associate EIPs in each region per day is: 20 × 5 = 100.

    If you associate EIPs 110 times in a region, you are charged a total fee of USD 1.49 for the extra association times.

  • Starting May 7, 2024, the number of times that you can use this account to associate EIPs in each region per day is: 30 × 5 = 150.

Billing examples

For example, Alice created an EIP in the China (Hangzhou) region at 09:30:00 (UTC+8) and set the maximum bandwidth value to 10 Mbit/s. Then, Alice associated the EIP with a NAT gateway and enabled services. In this case, Alice is charged a data transfer fee. Alice changed the maximum bandwidth value twice on the same day:

  • At 17:00:00 (UTC+8), Alice changed the maximum bandwidth value from 10 Mbit/s to 20 Mbit/s.

  • At 23:00:00 (UTC+8), Alice changed the maximum bandwidth value from 20 Mbit/s to 15 Mbit/s.

计费示例

The following table describes how fees are calculated based on the pay-by-data-transfer or pay-by-bandwidth metering method.

Note

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

Metering method

Configuration fee

Data transfer or bandwidth fee

Total fee

Pay-by-data-transfer

  • Unit price of public IP addresses: In this example, the unit price in the China (Hangzhou) region is USD 0.003/hour per address.

  • Usage duration: In this example, the EIP is used for 14.5 hours on that day. The usage duration is rounded up to 15 hours.

  • EIP configuration fee on the day: Unit price of public IP addresses × Usage duration = USD 0.003/hour per address × 15 hours × 1 address = USD 0.045.

  • Unit price of data transfer: In this example, the unit price of data transfer in the China (Hangzhou) region is USD 0.123 per GB.

  • Amount of data transfer: In this example, 60 GB of data is transferred on that day.

  • Data transfer fee of the EIP on that day = Unit price of data transfer (USD/GB) × Amount of data transfer (GB) = 0.123 (USD/GB) × 60 (GB) = USD 7.38.

Total fees = Configuration fee (USD) + Data transfer fee (USD) = USD 0.045 + USD 7.38 = USD 7.425.

Pay-by-bandwidth

  • Unit price of public IP addresses: In this example, the unit price in the China (Hangzhou) region is USD 0.074/day per address.

  • Usage duration: In this example, the EIP is used for 14.5 hours on that day. The usage duration is rounded up to 15 hours.

  • EIP configuration fee on the day: Unit price of public IP addresses × Usage duration = USD 0.074/day per address × (15 hours/24 hours) days × 1 address = USD 0.04625.

  • Maximum bandwidth value: The bandwidth fee is calculated based on the highest maximum bandwidth value on that day. In this example, the highest maximum bandwidth value is 20 Mbit/s.

  • Bandwidth unit price: USD 0.14 per day [unit price for bandwidth that is between 1 Mbit/s to 5 Mbit/s in China (Hangzhou)] × 5 + USD 0.5 per day (unit price for bandwidth that is higher than 5 Mbit/s) × (20 - 5) = USD 8.2 per day.

  • Usage duration: In this example, the EIP is used for 14.5 hours on that day. The usage duration is rounded up to 15 hours.

  • Bandwidth fee of the EIP on that day = 8.2 (USD/day) × [15 (hours)/24 (hours)] (days) = USD 5.125.

Total fees = Configuration fee + Bandwidth fee = USD 0.04625 + USD 5.125 = USD 5.17125.

References