Bandwidth billing and billable items - ENS - Alibaba Cloud Documentation Center

This topic describes the billing rules and prices for Internet bandwidth when an ENS instance accesses the internet.

Bandwidth pricing

Bandwidth prices vary by region. The following tables list the unit prices.

Prices in the Chinese mainland

Carrier	Area	Single-line daily peak bandwidth (USD/Mbps/day)	Single-line monthly 95th percentile bandwidth (USD/Mbps/month)	Single-line traffic (USD/GB)
China Telecom, China Unicom	Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong	0.3077	7.6923	0.0714
	Regional centers	0.1538	3.8462	0.0357
	Other cities	0.1231	3.0769	0.0286
China Mobile	Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong	0.1846	4.6154	0.0429
	Regional centers	0.0923	2.3077	0.0214
	Other cities	0.0738	1.8462	0.0171

Prices in other countries and regions

For the edge node coverage of each ENS billing region, see Node distribution.

Region	Country/Region	Pay-by-traffic (USD/GB)	Pay-by-daily-peak-bandwidth (USD/Mbps/day)	Pay-by-monthly-95th-percentile-bandwidth (USD/Mbps/month)
North America	United States	0.0286	0.095	2.857
Europe	France, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands	0.0286	0.095	2.857
Asia-Pacific	Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, China (Hong Kong), Indonesia	0.0543	0.181	5.429
	Australia	0.0729	0.243	7.286
	Macao (China)	0.1421	0.474	14.214
	South Korea	0.0814	0.271	8.143
Middle East	Türkiye, UAE	0.0629	0.210	6.286
Africa	Egypt, South Africa	0.0629	0.210	6.286
Africa	Nigeria	0.1400	0.467	14.000
Central and South America	Brazil	0.0500	0.167	5.000

Billing details

An ENS instance can access the internet through a static public NIC IP address, an edge elastic IP address (EIP), or an edge NAT Gateway. Bandwidth generated by each public network access method is measured and billed separately.

The edge NAT Gateway is currently free of charge. Charging for the edge NAT Gateway will be introduced later. Alibaba Cloud notifies affected customers one month before charging starts.

Billing of static public NIC bandwidth

When you create an ENS instance, you can choose to assign a public NIC IP address to it. ENS then automatically assigns a static public IP address so that the instance can access the internet. When the instance accesses the internet through the static public IP address, you are charged for Internet bandwidth only.

In pay-as-you-go mode, the peak inbound and outbound bandwidth values are upper limits rather than committed service levels. Peak bandwidth may be throttled when resources are contended.

Outbound bandwidth is the Internet bandwidth traffic that leaves an ENS instance, and inbound bandwidth is the Internet bandwidth traffic that enters an ENS instance. ENS measures the inbound and outbound bandwidth of all instances on each edge node every 5 minutes and uses the higher of the two values as one valid peak bandwidth data point.

Daily peak bandwidth, monthly 4th peak bandwidth, and monthly 95th percentile bandwidth billing methods are supported. For the billing rules of each method, see .

Billing of edge EIP bandwidth

If an ENS instance is associated with an edge elastic IP address (EIP), the instance can access the internet through that EIP. You are charged an EIP instance configuration fee and an EIP Internet bandwidth fee.

Elastic IP addresses (EIPs) under the same account can currently use different billing methods. For example, if you purchase three EIPs, the bandwidth of the first EIP can be billed by daily traffic while the bandwidth of the second and third EIPs is billed by monthly 95th percentile bandwidth. ENS meters and bills EIP bandwidth together for EIPs that share the same account, the same edge node, and the same billing method.

ENS measures the inbound and outbound bandwidth of all EIP instances on each edge node and uses the higher of the two values as one valid peak bandwidth data point.
Starting 00:00 on April 1, 2024, an instance configuration fee is charged for each EIP. The following table describes the billing rules.

Category	Details
Billing method	Postpaid.
Billing cycle	Billed by calendar month.
Unit price	USD 14.3 per month per instance.
Billing rule	The final fee is the sum of the fees for all EIP instances configured in the month. Configuration fee of an EIP instance = Unit price x Validity factor. Validity factor = Number of valid days / Total number of days in the month. For example, June 2024 has 30 days in total. If the number of valid days on the bill is 17, the validity factor is 17/30 = 0.56666667. Number of valid days: the number of days between the creation and the release of the EIP instance in the month. If the instance is not released in the month, the period ends at the end of the month. For example: Scenario 1: The instance is created on June 5, 2024, which is the billing start date, and is released on June 25, 2024. The number of valid days in June 2024 is 21. Scenario 2: The instance is created on June 5, 2024, which is the billing start date, and is kept until the end of the month. The number of valid days in June 2024 is 26.

Internet bandwidth billing rules

For all static public NIC bandwidth under the same Alibaba Cloud account, a single billing cycle and billing method apply, and other pay-as-you-go instances and disks under that account use the same billing cycle as the static public NIC bandwidth. If you select monthly 95th percentile bandwidth billing when you create your first instance, all existing and subsequently added static public NIC bandwidth under the account is billed by monthly 95th percentile bandwidth, and all existing and subsequently added pay-as-you-go instances and disks under the account also reuse the monthly billing cycle. For more information about billing methods, see Pay-as-you-go billing for computing power (user-level, deprecated).

Daily peak bandwidth

Category	Details
Billing rule	Daily peak bandwidth is billed daily. ENS measures the inbound and outbound bandwidth of all instances on each edge node every 5 minutes and uses the higher of the two values as one valid peak bandwidth data point. This produces 288 values per day, and the largest of them is the daily peak bandwidth of the node.
Billing method	Pay-as-you-go, postpaid.
Billing cycle	Billed daily. A bill for the previous day is generated and charged after 00:00 each day. The actual billing time is determined by the system.
Calculation	The final fee is the sum of the bandwidth fees of all nodes for the day. Daily bandwidth fee of a single node = Daily peak bandwidth x Daily peak bandwidth price.

Monthly 4th peak bandwidth

Category	Details
Billing rule	Monthly 4th peak bandwidth is billed by calendar month. Within a calendar month, ENS calculates the peak bandwidth of each day, measuring the inbound and outbound bandwidth of all instances on each edge node every 5 minutes and using the higher of the two values as one valid peak bandwidth data point. All daily peak bandwidth values are sorted in descending order, and the fourth largest value is used as the billable bandwidth. No metering points are generated for periods without bandwidth values.
Billing method	Pay-as-you-go, postpaid.
Billing cycle	Billed by calendar month. A bill for the previous month is generated and charged on the first day of the next calendar month after the current billing cycle ends. The actual billing time is determined by the system.
Calculation	The final fee is the sum of the bandwidth fees of all nodes for the month. Monthly bandwidth fee of a single node = Fourth largest daily peak bandwidth of the month x Monthly 4th peak bandwidth unit price x Validity factor. Validity factor = Number of valid days in the month / Total number of days in the month. For example, June 2024 has 30 days in total. If the number of valid days in the billing period is 17, the validity factor is 17/30 = 0.56666667. Number of valid days: the number of days on which Internet bandwidth has a value. For example, if June 5, 2024 is the first day with an Internet bandwidth value and values continue through June 21, 2024 with none afterwards, the number of valid days in June 2024 is 17.

Monthly 95th percentile bandwidth

Category	Details
Billing rule	Monthly 95th percentile bandwidth is billed by calendar month. Within a calendar month, ENS measures the inbound and outbound bandwidth of all instances on each edge node every 5 minutes and uses the higher of the two values as one valid peak bandwidth data point. All metering points (N) are sorted by bandwidth in descending order, and M points are discarded from the largest downwards, where M = N x 0.05 truncated to an integer. The bandwidth value of point M+1 is the 95th percentile billable bandwidth for the month. No metering points are generated for periods without bandwidth values.
Billing method	Pay-as-you-go, postpaid.
Billing cycle	Billed by calendar month. A bill for the previous month is generated and charged on the first day of the next calendar month after the current billing cycle ends. The actual billing time is determined by the system.
Calculation	The final fee is the sum of the bandwidth fees of all nodes for the month. Monthly bandwidth fee of a single node = Monthly 95th percentile billable bandwidth x Monthly 95th percentile bandwidth unit price x Validity factor. Validity factor = Number of valid days in the month / Total number of days in the month. For example, June 2024 has 30 days in total. If the number of valid days in the billing period is 17, the validity factor is 17/30 = 0.56666667. Number of valid days: the number of days on which Internet bandwidth has a value. For example, if June 5, 2024 is the first day with an Internet bandwidth value and values continue through June 21, 2024 with none afterwards, the number of valid days in June 2024 is 17.