This topic describes the billing rules and pricing of public bandwidth when you use an Edge Node Service (ENS) instance to access the Internet.
Pricing of bandwidth
The pricing of bandwidth varies based on the region. The following table describes the prices for bandwidth in different regions.
Pricing for the Chinese mainland
ISP | Region | Single-ISP daily peak bandwidth (USD/Mbit/s/day) | Single-ISP monthly fourth peak bandwidth (USD/Mbit/s/month) | Single-ISP monthly 95th percentile bandwidth (USD/Mbit/s/month) |
China Telecom and China Unicom | Beijing, Shanghai, and prefecture-level cities in Guangdong | 0.28 | 7.04 | 7.04 |
Regional centers | 0.14 | 3.52 | 3.52 | |
Other cities | 0.11 | 2.82 | 2.82 | |
China Mobile | Beijing, Shanghai, and prefecture-level cities in Guangdong | 0.17 | 4.23 | 4.23 |
Regional centers | 0.08 | 2.11 | 2.11 | |
Other cities | 0.07 | 1.69 | 1.69 |
Regional centers include provincial capitals excluding Guangzhou, municipalities excluding Beijing and Shanghai, and sub-provincial cities that are not provincial capitals, such as Dalian, Qingdao, Xiamen, and Ningbo.
Pricing for regions outside the Chinese mainland
For information about the distribution of edge nodes in each billable region, see Node distribution.
Metering method | North America | Europe | Asia Pacific 1 | Asia Pacific 2 | Asia Pacific 3 | Middle East | Africa | South America |
Daily peak bandwidth (USD/Mbit/s/day) | 0.210 | 0.210 | 0.310 | 0.420 | 0.480 | 0.860 | 0.860 | 0.770 |
Monthly fourth peak bandwidth/monthly 95th percentile bandwidth (USD/Mbit/s/month) | 6.489 | 6.489 | 14.214 | 17.304 | 17.304 | 26.574 | 26.574 | 23.793 |
Billing
An ENS instance can access the Internet by using a static public IP address, elastic IP address (EIP), or edge NAT gateway. You are separately billed for bandwidth values generated by different methods that the ENS instance uses to access the Internet.
The edge NAT gateway feature is free of charge now. You will be notified one month in advance before Alibaba Cloud begins to charge you for using this feature.
Billing for static public IP addresses
If you select a public IP address when you purchase an ENS instance, the system automatically assigns a static public IP address to the ENS instance for the instance to access the Internet. If an ENS instance uses a public IP address to access the Internet, you are charged only for the public bandwidth.
If you use the pay-as-you-go billing method, the maximum inbound and outbound bandwidth values are used as the upper limits of bandwidth instead of guaranteed performance. If resource contention occurs, the maximum bandwidth values may not be reached.
Outbound public bandwidth is used for traffic from ENS instances to the Internet. Inbound public bandwidth is used for traffic from the Internet to ENS instances. ENS collects the inbound and outbound bandwidth of all instances on each node every 5 minutes, and uses the larger value as the effective peak bandwidth.
ENS supports the following metering methods for public bandwidth: pay-by-daily-peak-bandwidth, pay-by-monthly-fourth-peak-bandwidth, and pay-by-monthly-95th-percentile-bandwidth. For more information, see Billing for public bandwidth.
Billing for EIPs
If an ENS instance is associated with an EIP, the ENS instance can access the Internet by using the EIP. You are charged for the configuration of the EIP and the public bandwidth of the EIP.
You can use different metering methods for EIPs in the same account. For example, if you purchase three EIPs, you can use the pay-by-daily-traffic metering method for one EIP and the pay-by-monthly-95th-percentile metering method for the other two EIPs. ENS merges bills for EIPs of instances on the same edge node that use the same metering method in the same account.
ENS collects the inbound and outbound bandwidth of all EIPs on each node, and uses the larger value as the effective peak bandwidth.
Starting from 00:00 on April 1, 2024, you will be charged for edge EIPs based on the following billing rules.
Item
Description
Billing method
Pay-as-you-go
Billing cycle
Monthly
Unit price
14.3 per month for each EIP
Billing rule
You are charged the sum of the fees for all EIPs configured in the current month.
Fee of an EIP = Unit price × Effective factor.
Example 1: If an EIP is created on June 5, 2024 and is released on June 25, 2024, the number of effective days in June 2024 is 21.
Example 2: If an EIP is created on June 5, 2024 and is used till the end of the month, the number of effective days in June 2024 is 26.
NoteEffective factor = Effective days/Total number of days in the current month. For example, the total number of days in June 2024 is 30. If a bill for June 2024 covers 17 valid days, the effective factor is 17/30 = 0.56666667.
Effective days: the number of days from the day when an EIP is created to the day when the EIP is released or to the end of the month if the EIP is not released in the month. Examples:
Billing for public bandwidth
The same billing cycle and metering method apply to bandwidth generated when ENS instances in the same Alibaba Cloud use static public IP addresses to access the Internet. The billing cycle also applies to other pay-as-you-go instances and cloud disks in the account. If you use the monthly-95th-percentile-bandwidth metering method the first time you create an instance, you are billed for bandwidth generated when the instance uses static IP addresses (new and existing) to access the Internet. The monthly billing cycle also applies to existing and new pay-as-you-go instances and cloud disks. For more information, see Pay-as-you-go.
Daily peak bandwidth
Item | Description |
Billing rule | You are billed for daily peak bandwidth on a daily basis. ENS collects the inbound and outbound bandwidth of all instances on each node every 5 minutes, and uses the larger value as the effective peak bandwidth. A total of 288 values are collected every day. The maximum value is used as the daily peak bandwidth value. |
Billing method | Pay-as-you-go. |
Billing cycle | You are charged on a daily basis. The bills of a day are generated and the amount due is deducted after 00:00 on the following day. The time when bills are generated is determined by the system. |
Calculation method |
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Monthly 4th peak bandwidth
Item | Description |
Billing rule | You are billed for the fourth peak bandwidth by calendar month. In a calendar month, ENS collects the inbound and outbound bandwidth of all instances on each node every 5 minutes, and uses the larger value as the effective peak bandwidth. The fourth highest daily peak bandwidth of all days in a month is used as the bandwidth of the month for billing. If no bandwidth value is generated for some time periods, no bandwidth value is collected for the time periods. |
Billing method | Pay-as-you-go. |
Billing cycle | You are charged on a monthly basis. A bill is generated on the first day of the next calendar month after the end of a billing cycle. The time when bills are generated is determined by the system. |
Calculation method |
Note
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Monthly 95th percentile bandwidth
Item | Description |
Billing rule | You are billed for the monthly 95th percentile bandwidth by calendar month. In a calendar month, ENS collects the inbound and outbound bandwidth of all instances on each node every 5 minutes, and uses the larger value as the effective peak bandwidth. There are N largest daily values in a month, and the N values are arranged in descending order. The top M values are removed, where M = N × 0.05 and is rounded down. The (M+1)th value is the monthly 95th percentile bandwidth. If no bandwidth value is generated for some time periods, no bandwidth value is collected for the time periods. |
Billing method | Pay-as-you-go. |
Billing cycle | You are charged on a monthly basis. A bill is generated on the first day of the next calendar month after the end of a billing cycle. The time when bills are generated is determined by the system. |
Calculation method |
Note
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