Help Center/ Elastic IP/ Billing/ Billing Modes/ Pay-per-Use Billing
Updated on 2023-11-07 GMT+08:00

Pay-per-Use Billing

Pay-per-use billing means you pay nothing up front and are not tied into any contract or commitment. This section describes the billing rules for pay-per-use EIP resources.

Application Scenarios

Pay-per-use billing is good for short-term, bursty, or unpredictable workloads that cannot tolerate any interruptions, such as applications for e-commerce flash sales, temporary testing, and scientific computing.

Billed Items

A pay-per-use EIP can be billed by bandwidth, by traffic, or it can be added to a shared bandwidth. Table 1 lists the billed items in different billing options.

Table 1 Pay-per-use EIP billing

Billing Option

Billed Item

Description

Pay-per-use (billed by bandwidth)

Price = EIP reservation price + Bandwidth price

  • The bandwidth price is determined by its size.
  • If an EIP is not bound to any cloud resource, you need to pay for the EIP reservation price.

Pay-per-use (billed by traffic)

Price = EIP reservation price + Traffic price

  • The traffic used will be billed.
  • If an EIP is not bound to any cloud resource, you need to pay for the EIP reservation price.

Pay-per-use (added to a shared bandwidth)

Price = EIP reservation price + Shared bandwidth price

  • Shared bandwidth will be billed.
  • If an EIP is not bound to any cloud resource, you need to pay for the EIP reservation price.

Billed Usage Period

Pay-per-use EIP usage is calculated by the second and billed every hour. The billing starts when the EIP is assigned and ends when the EIP is released.

For example, if you purchased a pay-per-use EIP at 08:45:30 and released it at 08:55:30, you are billed for the 600 seconds from 08:45:30 to 08:55:30.

Billing Examples

Billing by bandwidth

EIPs use tiered pricing for fixed bandwidth. The price varies by bandwidth size.

The unit price of a fixed bandwidth and whether tiered pricing is used vary by region. For details, see EIP Pricing Details.

Suppose you purchased an EIP billed by bandwidth of 6 Mbit/s on April 18, 2023, 08:45:00, bound the EIP to an instance on April 18, 2023, 09:45:00, unbound the EIP from the instance on April 19, 2023, 06:45:00, and released the EIP on April 19, 2023, 08:55:00.

The EIP reservation price is $0.009 USD per hour. Figure 1 shows how to calculate the hourly bandwidth price in this example. The price for the bandwidth of 6 Mbit/s is $0.084 USD per hour.
Figure 1 Hourly price of an EIP billed by bandwidth

Table 2 shows the calculation details. The total price is $2.0585 USD.

Table 2 Price details of the EIP billed by bandwidth

Date

Billing Duration

Price (Bandwidth+ EIP)

Total Price (USD)

2023/04/18

60 minutes

2023/04/18 08:45:00 - 2023/04/18 09:45:00

  • EIP: 60/60 x 0.009 = 0.009
  • Bandwidth: 60/60 x 0.084 = 0.084

0.009 + 0.084 + 0 + 1.197 = 1.29

855 minutes

2023/04/18 09:45:00 - 2023/04/19 00:00:00

  • EIP: 0
  • Bandwidth: 855/60 x 0.084 = 1.197

2023/04/19

405 minutes

2023/04/19 00:00:00 - 2023/04/19 06:45:00

  • EIP: 0
  • Bandwidth: 405/60 x 0.084 = 0.567

0 + 0.567 + 0.0195 + 0.182 = 0.7685

130 minutes

2023/04/19 06:45:00 - 2023/04/19 08:55:00

  • EIP: 130/60 x 0.009 = 0.0195
  • Bandwidth: 130/60 x 0.084 = 0.182

Billing by traffic

Suppose you purchased an EIP billed by traffic on April 18, 2023, 08:45:00 and bound the EIP to an instance on April 18, 2023, 09:45:00. There were 1300 GB traffic generated from 20:00:00 on April 18, 2023 to 06:00:00 on April 19, 2023. Then, you unbound the EIP from the instance on April 19, 2023, 06:45:00 and released the EIP on April 19, 2023, 08:55:00. The EIP reservation price is $0.005 USD per hour, and the traffic price is $0.081 USD per GB.

Table 3 Price details of the EIP billed by traffic

Date

Billing Duration

Price (Traffic+ EIP)

Total Price (USD)

2023/04/18

60 minutes with 0 GB traffic generated

2023/04/18 08:45:00 - 2023/04/18 09:45:00

  • EIP: 60/60 x 0.005 = 0.005
  • Traffic: 0

0.005 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 64.8 = 64.805

Traffic: 0 GB

2023/04/18 9:45:00 - 2023/04/18 20:00:00

  • EIP: 0
  • Traffic: 0

Traffic: 800 GB

2023/04/18 20:00:00 - 2023/04/19 00:00:00

  • EIP: 0
  • Traffic: 0.081 x 800 = 64.8

2023/04/19

Traffic: 500 GB

2023/04/19 00:00:00 - 2023/04/19 06:00:00

  • EIP: 0
  • Traffic: 0.081 x 500 = 40.5

0 + 40.5 + 0 + 0 + 0.0108 + 0 = 40.5108

Traffic: 0 GB

2023/04/19 06:00:00 - 2023/04/19 06:45:00

  • EIP: 0
  • Traffic: 0

130 minutes with 0 GB traffic generated

2023/04/19 06:45:00 - 2023/04/19 08:55:00

  • EIP: 130/60 x 0.005 = 0.0108
  • Traffic: 0
  • The prices are just examples. The actual prices are those displayed on EIP Pricing Details.
  • If an EIP billed by traffic uses a dedicated bandwidth, only the bandwidth used in the outbound direction will be billed.

Price Change After Specification Change

If you change specifications within a given hour, multiple records will be generated. Different records record the billing for different specifications.

For example, if you purchased a pay-per-use EIP billed by bandwidth of 6 Mbit/s EIP at 09:00:00 and increased the bandwidth to 20 Mbit/s at 09:30:00, the following items will be billed:

  • Bandwidth of 6 Mbit/s from 09:00:00 to 09:30:00
  • Bandwidth of 20 Mbit/s from 09:30:00 to 10:00:00

Arrears Impact

Figure 2 shows the statuses a pay-per-use EIP can have throughout its lifecycle. After an EIP is purchased, it enters the valid period and runs normally during this period. If your account goes into arrears, the EIP enters a grace period and then a retention period.

Figure 2 Life cycle of a pay-per-use EIP

Arrears Reminder

The system will bill you for pay-per-use resources after each billing cycle ends. If your account goes into arrears, we will notify you by email, SMS, or in-app message.

Impact of Arrears

If your account is insufficient to pay your amount due, your account goes into arrears and your resource enters the grace period. Pay-per-use resources are not stopped immediately. You are still responsible for expenditures generated during the grace period. You can view the charges on the Billing Center > Overview page and pay any past due balance as needed.

If you do not bring your account balance current before the grace period expires, the EIP status turns to Frozen and enters a retention period.

If you do not bring your account balance current before the retention period ends, the EIP will be released.