Help Center> Elastic IP > Billing> Billing Modes> Yearly/Monthly Billing
Updated on 2023-10-27 GMT+08:00

Yearly/Monthly Billing

If you expect to use resources for a longer period, you can save money by selecting yearly/monthly billing. This section describes the billing rules for yearly/monthly EIP resources.

Application Scenarios

If you want to ensure resource stability over a certain period of time, yearly/monthly billing is a good choice for the following types of workloads:

  • Long-term workloads with stable resource requirements, such as official websites, online malls, and blogs
  • Long-term projects, such as scientific research projects and large-scale events.
  • Workloads with predictable traffic bursts, for example, e-commerce promotions or festivals
  • Workloads with high data security requirements

Billed Items

A yearly/monthly EIP is billed based on your purchased duration and specified bandwidth size. No operations on the EIP will affect its billing.

Billed Usage Period

A yearly/monthly EIP is billed for the purchased duration. The billing starts when you activated or renewed the subscription, and ends at 23:59:59 of the expiry date.

For example, if you purchased a one-month EIP on March 08, 2023, 15:50:04, the billed usage period is from March 08, 2023, 15:50:04 to April 08, 2023, 23:59:59.

Billing Examples

Suppose you purchased a one-month EIP subscription (with a bandwidth of 6 Mbit/s) on March 08, 2023, 15:50:04 and renewed the subscription for one more month before the initial subscription expired. The following usage periods will be billed:

  • March 08, 2023, 15:50:04 to April 08, 2023, 23:59:59
  • April 08, 2023, 23:59:59 to May 08, 2023, 23:59:59

You will be billed for both usage periods of the bandwidth.

Table 1 shows the billing formula.
Table 1 Formulas for billing yearly/monthly EIP resources

Resource

Formula

Unit Price

Bandwidth

Tiered pricing based on fixed bandwidth.

  • 0 Mbit/s to 5 Mbit/s (included): billed at a fixed unit price per Mbit/s
  • Greater than 5 Mbit/s: billed at a different price per Mbit/s

The unit prices and whether tiered pricing is used vary by region. For details, see EIP Pricing Details.

Figure 1 shows how the total price is calculated.

The prices are just examples. The actual prices are those displayed on EIP Pricing Details.

Figure 1 Total price for a yearly/monthly EIP

Price Change After Specification Change

If the specifications of a yearly/monthly EIP no longer meet your needs, you can change the specifications on the console. The system will recalculate the price and either bill or refund you the difference.

  • If you increase your bandwidth, the new bandwidth takes effect immediately in the current billing cycle. The increased bandwidth will be billed accordingly.
  • If you decrease your bandwidth, the new bandwidth does not take effect in the current billing cycle. You need to select a renewal duration and will be billed based on the new bandwidth size. The change will take effect in the first billing cycle after a successful renewal.

Decreasing bandwidths may cause packet loss.

Suppose there is no discount for bandwidth increase and you purchased a one-month EIP with a bandwidth of 5 Mbit/s on April 8, 2023, and increased the bandwidth to 10 Mbit/s on April 18, 2023. The price for the original bandwidth was $24.3 USD/month, and that for the new bandwidth was $72.9 USD/month. The price difference will be calculated as follows:

Price difference for the bandwidth increase = Price for the new bandwidth × Remaining period - Price for the original bandwidth × Remaining period

The remaining period is the remaining days of each calendar month divided by the maximum number of days in each calendar month. In this example, remaining period = 12 (Remaining days in April)/30 (Maximum number of days in April) + 8 (Remaining days in May)/31 (Maximum number of days in May) = 0.6581. Cost of bandwidth increase = $72.9 USD x 0.6581 – $24.3 USD x 0.6581 = $31.98 USD

For more information, see Prices for Changing Resource Specifications.

Impact of Expiration

Figure 2 shows the statuses a yearly/monthly EIP can go through throughout its lifecycle. After an EIP is purchased, it enters the valid period and runs normally during this period. If the EIP is not renewed after it expires, before being released, it first enters a grace period and then a retention period.

Figure 2 Lifecycle of a yearly/monthly EIP

Expiration Reminder

The system will send you a reminder (by email, SMS, or in-app message) 7 days before a yearly/monthly EIP expires to remind you to renew the subscription.

Impact of Expiration

If your account is in arrears, you will be impacted for using your EIPs.

If your yearly/monthly EIP is expired and is not renewed, the resource enters the grace period.

If the yearly/monthly EIP is not renewed after the grace period ends, its status turns to Frozen and it enters a retention period. You cannot perform any operations on yearly/monthly EIPs that are in the retention period. For example, you cannot change your bandwidth if it is in the retention period.

If you do not renew the monthly/yearly EIP within the retention period, the EIP will be released.

To ensure that your services are not affected, perform Manually Renewing an EIP before it expires.

For details about renewal, see Overview.