Help Center/ Elastic IP/ Best Practices/ Lower Public Network Costs
Updated on 2025-09-04 GMT+08:00
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Lower Public Network Costs

You can select a proper bandwidth and billing mode based on your service requirements.

Shared Bandwidth

A shared bandwidth is an independent bandwidth product. You can add pay-per-use EIPs to a shared bandwidth to allow the EIPs to share the bandwidth. You can bind EIPs to resources such as ECSs, NAT gateways, and load balancers so that these resources can use the shared bandwidth. For more information, see Shared Bandwidth Overview.

Table 1 describes the scenarios and cost savings of different billing modes of shared bandwidth.

Table 1 Examples of cost savings when you use a shared bandwidth

Billing Mode

Scenario

Example

Pay-per-use (billed by bandwidth)

You host a large number of applications on the cloud. If each ECS uses a dedicated bandwidth, a lot of bandwidths are required, which incurs high costs.

You can add your instances to a pay-per-use shared bandwidth (billed by bandwidth). This can reduce network operations costs especially for workloads with different traffic peaks and troughs.

Using pay-per-use EIPs (billed by bandwidth), each with a dedicated bandwidth:

Assume that you have 10 ECSs in CN-Hong Kong and each ECS has an EIP bound. Each EIP is billed by bandwidth with a maximum value of 100 Mbit/s. In this case, you need to pay the price of 10 EIPs each with a maximum bandwidth of 100 Mbit/s, that is, $788 USD per day.

Using a pay-per-use shared bandwidth (billed by bandwidth):

Traffic analysis of 10 EIPs shows services reach peaks and troughs at different times. The peak outbound bandwidth of the 10 ECSs to the Internet is about 500 Mbit/s.

You only need to purchase one shared bandwidth of 500 Mbit/s for the 10 ECSs to share. Each ECS can enjoy a peak bandwidth 5 times higher than the original one, and you only need to pay $408 USD per day for the 500 Mbit/s of shared bandwidth, saving $380 USD per day, or about 48% of the bandwidth cost.

Pay-per-use (billed by enhanced 95th percentile bandwidth)

The peak bandwidth is not limited. The billing is based on bandwidth usage excluding peak values.

Your services have frequent traffic bursts, which makes bandwidth upper limit hard to estimate. If the upper limit is set too high, bandwidths will be wasted. If the upper limit is set too low, there will be packet loss, affecting service expansion and user experience. In this case, you can use a pay-per-use shared bandwidth (billed by enhanced 95th percentile bandwidth).

Using a pay-per-use shared bandwidth (billed by bandwidth):

Assume that you buy a pay-per-use shared bandwidth of 500 Mbit/s and use it for one month (30 days). You need to pay $12,240 USD.

Using a pay-per-use shared bandwidth (billed by enhanced 95th percentile bandwidth):

Traffic analysis shows that traffic fluctuates greatly, but the bandwidth is within 400 Mbit/s in most stable states.

You can purchase a shared bandwidth of 400 Mbit/s billed by enhanced 95th percentile bandwidth on a pay-per-use basis. The price is $9,720 USD per month. This is about 20% lower than that of a pay-per-use shared bandwidth billed by bandwidth.

Yearly/Monthly (billed by bandwidth)

For long-term workloads with stable traffic, you can select a yearly/monthly shared bandwidth (billed by bandwidth).

Using a pay-per-use shared bandwidth (billed by bandwidth):

Assume that you buy a pay-per-use shared bandwidth of 500 Mbit/s and use it for one month (30 days). You need to pay $12,240 USD.

Using a yearly/monthly shared bandwidth (billed by bandwidth):

You can buy a yearly/monthly shared bandwidth of 500 Mbit/s for one month at $8,100 USD. This is about 34% lower than that of a pay-per-use shared bandwidth billed by bandwidth.

The prices are just for your reference. See the actual prices by visiting EIP Pricing Details.

Shared Data Package

A shared data package provides a quota for data usage. Such packages are cost-effective and easy to use.

Shared data packages can only be used by pay-per-use dedicated bandwidths billed by traffic. After a shared data package takes effect, bandwidths will use the shared data package first. For more information about shared data packages, see Shared Data Package.

  • How Much Can I Save by Using a Shared Data Package?

    The price of a shared data package is affordable and cost-effective.

    If you purchase a pay-per-use EIP bandwidth (billed by traffic) of $0.153 USD per GB, you need to pay $15.3 USD for 100 GB. You only need to pay $13.8 USD for a 100 GB shared data package. This is about 10% cheaper than the pay-per-use EIP bandwidth billed by traffic.

    The prices are just for your reference. See the actual prices by visiting EIP Pricing Details.

  • What Are the Application Scenarios of a Shared Data Package?

    You can use shared data packages for pay-per-use EIP bandwidths (billed by traffic). You can save more money by using more traffic in scenarios, such as promotions and live streaming.

  • Notes on Using Shared Data Packages
    • Package validity: A shared data package is valid for one month or one year from purchase. Expired shared data packages will longer be available for use.

      To avoid waste, you can evaluate usage history, start with a smaller package, and increase the package size if needed.

    • Usage sequence: If there are multiple shared data packages, the one that expires earliest is used first.
    • Billing: If shared data packages are used up, resources using packages will be billed on a pay-per-use basis (billed by traffic). Your service will not be interrupted.

Example of Public Network Cost Saving

The table below recommends bandwidths for various scenarios. You can choose one based on your service needs and adjust as necessary to optimize resource use and costs.

Table 2 Recommended bandwidth in different scenarios

Scenarios

Traffic Feature

Recommended Solution

Enterprise or SaaS applications

The traffic peak is stable and the usage period is long.
  • Use a yearly/monthly dedicated bandwidth or shared bandwidth.
  • If there are temporary service bursts, increase the bandwidth by paying the price difference and reduce the bandwidth after the service is complete.

E-commerce platforms and gaming services

Traffic shows strong, periodic fluctuations, while services require long-term deployment.

Use a shared bandwidth billed by bandwidth or 95th percentile bandwidth (enhanced) to reduce costs.

E-commerce and gaming promotions

The traffic fluctuates greatly and the service period is short.

Use a pay-per-use dedicated bandwidth (billed by traffic).

You can also use a shared data package to provide quota for resources in the same region under the same account to reduce costs.