Metering and Billing

Contents

Bandwidth and data traffic usage graphs

You can view the bandwidth and data usage graphs of each of your servers through the Leaseweb Customer Portal. The traffic totals are updated once per day, bandwidth is updated every 5 minutes. You can also configure your own traffic limits and receive a warning message when the limit is reached.

Bandwidth and data traffic billing

Leaseweb offers you the choice of three different forms of billing, each suitable for different kinds of IP connectivity services. The distinction is made between metered and unmetered or flat fee billing. With flat fee billing you will know exactly what your bill will be at the end of each month as the maximum bandwidth consumed is limited to physical or logical port speed. In case of metered billing, you will have the ability to consume as much bandwidth or data traffic above the committed amount and up to the port speed as needed. In metered billing the distinction is made between (i) data traffic billing, whereby all the inbound and outbound GBs passing through the port are added up and billed at the end of each month; and (ii) 95th percentile billing, whereby 95% of consumed bandwidth is billed and the top 5% of the consumed bandwidth is discarded. All three options are available on both our Volume and Premium networks.

1. Metered data traffic billing

Metered data traffic billing is very straightforward and the most common method in use at Leaseweb - you pay for each GB of data transfer to and from your server that exceeds the committed amount of data traffic that is included in the monthly server charge.

Data traffic utilization in excess of traffic included as part of your server charge is billed at the end of the month, on a per GB basis.

Note that for some metered data traffic billing options, a FUP (Fair Use Policy) applies. For more information please refer to Leaseweb Policies Fair Use Policy (Chapter D). You can find this in the policies documented here.

Data traffic surcharges

Surcharges for Data traffic billing are being calculated at the end of each month based on surcharge figure (per GB) agreed upon in the order form. This surcharge figure depends upon the network performance type (Volume or Premium) and the Data traffic Commitment.

2. Unmetered/flat fee bandwidth billing

With a bandwidth flat fee, your server is connected to a port with the maximum speed in megabits per second preset to an agreed amount for which you pay a fixed monthly fee, usually included in the server price.

The advantage is obvious: there is no limit to the traffic and you do not have to worry about any sudden or unexpected peaks. With this billing method, you cannot exceed the fixed speed or be charged a bandwidth surcharge fee so you have maximum billing security plus guaranteed speed with an unmetered flat rate port. You should be sure the speed you select meets your requirements, since the server will not be able to exceed your preset limit. Leaseweb has one of the largest networks and can offer attractive pricing for high quality flat rate unmetered bandwidth packages for many of our servers.

3. Metered burstable (95th percentile) bandwidth billing

With metered burstable bandwidth billing, your server is connected to a port with committed and maximum speeds in megabits per second, whereby committed bandwidth is usually included in the server price. Leaseweb allows you to burst above the committed bandwidth and up to the port speed. This bursting is calculated based on the 95th percentile standard.

Burstable billing gives you the flexibility to economically burst traffic to meet short term demands without having to commit to this level of usage (which you may seldom require) on a monthly basis.

If you need multiple IP connectivity ports to be connected to your servers, Leaseweb offers an aggregated billing option whereby two or more ports are metered and charged as if it were a single connection port.

Burstable 95th  percentile billing, an international industry standard, is a way to meter bandwidth usage on one or more customer ports (in case of aggregate billing) whereby the inbound and outbound traffic is sampled every 5 minutes separately. At the end of each calendar month, the top five percent (5%) of inbound and outbound traffic samples is discarded. The higher of the remaining 95th  percentile value for inbound or outbound traffic, minus the commitment, will then constitute the burst amount for that particular month. Leaseweb will invoice you for the bursts based on the pre-agreed Mbps surcharge rate agreed in the contract. With burstable 95th percentile billing you can have short bandwidth bursts totalling 36 hours per month (on average) without surcharges while being billed only for the committed bandwidth.

You can follow your 95th  percentile status on the Leaseweb Customer Portal. The horizontal red line on a bandwidth chart displays your current 95th percentile usage for the month.

Example: If you have a gigabit port and have a 100Mbps 95th percentile commit, you can burst up to 1 Gbps for an average of up to 36 hours (as calculated in 5 minute samples) without additional charge. If your bandwidth usage is in excess of that 5%, you will pay a one-time surcharge fee for that month on the basis of each 1 Mbps you exceed on your monthly commit of 100 Mbps, based on a pre-arranged 95th percentile surcharge rate. This is billed at the end of each month.

Please refer to the following Wikipedia article for a further information on burstable billing:
Burstable billing article on en.wikipedia.org

Metered burstable (95th percentile) bandwidth surcharges

Surcharges for 95^th percentile billing are being calculated at the end of each month based on surcharge figure (euro per Mbps) agreed upon in the order form. This surcharge figure depends upon the network performance type (Volume or Premium) and the Bandwidth Commitment.

4. Bandwidth aggregation billing

Bandwidth surcharges are typically billed individually per server. If any server uses more bandwidth than it is allocated, it will result in a surcharge fee. Bandwidth aggregation allows the customer to optimize their bandwidth usage by "aggregating" all the bandwidth together. Bandwidth overages for servers that are connected to a bandwidth “aggregate” are summed up as a whole and surcharges are calculated only if the total bandwidth of all servers exceeds the total allocated bandwidth for all servers.

For example, if you have 5 servers, each with 2000 GB of bandwidth, and one server used 3000 GB of bandwidth while the other servers used only 1500 GB of bandwidth each, you will not be billed for an overage because your total usage is 9000 GB, and your total allocated bandwidth is 10000 GB (for all servers). 

If you are interested about Bandwidth aggregation, please contact our Sales department to discuss the options.

Product availability:

• Dedicated Servers
• Colocation

FAQs about Metering and Billing

What is the price for gigabyte of the exceeding traffic?

For servers on our Volume network, we apply € 0,05 per GB, and on our Premium network, we apply € 0,10 per GB

Does incoming traffic count towards quota?

Yes, both incoming and outgoing traffic are counted. Metered data traffic billing is very straightforward and the most common method in use at Leaseweb - we measure each GB of data transfer to and from your server.