AWS Public IPv4 Fee Announced: $3.6B Revenue Signal Shakes the Market

AWS made headlines on July 28, 2023 when it announced charges for public IPv4 addresses, effective February 1, 2024. Analysts estimated the move could generate billions in annual revenue. The fee structure put a clear price on public IPv4 at scale. Here’s what AWS announced, what it means for costs, and what leaseholders and buyers can do.

What AWS Announced

The fee: $0.005 per public IPv4 address per hour, effective February 1, 2024.

This applies to all public IPv4 addresses whether attached to a service or not, across EC2, RDS, EKS, and all other AWS services in all regions. The AWS Free Tier includes 750 hours of public IPv4 usage per month for the first 12 months.

At scale: A /24 block (256 addresses) costs approximately $921/month or $11,059/year in AWS IPv4 fees alone.

For context on how cloud charges change the economics, see AWS Charges for Public IPv4 Addresses. For how big tech uses IPv4 and what that means for holders, see How Google, Amazon, and Microsoft Use IPv4.

The $3.6B Revenue Signal

Fees at scale generate substantial revenue. At $0.005/hour and AWS’s massive public IPv4 footprint, analysts estimated the move could generate $3–4 billion annually.

The math: If AWS customers use 100 million public IPv4 addresses:

• 100M IPs × $0.005/hr × 8,760 hrs/year = ~$4.4 billion/year

That revenue signal showed that IPv4 scarcity had become a profit center for cloud providers. Azure and GCP followed with matching $0.005/hour charges effective February 2024.

Cloud IP cost was no longer hidden. The fee structure made it clear that public IPv4 is a scarce, valuable resource. Customers now have reason to consider alternatives: buy, lease, or reduce usage via BYOIP.

So the announcement didn’t create IPv4 scarcity; it monetized it and signaled how much the market values public IPv4.

Market Reaction

The announcement drove immediate interest in alternatives. Organizations with high public IP spend started evaluating buying IPv4 (for long-term control and BYOIP) or leasing (for medium-term use with lower upfront than buy).

BYOIP economics: If you bring your own IPv4 to AWS, you pay $0 in IPv4 fees for those addresses. A /24 block purchased for ~$8,000 pays for itself in under 9 months compared to AWS fees.

Leasing fits when you need public IPv4 for 1–3 years and want to avoid fees without a large upfront purchase. Current lease rates ($100–150/month for a /24) are far less than AWS charges ($921/month). Our how to lease IPv4 guide walks through the process for lessees.

Buying fits when you need long-term control and have budget for an upfront purchase. Either way, the fee structure made the tradeoff explicit.

What Leaseholders and Buyers Should Do

If AWS fees are affecting your cloud spend:

Assess your spend. How many public IPv4 addresses do you use? Multiply by $3.60/month. Project that over 1–3 years. That’s your baseline.

Compare to lease and buy. Get quotes for IPv4 blocks in your region and size.

Our lease IPv4 guide explains the lessee path.

Check BYOIP. AWS, Azure, and GCP all support BYOIP. If you lease or buy IPv4, you can bring the block and eliminate per-address fees.

AWS fees made cloud IP pricing visible. Organizations with significant public IPv4 usage should evaluate leasing or buying with BYOIP.