For ISPs the IP cost per customer is generally considered irrelevant, and to a degree, it's not a huge input cost, but should the current situation prevail, this is likely to change.
There has been indications that AFRINIC intends to review it's fees structure, but unfortunately the current situation stopped that. As a result we'll be looking at both the current and proposed prices, from a /8 (or equivalent) down to a single /24. Currently LIR members (predominantly ISPs) can only obtain /22s at a time from AFRINIC, subject to strict rules regarding existing usage space. Pricing below is calculated PURELY on IPv4 resources.
AFRINIC resource fee calculator is available at https://afrinic.net/fee-calculator-nf.
For details on current pricing structure: https://afrinic.net/membership/cost#resource.
For details on the proposed pricing structure: https://www.afrinic.net/ast/pdf/Board/afrinic-fees-proposal-report-20180523.pdf - this is quite a hefty document, but the essence is in section 3.2.
We're not concerned with the allocation fee's at all, we're only considering the annual membership fee's as a result of the address space assigned. The per /24 fee's are normalized to cost per /24 per year.
| IPv4 | IP# | /24s | Current | Per /24 | Proposed | Per /24 |
| ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| /24 | 256 | 1 | $ 1000.00 | $ 1000.00 | $ 1400.00 | $ 1454.00 |
| /23 | 512 | 2 | $ 1200.00 | $ 600.00 | $ 1400.00 | $ 727.00 |
| /22 | 1024 | 4 | $ 1400.00 | $ 350.00 | $ 1400.00 | $ 363.50 |
| /21 | 2048 | 8 | $ 1400.00 | $ 175.00 | $ 1786.00 | $ 223.25 |
| /20 | 4096 | 16 | $ 2200.00 | $ 137.50 | $ 2429.00 | $ 151.81 |
| /19 | 8192 | 32 | $ 2200.00 | $ 68.75 | $ 3303.00 | $ 103.22 |
| /18 | 16384 | 64 | $ 6400.00 | $ 100.00 | $ 4493.00 | $ 70.20 |
| /17 | 32768 | 128 | $ 6400.00 | $ 50.00 | $ 6110.00 | $ 47.73 |
| /16 | 65536 | 256 | $ 12800.00 | $ 50.00 | $ 8309.00 | $ 32.46 |
| /15 | 131072 | 512 | $ 12800.00 | $ 25.00 | $ 11301.00 | $ 22.07 |
| /14 | 262144 | 1024 | $ 22500.00 | $ 21.97 | $ 15369.00 | $ 15.01 |
| /13 | 524288 | 2048 | $ 22500.00 | $ 10.99 | $ 20902.00 | $ 10.21 |
| /12 | 1048576 | 4096 | $ 30000.00 | $ 7.32 | $ 28427.00 | $ 6.94 |
| /11 | 2097152 | 8192 | $ 30000.00 | $ 3.66 | $ 38660.00 | $ 4.72 |
| /10 | 4194304 | 16384 | $ 38400.00 | $ 2.34 | $ 52578.00 | $ 3.21 |
| /9 | 8388608 | 32768 | $ 38400.00 | $ 1.17 | $ 71506.00 | $ 2.18 |
| /8 | 16777216 | 65536 | $ 38400.00 | $ 0.59 | $ 97248.00 | $ 1.48 |
NOTE: If you're trying to replicate on the resource fee calculator, you cannot enter a /8 or /9, use two or four /10's respectively instead, additionally, the CAPTCHA is quite annoying and as such the author reverted to using the reference documents to calculate the values (results were spot-checked).
From the above it's clear that members with less than a /18 of space would end up paying more for their resources, at which point the new structure becomes more cost effective, and then once we pass about a /11 the new structure is again much more costly. This explains why some members are against this new structure and pushing for "zero membership fees" via the NRS, as well as for "ownership of your IP addresses".
The author has personally seen the following pricing for IPv4 IP address space offered to a client:
| IPv4 | Monthly | Yearly |
| ---: | ---: | ---: |
| /24 | $ 112.50 | $ 1350.00 |
| /22 | $ 450.00 | $ 5400.00 |
Whilst for a single /24 it may seem cheaper to lease, please keep in mind that this still requires you to obtain an AS number through another LIR/RIR, the specific client also had to independently obtain an ASN through an LIR from RIPE at a cost of £75 per year. It must be noted that once you get to /22 we're leaking at an input cost nearly times as expensive as obtaining from AFRINIC.
Hear-say has values as "good as $75 per /24 per month", let's assume that's at scale, that's still $900 per year per /24. Significantly more expensive that obtaining resources via AFRINIC.
From the above it should be clear that being forced to lease IPv4 addresses is prohibitively expensive to small startups and service providers.
Whilst we acknowledge that IPv4 address space is fast running out, Afrinic does still have a portion of a /8 from which it's allocating /22s towards new and existing LIR members (existing assuming they can show 90% utilization of existing IPv4 resources). This is of particular interest to smaller ISPs that require these resources. It's believed that larger ISPs are more and more using CG-NAT as they don't want to deal with blocks as small as /22s, so these entities will likely either lease or use CG-NAT.