How Much Does Business Internet Cost?

Dedicated Internet Access: Higher Cost, Better Connectivity 

1. Whether your building is on-net 

This is usually the single biggest driver of cost. If a provider already has fiber into or adjacent to your building, delivery costs are reduced. If it does not, costs are higher because infrastructure must be deployed. 

Off-net locations requiring construction see significantly higher costs, and construction charges can be substantial where a new build is required. Sometimes recovered as an upfront fee, sometimes amortized into the monthly rate over the term. 

This is also why two businesses a few miles apart get very different quotes for identical service. It is not inconsistency. It is what is physically in the ground beneath each of them. 

2. Contract length 

Longer terms cost less per month, because the provider amortizes delivery costs over a longer period. Three-year terms are common in DIA and priced accordingly. A twelve-month term on the same circuit will carry a higher monthly rate, and a month-to-month arrangement higher still, if it is offered at all. 

This cuts both ways. A long term buys a lower rate but costs flexibility. Weigh it against how confident you are in the location, the headcount, and the bandwidth you will need in year three. 

3. Bandwidth 

Bandwidth raises prices, but not proportionally. Cost per megabit falls sharply as you move up the tiers, which is why a 1 Gbps circuit rarely costs 10 times as much as a 100 Mbps one. The consequence is that the next tier up is often much cheaper than it looks relative to the tier you are on, and worth pricing even if you think you do not need it.  

4. Local competition 

Quotes are more competitive where more than one provider is available. Verify the availability of providers to your business location. The time spent gathering multiple quotes is well worth it. 

5. What is bundled into the rate 

Monthly costs might be similar between two quotes, but there’s more to the service than advertised speeds. Static IP addresses, managed router or equipment, installation, and support level are all variables. Get itemized quotes and compare them carefully for these features. 

Additional Costs That Affect Your Monthly Bill 

There’s more to your monthly payment than the price you see in quotes or advertisements. Keep the following common monthly fees in mind when calculating actual costs. 

• Installation and activation. Standard installs are modest. Locations requiring a new fiber build can run into the thousands, and whether that is charged upfront or built into the rate materially changes the comparison. 
• Equipment. Router or modem rental is a recurring line that is easy to miss when comparing monthly figures. 
• Static IP addresses. Usually a small monthly charge, but needed for VPN, hosted services, or remote access, so it is rarely optional. 
• Post-promotional pricing. Promotional rates expire. Ask what the rate becomes in month 13 and calculate across the full term, not month one. 
• Early termination. Ask what canceling service costs, and separately whether upgrading mid-term triggers a fee. Some providers charge for the latter, which quietly penalizes growth. 
• Overage or throttling. Capped plans that slow after a threshold make a bandwidth problem into a productivity problem partway through the month. 

Cost Per Megabit Is Not a Meaningful Metric for Business Internet 

Cost per megabit is tidy, but it’s a poor decision rule. It assumes every megabit is equivalent. It is not. A megabit on a shared best-effort connection at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday is not the same product as a megabit on a dedicated circuit with a service level attached. 

The comparison that matters is total cost across the term, including what an outage costs you. 

Working out your own downtime cost 

Widely circulated per-minute downtime averages don’t mean much across different business types. But it is worth knowing to understand the operational and financial impacts on your business. The following are losses to your business when you lose connectivity: 

• Revenue per operating hour, times realistic hours offline 
• Staff on the clock who cannot do their work 
• Downstream obligations: customer SLAs, delivery windows, appointments 
• Recovery labor reconciling what did not sync 
• Missed or unknown calls if your phone system runs over the same connection 

Multiply that by a realistic number of outage hours per year based on the provider’s SLA and add it to the monthly cost. That total is the comparable number. 

What an uptime figure permits 

Service levels are quoted in nines, which obscures what they mean in practice: 

When comparing a cheaper connection against a more expensive one with a stronger SLA, the difference is what the premium is buying. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on your own downtime cost, which is why calculating it first makes the pricing decision straightforward rather than a matter of taste. 

Also ask what the SLA covers, how it is measured, and what you receive when it is missed. An uptime percentage with no measurement method and no credit schedule attached is marketing, not a commitment. 

How Much Bandwidth Does Your Business Need? 

Overbuying is common and expensive. Understanding what your business needs in terms of bandwidth keeps you from paying too much for service you don’t need. 

1. Count concurrent users, not headcount; what matters is how many people are actively using the connection at the same time. 
2. Identify your heaviest recurring workload, such as video conferencing, cloud backup, large file transfer, hosted phones, and size for that, not for the average. 
3. Check upload separately. Cloud backup, video calls, and file sharing are upload-heavy, and asymmetric plans fail there first. 
4. Look at your busiest hour of the busiest week, not your monthly mean. 
5. Price the tier above your answer. Because cost per megabit falls as tiers rise, headroom is often cheaper than it appears.

How Fixed Wireless Internet Compares 

Fixed wireless is not usually the cheapest option per megabit. What it changes is the cost structure. There is no trenching and no construction, so the build costs that drive off-net fiber quotes largely disappear, and installation runs as little as 7 to 14 days rather than the 30 to 90 days a new fiber build can require. (On-net fiber can be installed in as little as 10-30 days.) 

It also scales without new hardware, so a business with variable or growing demands can raise and lower speed rather than buying permanent capacity for a seasonal peak. For a location where fiber construction is required, or where the timeline matters, the total cost comparison often differs from the per-megabit comparison suggests. Our guide to business internet options covers how the connection types compare beyond price. 

Getting a Quote Worth Comparing 

There’s more to consider for your business internet connection than speed. Generally, your quote should include the following components: 

• Speed, and whether it is symmetrical 
• Whether bandwidth is dedicated or shared 
• Contract term, and the rate after any promotional period ends 
• Installation and activation charges, and whether construction is required at your address 
• Equipment charges, and whether you can supply your own 
• Static IP allocation and cost 
• SLA terms including measurement method and credit schedule
• What changing speed mid-term costs, in both directions 

Market ranges cited are third-party industry figures for orientation only and do not represent EarthLink Business pricing. Actual pricing depends on location, service type, speed, and contract terms. Actual speeds may vary. All speeds and services not available in all areas.