Help Center/ Web Application Firewall/ Billing/ Billing FAQs/ Can I Switch Between Yearly/Monthly and Pay-per-Use Payments for WAF?
Updated on 2024-11-06 GMT+08:00
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Can I Switch Between Yearly/Monthly and Pay-per-Use Payments for WAF?

For cloud WAF, directly switching the billing mode between yearly/monthly and pay-per-use is not supported. To that end, you can take the following steps:

To buy pay-per-use WAF instances, submit a service ticket to enable the service.

Changing Pay-per-use to Yearly/Monthly

For a cloud WAF instance billed on a pay-per-use basis, you can disable the pay-per-use billing mode and then enable yearly/monthly billing for it.

  • If you disable the pay-per-use billing, the billing for your WAF will stop and the WAF working mode for protected domain names will change to Suspended. However, WAF will still forward the website traffic without checking.
  • To avoid repeated configuration workloads, it is recommended that the new and original cloud WAF instances be under the same project in the same region.

The pay-per-use billing mode is a postpaid payment method. For a pay-per-use cloud instance, you are billed for the number of added domain names, number of customized rules, and number of requests you use in the entire billing period.

If you want to use WAF for a long time, change its billing mode from pay-per-use to yearly/monthly to reduce costs. Perform the following steps:

  1. Log in to the management console.
  2. Click in the upper left corner of the management console and select a region or project.
  3. Click in the upper left corner and choose Web Application Firewall under Security & Compliance.
  4. Disable the WAF instance billed on a pay-per-use basis.

    1. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Instance Management > Product Details.
    2. Click Disable Pay-per-Use Billing.
    3. In the displayed dialog box, select "The involved domain names have been resolved to corresponding origin servers, or they have been brought offline" and click Confirm.

      If you disable the pay-per-use billing for your WAF, the status of protected domain names on the Website Settings page will change to Unprotected.

  5. Buy a WAF instance billed on a yearly/monthly basis.

    For details, see Buying a WAF Instance Billed on a Yearly/Monthly Basis.

  6. Enable the WAF protection.

    1. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Website Settings.
    2. In the row containing the target website, click Enabled in the Operation column. Then, click Confirm in the displayed dialog box.

      If the status of the domain name changes to Protected, WAF starts protecting your website.

Changing Yearly/Monthly to Pay-Per-Use

  • For a cloud WAF instance billed on a yearly/monthly basis, after it expires or you unsubscribe from it, you can enable another WAF instance billed on pay-per-use basis.
  • To avoid repeated configuration workloads, it is recommended that the new and original WAF instances be under the same project in the same region or project.

Yearly/Monthly is a prepaid billing mode in which a WAF instance is billed based on the service duration. This cost-effective mode is ideal when the duration of WAF instance usage is predictable.

If you require a more flexible billing mode, in which your WAF will be billed based on usage, you can change the billing mode from yearly/monthly to pay-per-use. Before doing so, ensure that the yearly/monthly subscription has expired or you have unsubscribed from the yearly/monthly cloud instance. Perform the following steps:

  1. Log in to the management console.
  2. Click in the upper left corner of the management console and select a region or project.
  3. Click in the upper left corner and choose Web Application Firewall under Security & Compliance.
  4. Unsubscribe from the yearly/monthly WAF instance or confirm that the yearly/monthly subscription has expired.

    To view the details about the WAF instance you are using, see information displayed in the upper right corner of the Dashboard page.

    For details about unsubscription, see How Do I Unsubscribe from WAF?

  5. Enable a pay-per-use WAF instance.

    For details, see Buying a WAF Instance Billed on a Pay-Per-Use Basis.

  6. Enable the WAF protection.

    1. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Website Settings.
    2. In the row containing the target website, click Enabled in the Operation column. Then, click Confirm in the displayed dialog box.

      If the status of the domain name changes to Protected, WAF starts protecting your website.

Parent topic: Billing FAQs