Cloud Firewall offers pay-as-you-go savings plans to offset all pay-as-you-go charges incurred when using Cloud Firewall, helping you reduce cloud asset costs. This topic explains what Cloud Firewall savings plans are and how to purchase a pay-as-you-go savings plan.
Watch the video for a quick overview of Cloud Firewall pay-as-you-go savings plans and step-by-step guidance.
Prerequisites
Pay-as-you-go savings plans must be used together with pay-as-you-go 2.0 or subscription elastic traffic pay-as-you-go. After purchasing a Cloud Firewall pay-as-you-go savings plan, ensure you have activated or promptly activate the corresponding edition or capability.
What is a pay-as-you-go savings plan
A Cloud Firewall pay-as-you-go savings plan (upfront payment) works like a prepaid balance card. After purchase, it offsets Cloud Firewall pay-as-you-go billing (or subscription elastic pay-as-you-go billing) at a specific discount rate, helping you save costs. For details on how offsets apply, see pay-as-you-go 2.0 or subscription elastic traffic pay-as-you-go.
Purchasing a Cloud Firewall pay-as-you-go savings plan lets you enjoy both the low pricing of subscription billing and the flexibility of pay-as-you-go billing.
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Compared with subscription billing
You get the low pricing of subscription instances while retaining the flexibility of pay-as-you-go instances—buy, upgrade, or release anytime.
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Compared with pay-as-you-go billing
Your pay-as-you-go instance fees are offset at a set discount rate, reducing costs compared to using pay-as-you-go alone.
Billing details
Billing items
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Discount levels and billing items |
Rules |
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Savings plan type (discount level) |
The discount applied to all pay-as-you-go billing items depends on the amount range of your purchased savings plan.
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Commitment amount (amount of savings plan purchased) |
This is the upfront amount you pay for your savings plan, similar to a top-up balance.
To estimate your usage cost, consider the number of public IP addresses and traffic volume your business needs to protect. Use the following formula: Required pay-as-you-go savings plan amount = Daily spend × Usage days (or subscription duration in days) × Applicable savings plan discount |
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Duration (validity period) |
3 months, 6 months, or 1 year. |
Offset rules
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Editions eligible for savings plan offset |
Billing items offset |
Detailed billing |
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Pay-as-you-go edition |
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Subscription (Pro/Enterprise/Ultimate Edition) |
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During billing, the system automatically applies your pay-as-you-go savings plan to offset Cloud Firewall pay-as-you-go charges. It prioritizes offsetting the earliest incurred pay-as-you-go items first.
If you purchase multiple pay-as-you-go savings plans, the system offsets them in order of expiration date—earlier expirations are used first.
Pay-as-you-go savings plans take effect immediately after purchase. Because Cloud Firewall pay-as-you-go billing calculates and settles the previous day’s charges daily at 18:00, your savings plan appears as an offset on the T+1 day bill.
For example, if you purchase a pay-as-you-go savings plan at 15:00 on July 20, it offsets pay-as-you-go charges generated by Cloud Firewall after 00:00 on July 20, and the offset appears on the bill generated on July 21.
Billing example
An enterprise used Cloud Firewall that uses the pay-as-you-go billing method and incurred a public IP address configuration fee of 12 US dollars and a traffic processing fee of 2.247 US dollars on July 1.
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If you have not purchased a pay-as-you-go savings plan, you will be charged: 12 + 2.247 = 14.247 US dollars.
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If you have purchased a pay-as-you-go savings plan of the Upfront (10–99) type, and the pay-as-you-go savings plan is within its validity period, you only need to pay: 12 × 0.95 + 2.247 × 0.95 = 13.535 US dollars.
Purchase a pay-as-you-go savings plan
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Go to the Cloud Firewall purchase page.
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Set Product Type to Pay-as-you-go savings plan.
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Configure the plan specifications based on your business needs.
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Read and accept the Service Agreement, then click Buy Now and complete payment.
View pay-as-you-go savings plan usage details
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Go to Expenses and Costs.
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In the navigation pane on the left, choose .
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On the Price discount details page, view billing items and applicable discounts.
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Cloud Firewall pay-as-you-go edition
On the Price discount details page, in the filter area, set Product to Cloud Firewall (pay-as-you-go), then select the appropriate Savings Plan Type, Duration, and Billing Item. Click Search to view billing items and discount rates for the Cloud Firewall pay-as-you-go edition.
For example, if you select Savings plan type as Cloud Firewall (pay-as-you-go savings plan) / All upfront (10000–100000), Subscription duration as 3 months, and Billing item as NAT firewall instance count, the result shows a 14% discount (86% of original price) for NAT firewall traffic processing fee.
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Cloud Firewall subscription edition
On the Price discount details page, in the filter area, set Product to Cloud Firewall, then select the appropriate Savings Plan Type, Duration, and Billing Item. Click Search to view discount rates for Cloud Firewall subscription elastic pay-as-you-go charges.
For example, if you select Savings plan type as Cloud Firewall (pay-as-you-go savings plan) / All upfront (50–999), Subscription duration as 3 months, and Billing item as Overage elastic traffic billing, then click View, the result shows a 5% discount (95% of original price).
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In the navigation pane on the left, choose . View an overview of your pay-as-you-go savings plan usage, detailed records, and utilization rate.
The Usage details page lets you filter offset records by account, savings plan instance ID, and time range, and supports Export. The table displays each offset record’s Type, Billing item, Offset amount, List price of offset bill, Discount rate, Offset account, Offset product, Offset instance, and Applicable pay-as-you-go discount.
Refund and renewal policy
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Pay-as-you-go savings plans are non-refundable after purchase. You must use the full amount within the subscription duration. Any unused balance expires automatically and cannot be refunded or opted out of.
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Pay-as-you-go savings plans cannot be renewed. To get more capacity, purchase a larger plan or buy multiple plans.
We recommend activating the Cloud Firewall pay-as-you-go edition for a short trial period (1–7 days). Refer to Detailed pay-as-you-go billing items to estimate the required savings plan amount based on actual usage.
If your subscription edition exceeds its included traffic quota, activate subscription elastic traffic pay-as-you-go and pair it with a pay-as-you-go savings plan to reduce costs.
FAQ
What happens if actual pay-as-you-go charges exceed the committed amount?
Cloud Firewall first uses your pay-as-you-go savings plan to offset charges. Any excess is billed at standard pay-as-you-go rates. For more information, see Pay-as-you-go 2.0.
What happens if actual usage is less than the committed amount when the plan expires?
You are charged based on the committed amount specified when purchasing the pay-as-you-go savings plan.
Pay-as-you-go savings plans are non-refundable after purchase. You must use the full amount within the subscription duration. Any unused balance expires automatically and cannot be refunded or opted out of.
What is the offset order if I purchase multiple types of pay-as-you-go savings plans?
The system offsets plans in order of expiration date—earlier expirations are used first.
For example, suppose you purchase one upfront (10–99) plan and one upfront (100–999) plan. The upfront (10–99) plan has a 3-month validity, while the upfront (100–999) plan has a 6-month validity. When pay-as-you-go charges occur, the system uses the upfront (10–99) plan first.