Cloud Firewall introduces the Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan to offset all your Pay-as-you-go billable items and help reduce your cloud asset costs. This topic describes what a Cloud Firewall Savings Plan is and how to purchase it.
Watch this video for a quick introduction to the Cloud Firewall Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan and a guide on how to use it.
Prerequisites
To use a Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan, you must have either the Pay-As-You-Go 2.0 or Subscription with Post-paid Elastic Traffic billing method enabled. After you purchase a Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan, ensure you have activated the corresponding edition or feature.
What is a Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan
The Cloud Firewall Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan is a prepaid model, similar to a stored-value card. After purchase, it automatically applies discounts to offset your Cloud Firewall Pay-as-you-go bills (or Subscription with Post-paid Elastic Traffic bills) to reduce your costs. For more information about how offsets work, see Pay-As-You-Go 2.0 or Subscription with Post-paid Elastic Traffic.
Purchasing a Cloud Firewall Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan gives you the low prices of a Subscription plan combined with the flexibility of a Pay-as-you-go plan.
Compared to a Subscription
You receive the low prices of a Subscription instance with the flexibility to purchase, upgrade, and release resources at any time, just like with a Pay-as-you-go instance.
Compared to Pay-as-you-go
It offsets the costs of Pay-as-you-go instances at a discount rate, saving you more money than you would by using Pay-as-you-go alone.
Billing
Billable items
Discount and billable items | Rules |
Savings Plan Type (discount) | The discount for the fees of billable items of Cloud Firewall that uses the pay-as-you-go billing method varies based on the amount range to which your committed consumption amount belongs.
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Committed Consumption Amount (amount of the savings plan) | The committed consumption amount of the savings plan.
You can estimate a committed consumption amount based on the number of public IP addresses that you want to protect and the volume of your traffic. The committed consumption amount is calculated using the following formula: Committed consumption amount of the savings plan = Daily consumption × Number of days or subscription duration (days) × Discount of the savings plan |
Subscription Duration (validity period) | 3 months, 6 months, or 1 year. |
Offset rules
Applicable plan editions | Offset billable items | Billing details |
Pay-as-you-go edition |
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Subscription (Premium Edition/Enterprise Edition/Ultimate Edition) |
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During billing settlement, the system automatically uses the Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan to offset Pay-as-you-go billable items for Cloud Firewall. Items are offset in the order they are incurred.
If you have purchased multiple Pay-as-you-go Savings Plans, the system offsets costs using the plan that expires soonest first.
A Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan takes effect immediately after purchase. Because Pay-as-you-go bills for Cloud Firewall are settled at 18:00 each day for the previous day's usage, the offset applies to the bill generated on the following day (T+1).
For example, if you purchase a Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan at 15:00 on July 20, it can be used to offset fees generated for the Pay-as-you-go edition of Cloud Firewall after 00:00 on July 20. The offset will be reflected in the bill generated on July 21.
Billing example
On July 1, a company using the Pay-as-you-go edition of Cloud Firewall incurs Public IP configuration and traffic processing fees of 12 USD and 2.247 USD, respectively.
If you have not purchased a Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan, the total fee is: 12 + 2.247 = 14.247 USD.
If you have purchased a Prepayment (10-99) Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan and it is within its validity period, your total charge is: 12 × 0.95 + 2.247 × 0.95 = 13.535 USD.
Purchase a Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan
Go to the Cloud Firewall purchase page.
For Product Type, select Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan.
Configure the specifications based on your business needs.
Review and accept the Terms of Service, then click Buy Now and complete the payment.
View the usage details of a Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan
Go to Expenses and Costs.
In the left-side navigation pane, choose .
On the Pricing Details page, view the billable items and their corresponding discounts.
Cloud Firewall (Pay-As-You-Go)
On the Discount Details page, filter the results by selecting Cloud Firewall (Pay-As-You-Go) as the product. Select the corresponding Savings Plan Type, Duration, and Billing Item. Click View to see the billable items and discount rates for the Pay-as-you-go edition of Cloud Firewall.
Cloud Firewall (Subscription)
On the Discount Details page, filter the results by selecting Cloud Firewall as the product. Select the corresponding Savings Plan Type, Duration, and Billing Item. Click View to see the discount rates for the post-paid elastic traffic of your Cloud Firewall Subscription.
In the left-side navigation pane, choose . This page displays an overview, usage details, and the utilization rate for your Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan.
Refund and renewal policies
Pay-as-you-go Savings Plans are non-refundable after purchase. You must use them within their validity period. Any unused balance automatically expires and cannot be refunded.
Pay-as-you-go Savings Plans cannot be renewed. If you need a larger plan, you can purchase a new plan with a higher commitment or purchase multiple plans.
To accurately estimate the commitment amount for your Savings Plan, first use the Pay-as-you-go edition of Cloud Firewall for a period (such as 1 to 7 days). Then, refer to the detailed billable items for Pay-as-you-go before making your purchase.
If your traffic usage exceeds your subscription's quota, you can enable Subscription with Post-paid Elastic Traffic and use a Pay-as-you-go Savings Plan to reduce costs.
FAQ
What happens if my Cloud Firewall's Pay-as-you-go usage exceeds my Savings Plan commitment?
Your Savings Plan is applied first to offset your billable items. Once the commitment amount is fully used, any additional usage is charged at the standard Pay-as-you-go rate. For more information, see Pay-As-You-Go 2.0.
How am I billed if my usage is less than the commitment amount when my Savings Plan expires?
You will be billed for the full commitment amount of the Savings Plan, regardless of your actual usage. Pay-as-you-go Savings Plans are non-refundable. Any unused balance automatically expires at the end of the validity period and cannot be refunded or carried over.
How are discounts applied if I have multiple active Pay-as-you-go Savings Plans?
The system automatically applies the Savings Plan that is set to expire soonest.
For example, you purchase one Upfront (10-99) package and one Upfront (100-999) package at the same time. The Upfront (10-99) package is valid for 3 months, and the Upfront (100-999) package is valid for 6 months. If you incur pay-as-you-go fees, the system uses the Upfront (10-99) package first to offset the fees.