A subscription is a prepaid billing method. This method allows you to reserve resources in advance at a lower price, maximizing your cost savings. This topic explains how subscription billing works.
Use cases
The subscription billing method is ideal for the following use cases:
You have predictable resource usage.
You have stable business workloads.
You need long-term resource usage and want lower costs than the pay-as-you-go model.
Billable items
When you purchase a subscription Web Application Firewall (WAF) instance, you are billed upfront based on the edition, specifications, and subscription duration you select. You can also purchase value-added services to get features not included in your base edition. For details on the features supported by each edition, see WAF plans and editions.
Subscription billable items include the following:
Core edition features: This includes the features, specifications, and subscription duration of your selected edition.
Value-added services: WAF also offers optional value-added services, such as an extra bandwidth package, an extra domain package, and an exclusive IP address package. You must purchase these services to use their features. For more information, see Purchase add-ons.
Billing cycle
A subscription's billing cycle is the duration you select during purchase. The cycle begins the moment you purchase or renew a resource and ends at 24:00:00 (UTC+8) on the expiration date.
Subscription billing cycles measured in years or months refer to calendar years and calendar months.
Instance expiration
When your WAF instance expires, the following occurs:
Seven days before your instance expires, Alibaba Cloud sends you a renewal reminder by SMS or email.
If you renew the instance within 15 days of expiration, service is restored immediately.
If the instance is not renewed within 15 days of expiration, it is automatically released.