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Web Application Firewall:Burstable QPS (pay-as-you-go)

Last Updated:Mar 01, 2026

Burstable QPS lets a subscription WAF instance handle QPS spikes beyond the purchased limit without being sandboxed. Excess QPS is billed on a pay-as-you-go basis, so you do not need to permanently upgrade your instance for temporary traffic increases.

Note

Burstable QPS is available only for subscription instances. For details about sandbox behavior, see Sandbox overview.

Enable burstable QPS

  1. Go to the Web Application Firewall 3.0 buy page.

  2. Set Billing Method to Subscription, then set a value for Threshold of Burstable QPS (Pay-as-you-go).

    Note

    Setting Threshold of Burstable QPS (Pay-as-you-go) to 0 QPS leaves the feature disabled.

    The maximum burstable QPS varies by edition:

    Edition

    The Chinese mainland

    Outside the Chinese mainland

    Basic Edition

    Not supported

    Not supported

    Pro

    Up to 60,000 QPS

    Up to 1,000 QPS

    Enterprise Edition

    Up to 60,000 QPS

    Up to 1,000 QPS

    Ultimate

    For Enterprise Edition or Ultimate, contact your account manager or architect if your requirements exceed the maximum supported specification.

  3. Confirm the configuration, click Buy Now, and complete the payment.

Billing scenarios

Billing depends on whether your daily peak QPS exceeds your purchased QPS (base QPS + extension QPS) and whether burstable QPS is enabled.

Scenario Condition Billing
No overage Daily peak QPS ≤ purchased QPS Standard subscription billing only. No additional charges. See Subscription.
Overage, burstable QPS disabled (default) Daily peak QPS > purchased QPS Instance handled by the standard QPS overage and sandbox mechanism. See Sandbox overview.
Overage ≤ burstable QPS setting Daily peak QPS > purchased QPS, and overage ≤ burstable QPS setting Daily fee = (daily peak QPS - purchased QPS) x request processing fee. Settled once per day (UTC+8).
Overage > burstable QPS setting, not sandboxed Overage > burstable QPS setting, 3 or fewer overage events that day Daily fee = burstable QPS x request processing fee. Settled once per day (UTC+8).
Overage > burstable QPS setting, sandboxed Overage > burstable QPS setting, more than 3 overage events Fee for the day is 0. Instance handled by sandbox mechanism.
Important

An overage event is recorded when peak QPS exceeds the WAF specification threshold for 5 consecutive minutes. Multiple overage events within a single day count as one event. The instance is sandboxed on the fourth overage event. A sandboxed instance is no longer covered by the Service-Level Agreement (SLA). Impacts include but are not limited to packet loss, rate limiting, connection limits, protection failures, abnormal log or report data, access timeouts, and traffic entering DDoS scrubbing or blackhole filtering. To remove an instance from the sandbox, upgrade the QPS specification. For details, see Sandbox overview.

Pricing

Request processing fees vary by region and enabled features.

Traffic type The Chinese mainland Outside the Chinese mainland
Basic traffic USD 0.02/QPS/day USD 0.03/QPS/day
Bot management or API security enabled USD 0.035/QPS/day USD 0.045/QPS/day
Both bot management and API security enabled USD 0.05/QPS/day USD 0.06/QPS/day

Billing examples

The following examples use the Chinese mainland pricing. Assume a subscription WAF 3.0 Ultimate instance with these specifications:

  • Base QPS: 10,000

  • Extension QPS: 50,000 (purchased)

  • Bot management: enabled

  • Daily peak traffic: 64,000 QPS

  • QPS overage: 4,000 (64,000 - 10,000 - 50,000)

Example 1: Burstable QPS set to 5,000

The overage (4,000) is less than the burstable QPS setting (5,000). The request processing fee with bot management is USD 0.035/QPS/day.

Daily fee = 4,000 x USD 0.035 = USD 140

Example 2: Burstable QPS set to 1,250

The overage (4,000) exceeds the burstable QPS setting (1,250). Billing is capped at the burstable QPS value. The request processing fee with bot management is USD 0.035/QPS/day.

Daily fee = 1,250 x USD 0.035 = USD 43.75

View bills

  1. Log on to the Web Application Firewall 3.0 console. From the top menu bar, select the resource group and region (Chinese Mainland or Outside Chinese Mainland) for the WAF instance.

  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Bill Management.

    The bill list shows daily details including the burstable billing type, burstable unit price, peak QPS, current specification (QPS), total fee, and instance status.