When traffic spikes push your QPS beyond the purchased limit, burstable QPS absorbs the excess on a pay-as-you-go basis — preventing sandboxing and service interruption. Available for subscription instances only.
WAF will adjust the Burstable QPS feature starting from 2026-05-28 00:00:00. After the adjustment, both new and existing users of WAF 3.0 subscription edition will have the elastic pay-as-you-go QPS capability enabled by default, and it will not support manual disabling or QPS specification adjustments. For more information, see Adjustments to WAF billing features.
Use cases
During major promotions, QPS can spike unpredictably. Burstable QPS handles the excess automatically — no manual scaling required.
Billing
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Scenario 1: Daily peak QPS ≤ purchased QPS (edition QPS + extension QPS).
Standard Subscription billing applies.
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Scenario 2: Daily peak QPS > purchased QPS (edition QPS + extension QPS), burstable QPS disabled (default).
The standard QPS overage mechanism applies, and the instance may enter the sandbox. Sandbox overview.
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Scenario 3: Daily peak QPS > purchased QPS (edition QPS + extension QPS), burstable QPS enabled.
Excess QPS is billed on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Excess QPS
Billable item
Billing cycle
Formula (Unit: CNY)
≤ configured burstable QPS limit
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Excess QPS above purchased limit
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Request processing fee:
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Basic traffic:
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Chinese mainland: CNY 0.15/QPS/day
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Outside the Chinese mainland: CNY 0.2/QPS/day
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bot management or API security enabled:
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Chinese mainland: CNY 0.25/QPS/day
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Outside the Chinese mainland: CNY 0.3/QPS/day
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Both bot management and API security enabled:
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Chinese mainland: CNY 0.35/QPS/day
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Outside the Chinese mainland: CNY 0.4/QPS/day
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Fees are settled daily (UTC+8). A new billing cycle starts after settlement.
Daily fee = (Daily peak QPS - Purchased QPS) × Request processing fee
> configured burstable QPS limit, instance not sandboxed that day (≤ 3 overage events).
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Burstable QPS
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Request processing fee:
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Basic traffic:
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Chinese mainland: CNY 0.15/QPS/day
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Outside the Chinese mainland: CNY 0.2/QPS/day
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bot management or API security enabled:
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Chinese mainland: CNY 0.25/QPS/day
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Outside the Chinese mainland: CNY 0.3/QPS/day
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Both bot management and API security enabled:
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Chinese mainland: CNY 0.35/QPS/day
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Outside the Chinese mainland: CNY 0.4/QPS/day
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Daily fee = burstable QPS × Request processing fee
NoteAn overage event occurs when peak QPS exceeds the WAF threshold for five consecutive minutes. The instance enters the sandbox on the fourth overage event of the day.
> configured burstable QPS limit, instance entered and remains in the sandbox that day.
No fees are charged for the day.
N/A
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Billing examples
This example uses the pricing for the Chinese Mainland. Assume you have a Chinese Mainland Chinese Mainland Chinese Mainland Chinese Mainland with 10,000 QPS included, plus a 50,000 QPS extension. Chinese Mainland is enabled. If daily peak traffic reaches 64,000 QPS, the excess is 4,000 QPS (64,000 − 10,000 − 50,000).
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If you have enabled burstable QPS with a limit of 5,000 QPS:
The excess (4,000 QPS) is below the 5,000 QPS limit. With bot management enabled, the rate is CNY 0.25/QPS/day. Daily fee: CNY 1,000 (4,000 × 0.25).
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If you have enabled burstable QPS with a limit of 1,250 QPS:
The excess (4,000 QPS) exceeds the 1,250 QPS limit. With bot management enabled, the rate is CNY 0.25/QPS/day. Daily fee: CNY 312.5 (1,250 × 0.25).
Important-
An overage event occurs when peak QPS exceeds the WAF threshold for five consecutive minutes. The instance enters the sandbox on the fourth overage event of the day.
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A sandboxed instance is not covered by the SLA. Traffic may experience packet loss, rate limiting, connection limits, protection failures, abnormal logs or reports, access timeouts, or redirection to DDoS scrubbing or blackhole filtering.
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To remove an instance from the sandbox, upgrade its QPS specification. Sandbox overview.
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Enable burstable QPS
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Go to the Web Application Firewall 3.0 buy page.
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Set billing method to subscription, and then set a value for Burst QPS (Pay-As-You-Go).
The maximum specification for Burst QPS (Pay-As-You-Go) varies by edition.
Edition
Chinese mainland
Outside the Chinese mainland
Basic Edition
Does not support Burst QPS (Pay-As-You-Go).
Burst QPS (Pay-As-You-Go) is not supported.
Pro Edition
Up to 60,000 QPS
Up to 1,000 QPS
Enterprise Edition
Up to 60,000 QPS. Contact your account manager or architect for higher limits.
Up to 1,000 QPS. Contact your account manager or architect for higher limits.
Ultimate Edition
NoteSetting Burst QPS (Pay-As-You-Go) to 0 QPS disables burstable QPS.
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After confirming the configuration, click Purchase Now and complete the payment.
Bill management
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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.
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In the left-side navigation pane, choose .
The bill list shows daily details including burstable billing type, unit price, peak QPS, current QPS specification, total fee, and instance status.