WAF Pricing 2026: Cloudflare, AWS & 3 Alternatives

Cloudflare Pro costs $25 per month on monthly billing, or $20 per month billed annually. AWS WAF uses a different model: at the rates in its official pricing example, one web ACL, 10 rules and 1 million requests cost $15.60 per month before optional features and other AWS services. These are different configurations, not equivalent protection packages.

Prices checked October 1, 2026. Monthly subscriptions, annual subscriptions, usage charges and custom quotes are not equivalent protection packages. Annual totals are billed annually, not monthly installments. The AWS figure is an illustrative base-charge calculation, not a minimum price; rates vary by region and configuration. Optional features and associated services can add charges.

Official sources: Cloudflare plans, AWS WAF pricing, Sucuri Firewall, Sucuri Security Platform, Imperva WAF and Wordfence pricing.

Understanding WAF Pricing Models

Compare the billing basis as well as the headline price:

• Subscription: Cloudflare, Sucuri and Wordfence publish monthly or annual plan prices. Check the site or domain scope, included features and separately billed services.
• Usage-based: AWS WAF charges for web ACLs, rules and requests, with additional charges for some features. Estimate your actual configuration and traffic.
• Custom contract: Imperva WAF and Cloudflare Enterprise require a quote. Confirm the included products, usage allowances and commitment before comparing totals.

Provider-by-Provider Pricing Breakdown

Here are the published tiers, billing terms and costs to check for each provider.

Cloudflare Pricing Deep Dive

Cloudflare offers Free, Pro, Business and Enterprise plans. The Free plan includes the Cloudflare Free Managed Ruleset; Pro adds broader managed WAF rulesets.

• Free: $0/month, with plan-specific feature limits.
• Pro: $25/month when paid monthly, or $240/year when billed annually (equivalent to $20/month), per domain.
• Business: $250/month when paid monthly, or $2,400/year when billed annually (equivalent to $200/month), per domain.
• Enterprise: Custom contract pricing. Confirm which security products and support terms are included in the quote.

Additional costs to check: Enterprise Bot Management is an Enterprise add-on arranged through the account team. Rate-limiting allowances depend on the plan. Separately purchased services such as Workers can have their own usage charges. A fixed plan price does not mean every optional service is included.

AWS WAF Pricing Deep Dive

AWS WAF uses component-based pricing. Standard base charges in the official examples are $5 per web ACL per month, $1 per rule per web ACL per month, and $0.60 per million requests. Pricing depends on region and configuration; rule groups and optional features can add charges.

Illustrative monthly base costs: Each example below uses one web ACL and ten individual rules. Only request volume changes.

• 1 million requests: $5 + $10 + $0.60 = $15.60/month.
• 50 million requests: $5 + $10 + $30 = $45/month.
• 500 million requests: $5 + $10 + $300 = $315/month.

These are calculations, not complete deployment quotes. They exclude Marketplace subscriptions, optional bot and fraud controls, CAPTCHA and challenge fees, extra WAF capacity or body inspection charges, and associated AWS services. Marketplace sellers set their own subscription and request fees; there is no single price for all managed rule groups.

DDoS and delivery costs: Shield Standard has no additional charge. Shield Advanced is optional: its $3,000/month subscription has a one-year commitment, and additional usage charges may apply. It is not a required WAF purchase. CloudFront or other service charges should be budgeted separately. For a broader comparison, see Cloudflare vs AWS WAF.

Sucuri Pricing Deep Dive

Sucuri sells firewall-only subscriptions and annual Website Security Platform bundles. These are different products, so do not compare them as if they included the same services.

Firewall-only plans, per site:

• Basic Firewall: $9.99/month.
• Pro Firewall: $19.98/month.

Website Security Platform plans, per site:

• Basic Platform: $229/year; estimated first response within 30 hours.
• Pro Platform: $339/year; estimated first response within 12 hours.
• Business Platform: $549/year; estimated first response within 6 hours.

The Platform bundles include malware removal services in addition to website protection. Do not assume the firewall-only subscriptions include hack cleanup. The response figures are estimates for first response, not guarantees that cleanup will be completed within that time. For small businesses, the useful comparison is whether you need firewall protection alone or a bundle that includes incident help.

Imperva Pricing Deep Dive

Imperva directs WAF buyers to its sales team. We could not verify a numeric WAF price on its official product page, so the comparison lists Contact sales / custom quote instead of an estimated starting price.

Request a quote for your actual deployment and ask which products, traffic allowances, support and contract terms it covers. Check whether any bot management, API security or other services you need are included or separately priced. Without a comparable quote, a claim that Imperva is cheaper or more expensive than another provider would be speculation.

Wordfence Pricing Deep Dive

Wordfence is a WordPress security plugin with a free plan and annual paid plans. Its billing model is different from a request-metered cloud WAF.

• Free: $0, with firewall rule and malware signature updates delayed by 30 days.
• Premium: $149/year, with real-time firewall rules and malware signatures, the Premium IP Blocklist, country blocking and Premium Support.
• Care: $590/year, adding hands-on setup, support, monitoring and incident response.
• Response: $1,250/year, with 24/7/365 incident response and a one-hour response time.

These paid prices are annual subscriptions, not monthly rates. Wordfence Free and Cloudflare Free both offer a no-subscription-cost entry point, but their deployment models and included features differ. For WordPress, choose between self-managed protection and hands-on support based on the help you need, not price alone.

Costs Beyond the Headline Price

Compare the full cost of the configuration you intend to run:

• Engineering and tuning: Setup, rule maintenance and false-positive investigation take time. Estimate this for your own team and application rather than using a fixed hours-per-month assumption.
• Optional features: Confirm bot, API and DDoS products, managed rule groups, inspection limits and support charges. Cloudflare Enterprise Bot Management and AWS Shield Advanced are not universal base-plan inclusions.
• Incident response: Check whether malware cleanup or hands-on response is included. Sucuri Firewall and Security Platform are distinct products; Wordfence's support level also varies by plan.
• Billing scope and commitment: Check how many domains or sites a purchase covers, whether the price is monthly or annual, and the renewal and contract terms.

Our WAF ROI Calculator can help structure your estimate, but verify its inputs against current vendor prices and your actual deployment.

Which WAF Offers the Best Value?

The answer depends on your requirements:

• WordPress on a limited budget: Compare Wordfence Free with other free WAF options. If you need hands-on incident help, compare the paid support bundles separately.
• A website needing a published subscription price: Cloudflare Pro is $25/month or $240/year; Sucuri's firewall-only plans start at $9.99/month. Compare their included features and deployment requirements before choosing.
• An application already on AWS: Calculate AWS WAF's web ACL, rule and request charges, then add optional controls and associated service costs.
• An enterprise procurement: Obtain comparable Imperva and Cloudflare Enterprise quotes with explicit products, support, allowances and commitments.

Conclusion

WAF pricing in 2026 spans free plans, published subscriptions, usage-based charges and custom enterprise quotes. The cheapest headline price is not necessarily the right configuration for your application.

Use the comparison table to identify suitable options, then verify your traffic, required features, site or domain count and support needs. Include engineering and optional service costs in the budget. The linked official sources are the starting point for confirming the final purchase terms.