Vendor deep-dive

Azure WAF Pricing 2026: Front Door, Application Gateway, and the Two Pricing Models

Azure splits WAF across two products with two different pricing models. Front Door WAF is per-policy plus per-request, suited to global edge workloads. Application Gateway WAF v2 is per-gateway-hour plus per-capacity-unit-hour, suited to per-VNet ingress. Picking the wrong one for your traffic profile can double the monthly bill.

Last verified June 2026

Cloud-native WAF, per-policy + per-request

Azure WAF (Front Door)

From

$5/mo

Rate position

Azure WAF sits in the lower third of the 6 vendors that publish a starting WAF rate.

What it costs

Azure WAF (Front Door) prices on a per policy + per rule + per million requests basis. The cheapest published entry point is $5.00 per policy per month (Front Door Premium managed rules). Full tier list below, taken from the live vendor pricing page.

Azure WAF (Front Door) pricing tiers

Tier 1Front Door Premium, managed rules
$5 per policy per month + $20 per month + $1 per million requests
Tier 2Front Door Premium, custom rules
$5 per policy per month + $1 per rule per month + $0.60 per million requests
Tier 3Application Gateway WAF v2
$0.443 per gateway-hour + $0.0144 per capacity-unit-hour
Tier 4Bot Protection Rule Set
Included with Front Door Premium managed rules

Source: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/web-application-firewall/ - retrieved 2026-06-19

What this vendor is best for

Azure-hosted apps that need WAF at the edge (Front Door) or per-VNet (Application Gateway).

Azure-hosted apps fronted by Azure Front Door (global edge).
Per-VNet workloads where Application Gateway is already the chosen ingress.
Teams wanting Bot Protection Rule Set included with Front Door Premium rather than an enterprise add-on.
Estates standardised on Azure for delivery and security on one bill.

Hidden costs to watch

The line items most buyers miss

Azure splits WAF across two products with different pricing models. Application Gateway WAF v2 bills by gateway-hour and capacity-units, not per request, which can be more expensive at low traffic.

Application Gateway WAF v2 bills by gateway-hour and capacity-units, which can run more expensive than per-request at low traffic.
Front Door Premium is required for managed rules; Front Door Standard does not include the managed rule set.
Bot Protection Rule Set is included with Front Door Premium managed rules but not with custom rules.
Log Analytics ingestion for WAF logs carries the standard Azure Log Analytics rate, billed per-GB.
Cross-region traffic between Front Door edge and origin is billed by Azure egress, not the WAF SKU.

Direct answer

What does Azure WAF (Front Door) actually cost at 100M requests per month?

Use the cost calculator on the homepage to assemble a realistic monthly bill across all published-rate vendors. The default profile (100M req/mo, 1 protected app, 10 custom rules, bot management on) is labelled as an illustrative example so it can be re-run with your own numbers.

Source: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/web-application-firewall/, retrieved 2026-06-19

Worked example at 100M requests per month, Front Door Premium

Azure Front Door Premium with managed rules, one policy, 100M requests per month. Illustrative example, not a real company.

Azure Front Door WAF bill, 100M req/mo with managed rules

1.Policy base fee$5.00
2.Front Door base$20.00
3.100M requests at $1.00 / million$100.00
4.Bot Protection Rule Set (included)$0.00
5.OWASP CRS managed rules (included)$0.00

Estimated monthly total~$125.00

Custom rules switch the per-request rate to $0.60/M (matching AWS WAF). Front Door egress, Log Analytics ingestion, and Application Gateway gateway-hour fees are separate bills.

Front Door vs Application Gateway: which to pick

Front Door is the right pick for global apps that need an edge tier in front of an Azure origin. Application Gateway is the right pick for per-VNet ingress, especially when the app already terminates at an Application Gateway for path-based routing or session affinity. Running both is normal in larger estates; running both with WAF on both doubles the bill.

Closest alternatives

Two published-rate vendors with the most similar pricing model and product fit.

AWS WAF

Per web-ACL + per rule + per million requests

$5.00 per web-ACL per month

→

Google Cloud Armor

Standard (per policy + per rule + per request) or Enterprise subscription

$5.00 per policy per month (Standard)

→

Source

Every number on this page is taken from https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/web-application-firewall/, retrieved 2026-06-19. Re-check before signing a contract; vendors change pricing without notice.

Last verified June 2026