SSL for SaaS pricing question

Hi guys,

I’m interested in using SSL for SaaS but I need to be 100% sure how billing works before I implement it.

Cloudflare for SaaS for All, now Generally Available! states:

Custom Hostnames cost two dollars per month. We will only charge you after each Custom Hostname has been onboarded, adjusted according to when you created it. That means that if you created 10 Custom Hostnames at the start of the month and 10 Custom Hostnames halfway through, at the end of the month you will be billed $30.

So my question is, is billing based on the custom hostnames themselves, or the amount of them that you use?

In other words, let’s say I add 10 custom hostnames at the start of the month, then remove them after a few days, and then add another 10 custom hostnames that are completely different.

Would I be billed (20 * $2) = $40 or (10 * $2) = $20 in that scenario?

I’m 99% sure they are billed up to the end of the current billing cycle, but I’m pretty sure they are not billed per hostname, but per count, so if you have 10 max used you should be fine.

I’m sure the billing team might know a bit more. I’ll alert them to this thread.

Any update on this at all?

I can’t seem to find a good answer to this question.

Matteo just bumped the escalation. Though without a ticket, it’s just luck if we can find the right person to answer this. If you don’t hear back in a few hours, send email to “billing” and then post the ticket number here.

1 Like

Hi there- This is a new product and here is the information I have. From what I know, we take a snapshot of the number of custom hostnames that existed each day during the month. So even if you remove all of the custom hostnames at the end of the month, if you had 10 custom hostnames that existed for 29/30 days, you would be charged $2 x 10 x 29/30.

5 Likes

Basically similar to what services do for storage, calculate an average daily usage and charge that. Thanks for the update!

2 Likes

That sure sounds like it’d be $20. If you have Set A of ten hostnames for five days, then delete them. Add Set B of ten hostnames a few days later. Delete them. Add a new set of ten hostnames a few days days later. The snapshots would all say ten, then bill you $20 at the end of the month.

1 Like

Not really, if you use 10 for 5 days, 0 for 5, 10 for 5, etc. at the end of the month (30 days to simplify) you’d have 150 domains over 30 days, which makes 5 on average. So it should be 10$.

3 Likes

That makes sense. A daily average. So twenty custom hostnames for half the month would be $20.

3 Likes

I have already asked for clarification and I will try to get more information from the team. I know this can be very confusing.

5 Likes

The reply by @Purnima seems to be correct from a secondary source I found. The PM mentioned a 2$ / 30 for each day a hostname existed.

3 Likes

Appreciate the clarification.

Having a daily average makes sense.

I was just worried about some of my customers removing/adding hostnames often and how that’d impact billing, but I guess I don’t need to worry as long as a hostname is removed before a new one is added.

Partially. I would expect them to keep a daily (not timezone sure about timezone, PST?) tally of all the active hostnames. I’m not exactly sure if it’s per hostname (charge 2$ per 24hrs) or it’s a per zone (count howe many unique hostnames have been active in a given day and charge based on that.

If it’s a snapshot, I don’t think it’s a daily tally of active zones.

This makes more sense to me, but I’ll wait until @Purnima replies again so I can be sure.

If it’s checking the total number of unique hostnames active per day, I’d need to implement this differently.

I’d have to make it so that if my customers wanted to change their existing hostname, they would have to remove it, wait a full 24 hours, and only then could they add the new one.

Or I guess I could charge them to change it early, but that makes things more complex and it wouldn’t be good UX.

Hi there- I just wanted to let you know that I will be able to get more information on this only after the holidays. I have asked for a meeting with the team so they can explain this better to me. I will get back to you as soon as I have that meeting and have more clarity.

Happy Holidays!

5 Likes

Appreciate you following up on this.

I also have a ticket open (ID 2320146) with the same question and a few others.

One thing I asked in the ticket was whether or not I would be charged for hostnames which are not verified in SSL for SaaS, and the person who replied said as far as they know, yes, but they’d get back to me on it.

So I’m hoping you can also get a definitive answer on this since you’ll be speaking with the team directly.

Thanks again and Happy Holidays to you too.

Yes, I looked at that ticket and I have cc’ed myself on it so I can reply to you once I have a definite answer. Sorry this is going to take sometime before I can get clarification. I am hoping to ask all your questions in the meeting after the holidays.

4 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 3 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.