FWaaS Market Shifts to Per-User Pricing as Cloud-Based Delivery Becomes Standard
Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS) has evolved from an experiment to a default choice for organizations, offering inspection, IPS, and policy delivery from the cloud. The pricing model has shifted from per-appliance to per-user or per-site, making it more accessible.
The market prices three ways: per-user SSE, published/self-serve, and per-site/bandwidth SASE. Zscaler, Netskope, Prisma Access, Cisco, Forcepoint, and Check Point's SASE lines quote per user per month at around $15-$25 list price, with 30-50% discounts routine on multi-year enterprise terms.
Cato Networks offers converged simplicity at a mid-market price, while Cloudflare provides the most accessible entry economics. Prisma Access boasts the deepest inspection stack but comes with a higher price tag. Aryaka's managed SASE on a private global backbone suits global enterprises seeking WAN performance and security in one contract.