Yes, Cloudflare has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans. FreeTier.co estimates the free tier at about $31/mo, and no credit card is required to sign up.
About
Cloudflare provides a connectivity cloud platform for websites, applications, AI agents, and networks. Its services include CDN, DNS, WAF, DDoS protection, bot management, zero trust access, serverless compute, storage, and AI-related developer tools.
The free plan is aimed at personal websites and includes core security and performance features such as CDN, Universal SSL, DNS, analytics, WAF, bot protection, DDoS protection, and IP-based rate limiting. The pricing page also shows paid add-ons that can be attached to the free plan, including Argo Smart Routing, Load Balancing, Stream, Advanced Certificate Manager, Access, and Rate Limiting.
- Free plan for personal websites
- CDN and global edge delivery
- Universal SSL certificate
- DNS, analytics, and WAF
- Bot protection and DDoS protection
- IP-based rate limiting
- Paid add-ons from $5 per month
Free Tier Value
This free tier is unusually strong because it includes the core security and delivery stack plus a broad set of capped developer services. Using the published paid rates, the included quotas alone add up to roughly $31/month or more for a small user, and the offer is perpetual rather than a short trial; no credit card is required to start.
What's included in the free tier
Verified
- CDN access for ultra-fast content delivery via Cloudflare’s global network.
- Universal SSL certificate to secure the site and avoid browser warnings.
- DNS access for fast, resilient, and secure authoritative DNS.
- Analytics for traffic, bandwidth usage, and mitigated attack requests.
- DDoS protection against application-layer attacks of any size and kind.
- WAF protection from high-severity and widespread attacks.
- Bot protection to challenge or block prevalent malicious and AI bots.
- IP-based rate limiting to protect against abusive behavior and attacks.
See Cloudflare pricing for current limits.
Paid plans
Pro
- Professional websites
- Includes core network/CDN and security features
- Lossless image optimization
- AMP support
- Uptime SLA not included
Business
- uptime SLA
- 100%
- uptime service credits
- 1x
- Small businesses operating online
- Includes uptime SLA
- PCI DSS 4.0 compliance
- Higher support tier than Pro
- Network prioritization not included
Contract
- uptime SLA
- 100%
- uptime service credits
- 10x (Standard); 25x (Premium)
- Mission-critical applications
- Custom enterprise pricing
- Phone, chat, and ticket support
- Professional services available
- Highest support tier
Pay-as-you-go
- user limit
- No limit
- standard log retention
- Up to 30 days
- Teams over 50 users
- No user limit
- Chat and ticket support
- Up to 30 days standard log retention
- Narrow SSE use cases
Contract
- user limit
- No limit
- standard log retention
- Up to 6 months; Logpush to SIEM/cloud storage
- Organizations building toward full-featured SASE or workspace security
- No user limit
- Phone, chat, ticket support
- Professional services available
- Enterprise support
Pricing extracted from Cloudflare's pricing page. Always verify current pricing before committing.
Common questions
Is Cloudflare free forever?
Yes. Cloudflare has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans, though the allowance typically resets each month.
Does Cloudflare require a credit card?
No. You can start on Cloudflare's free tier without entering card details.
What happens when you exceed Cloudflare's free tier?
You move to a paid plan. Cloudflare's cheapest paid plan is Pay-as-you-go at $7 / seat / month.
What is Cloudflare's free tier worth?
Cloudflare's free tier is worth about $31 per month. That maps to an FTV score of 67/100. The FTV score is explained at freetier.co/ftv.
