Updated 17 April 2026
Cloudflare API Gateway Pricing 2026: Cheapest at Scale, Free Forever at Low Volume
Cloudflare is the cost-leader for API gateway services at almost every traffic level. Three million requests per month free, permanently. Beyond that, $0.30/million on the Workers Paid plan dropping to $0.15/million at Business and Enterprise scale. Zero data transfer fees across the board. Here is what it actually costs, when it wins, and when it does not.
Quick Verdict
Cloudflare is the cheapest API gateway at almost every scale. Free 3M requests/month, $0.30/million beyond that on Workers Paid, zero data transfer fees. The catch: it is an edge-first model that does not feel native if your backend lives entirely in AWS or Azure, and gRPC support is still beta. For cost-sensitive teams with public-facing REST APIs, Cloudflare is difficult to beat.
Cloudflare Pricing Tiers (2026)
Free
$0/mo
- 3M requests/month permanently
- Zero data transfer fees
- Basic DDoS protection
- No credit card required
- Workers runtime (limited CPU time)
Workers Paid
$5/mo
- 10M requests/month included
- $0.30/million beyond 10M
- Zero data transfer fees
- 50ms CPU time per request
- Cron triggers, Durable Objects
- Basic rate limiting
Business / Enterprise
$200+/mo
- Custom request volume
- ~$0.15/million at Enterprise scale
- Full API Shield included
- Advanced WAF + mTLS
- Priority support + SLA
- 100,000 req/sec rate limit
Pricing as of April 2026. Business plan is $200/month. Enterprise pricing is negotiated. Always verify current rates at cloudflare.com/plans.
Monthly Cost by Volume: Cloudflare vs AWS vs Kong
The table below shows total monthly cost including data transfer, using a 10 KB average payload. Cloudflare has zero egress fees; AWS charges $0.09/GB outbound. At 100M requests with 10 KB payloads that is 954 GB of outbound transfer, adding $85.86 to the AWS bill that Cloudflare users pay nothing for.
| Monthly Volume | Cloudflare | AWS HTTP API | Kong Konnect (requests only) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M/month | $0.00 (free) | $1.95 | $34.25 + services |
| 3M/month | $0.00 (free) | $5.85 | $34.25 + services |
| 10M/month | $0.00 (Workers Paid base) | $19.54 | $342.50 + services |
| 50M/month | $5 + $12 = ~$17 | $97.68 | $1,712.50 + services |
| 100M/month | $5 + $27 = ~$32 | $195.37 | $3,425 + services |
| 500M/month | ~$140 (Business/Enterprise) | $946.84 | Enterprise quote |
| 1B/month | ~$225 (Enterprise) | $1,843.67 | Enterprise quote |
Kong Konnect cost shown is the per-request component only. Add $105/service/month base fee for each configured service. At 10 services that adds $1,050/month. See Kong pricing page for full breakdown.
Why Cloudflare Is Cheap: The Economics
Cloudflare's pricing model is fundamentally different from hyperscaler pricing. AWS and Azure build regional data centers and charge for every byte that leaves their network. Cloudflare operates a global anycast network with 300+ points of presence and spreads its infrastructure cost across millions of customers. The result: zero egress fees, flat request pricing, and bundled security that would cost hundreds of dollars per month as AWS add-ons.
What Cloudflare includes for free
- Zero outbound data transfer charges (see EgressCost.com)
- DDoS protection (all plans, including free)
- Edge caching (served from 300+ PoPs)
- HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 support
- SSL/TLS certificate management
- IPv6 support
What costs extra on Cloudflare
- Logpush (log streaming): $0.05/million events
- Workers KV storage: $0.50/GB stored
- Durable Objects: $0.15/million requests
- R2 object storage: $0.015/GB stored
- Advanced API Shield (schema validation, mTLS enforcement)
- Priority support (requires Business or Enterprise)
Worked Example: SaaS Startup Migration
Scenario: Moving 50M monthly requests from AWS REST API to Cloudflare Workers Paid
Before: AWS REST API
After: Cloudflare Workers Paid
Monthly saving: $233 (93% reduction). Annual saving: $2,796.
Assumes REST API to Workers Paid migration. Migration engineering cost: 40-80 hours one-time. Payback period: under 1 month.
Cloudflare Workers vs Cloudflare API Shield: The Difference
There is frequent confusion between these two Cloudflare products. They serve different roles:
Cloudflare Workers
A serverless JavaScript/TypeScript execution environment that runs at Cloudflare's edge. You write code that handles incoming requests: routing, authentication logic, request transformation, response modification. This is what most teams use when they say "Cloudflare as API gateway" - they are building their gateway logic in Workers. Priced at $5/month for 10M requests included.
Cloudflare API Shield
A dedicated API security product that protects APIs without requiring custom code. Features include: OpenAPI schema validation (reject malformed requests automatically), JWT validation, mutual TLS enforcement, rate limiting per consumer, bot management, and API discovery (Cloudflare automatically maps your API endpoints). Included in Enterprise. Add-on on Business.
Many teams use both: Workers for the routing and transformation layer, API Shield for security enforcement. A startup might start with Workers alone ($5/month), then add API Shield ($200/month Business) when they need schema validation and mTLS at scale.
Feature Parity vs AWS API Gateway
| Feature | Cloudflare | AWS API Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 3M requests/month forever | 1M/month (12 months only) |
| Request pricing | $0.30/M (Paid), $0.15/M (Business+) | $1.00/M (HTTP API) |
| Data transfer (outbound) | $0 (zero egress) | $0.09/GB |
| WAF | Included (Business+) | Add-on ($0.60/M req + $5/rule/mo) |
| DDoS protection | Included all plans | AWS Shield Standard (free) / Advanced ($3,000/mo) |
| Rate limiting | Included | Included (usage plans) |
| JWT / OAuth auth | Yes (Workers + API Shield) | Yes (HTTP API native) |
| mTLS | Yes (API Shield) | Yes (REST API only) |
| Caching | Free edge cache | $0.028/GB/hour (REST API only) |
| Observability (logs) | Logpush $0.05/M events | CloudWatch $0.50/GB ingested |
| gRPC support | Beta | No native support |
When Cloudflare is the Wrong Choice
Cloudflare wins on cost at almost every scale, but it is not the right answer for every workload. Here are the cases where you should choose something else:
Your backend is entirely in AWS and IAM integration is critical
AWS API Gateway has native IAM authentication, Lambda authorizers tied to AWS IAM policies, and Cognito user pool integration. Replicating all of this in Cloudflare Workers requires custom code. If your entire stack is AWS and you rely heavily on IAM for API authorization, AWS API Gateway's tight integration is worth the premium.
You need gRPC-native support today
Cloudflare Workers gRPC support is beta as of April 2026. Kong, AWS (via REST API proxy), and Apigee all have more mature gRPC support. If gRPC is a production requirement, do not depend on Cloudflare's beta implementation.
You need API monetization features built-in
Cloudflare does not have built-in API monetization, revenue sharing, or a developer portal. Apigee and Kong Enterprise both have these features. If you are selling API access as a product and need built-in billing and developer onboarding, Apigee is worth its significant premium. See the Apigee pricing page for details.
You are running Kubernetes-native workloads with complex multi-cluster routing
Kong Konnect and Traefik Hub are purpose-built for Kubernetes with service mesh integration, cluster-level rate limiting, and CRD-based configuration. Cloudflare Workers can proxy to Kubernetes services but does not have the same native Kubernetes integration. See the Kong pricing breakdown for Kubernetes-specific cost guidance.