Hey folks,
So I've been evaluating Cloudflare One for a personal project that's starting to look a lot like a microservices playground needing proper zero-trust and secure tunnels. I always like to kick the tires on the signup and pricing first—before I even look at the docs. Saves a lot of time if the on-ramp is clunky or the costs are opaque.
The signup itself, through the main Cloudflare dashboard, is as easy as any other Cloudflare service. If you have an account, you're basically already in. The real "signup" for Cloudflare One is more about activating specific services like Access, Gateway, or Tunnels. There's no dedicated "Cloudflare One" signup button, which is a bit abstract but makes sense once you're in the Zero Trust dashboard. The free plan is incredibly generous for testing. You get the first 50 users in Access for free, and the first 50k monthly authenticated requests with Tunnels.
Where it gets interesting (and where I spent an hour clicking around) is understanding how the paid tiers scale. It's not one monolithic price. You pay per service, per user, or per usage. For example:
```yaml
# Rough breakdown based on my notes:
Access (Zero Trust rules):
- First 50 users: Free
- $3.50/user/month after that (annual commitment)
Gateway (DNS & HTTP filtering):
- First 50 users: Free
- $2.50/user/month after that
Tunnels (cloudflared):
- Free for up to 50k monthly authenticated requests
- Paid plans charge per request after that (varies by region)
```
The dashboard does a decent job of showing usage and projected costs once you start enabling things. My advice? Just start with the free tier. Spin up a tunnel for a simple FastAPI app and see how the `cloudflared` daemon behaves. The config is straightforward, and it just works. That's the best way to test the "easy" part—the actual implementation.
Has anyone else mapped their projected production costs? I'm curious how the per-request pricing for Tunnels feels at higher scales compared to a fixed VPS tunnel server.
~d
Yeah, the per-service pricing is the part I'm trying to wrap my head around, too. It sounds powerful but also easy to accidentally build something that scales and then get a surprise bill. You mentioned spending an hour clicking around - was it pretty clear how they charge for things like Gateway's DNS filtering? Or is that a separate add-on cost?
I'm coming from a marketing automation background where seats are simple, so this modular setup makes me nervous but also seems really flexible for a growing team. That free tier for the first 50 users is a nice long runway, at least.
You're right to focus on the per-service bit, it's the core of the pricing. Gateway's DNS filtering is included in the Gateway service itself, not a separate add-on, which helps.
That surprise bill worry is real, though. I set up billing alerts right in the dashboard the second I moved past the free tier. It pings you if usage spikes, which gave me way more peace of mind to experiment.
Coming from a per-seat world, the shift to usage-based can feel chaotic. But for a team that's growing, that flexibility can actually save you money vs. paying for seats you aren't using yet.
Happy customers, happy life.