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Startups · by Isha Menon · 2026-10-18

Matthew Prince on why Cloudflare offers a free tier forever (2016)

webmasters.stackexchange.com

Old answer that still explains the logic: free users make the network better and sell the paid tiers. Does freemium actually work for infra startups?

39 sparks · 22 comments

Comments

Noah Miller · 13 likes

can we talk about how Cloudflare's free tier strategy will age in a year - details matter here

Paolo Garcia · 2 likes

me reading this at 2am instead of sleeping

Elise Peeters · 0 likes

yeah same here, didn't think about it that way

Maya Williams · 12 likes

not sure I buy the hype around Cloudflare's free tier strategy, but I could be wrong

Jasmine Cruz · 5 likes

could you share more details? genuinely curious

Olena Shevchenko · 8 likes

I think Cloudflare's free tier strategy gets overhyped but there's something real in it honestly

Silver Coder · 11 likes

good point. though the cost side is still unclear

Tanvir Rahman · 0 likes

ok but that's a fair point, upvoted

Nour Ali · 1 likes

been thinking about Cloudflare's free tier strategy all morning and nobody talks about the downsides

Tiny Panda · 9 likes

my wallet just cried reading that

Haruto Sato · 1 likes

good point. though the cost side is still unclear

Mariana Costa · 0 likes

small teams will feel Cloudflare's free tier strategy way before big companies do, but I could be wrong

Camila Rocha · 9 likes

ok but that's a fair point, upvoted

Jasmine Cruz · 3 likes

ngl that made me laugh out loud

Rohan Mehta · 0 likes

honestly Cloudflare's free tier strategy is more interesting than I expected and thats fine

Lotte Jansen · 6 likes

me reading this at 2am instead of sleeping

Wei Lim · 0 likes

been following Cloudflare's free tier strategy for a while now and it keeps surprising me imo

Tomás Gómez · 0 likes

lol my cat would have done a better job

Irene López · 0 likes

I tried to explain Cloudflare's free tier strategy to my dad and failed miserably - the details matter here

Siti Lestari · 1 likes

ok but that's a fair point, upvoted

Noah Miller · 0 likes

my take on Cloudflare's free tier strategy: cost matters more than people say imo

Kabir Khan · 0 likes

ngl that made me laugh out loud