Feedback
I’ve been a long-time Cloudflare user and have been happy overall—there’s little I’d complain about. But I was recently surprised by the pricing structure for Cloudflare for SaaS, specifically the 5,000 hostname limit.
From what I understand—and what has been confirmed by the sales team—the only way to go beyond 5,000 custom hostnames is to upgrade to an Enterprise plan, even if you don’t need any other enterprise features and are willing to pay per additional hostname. These inquiries are routed to sales teams who understandably focus on full enterprise deals, not lightweight, usage-based cases.
Maybe this is how Cloudflare grows—through opaque, tailored enterprise deals—but I can’t help but wonder if a more transparent, usage-based pricing model would serve both Cloudflare and its customers better. The product is genuinely great. It doesn’t need aggressive sales tactics—it could easily sell itself. Developers, especially, appreciate simple and fair pricing. Just look at how DigitalOcean approaches it. Even AWS and Google Cloud, for all their complexity, don’t force this kind of restrictive upgrade.
To be clear: I’m not asking for unlimited usage at no cost. I’m happy to pay for what I use. But forcing an Enterprise upgrade just for more hostnames feels unnecessary and, honestly, discouraging. I hope Cloudflare reconsiders this approach. Let people grow, let them pay for usage—and you’ll likely win more long-term customers, without needing a big sales team.