Cloudflare raises monthly plan prices for the first time

Cloudflare announced today that they are raising prices for their Pro and Business plans for the first time since they launched in 2017.

Cloudflare is a distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection and content delivery network company launched on September 27th, 2010.

When the company launched, it introduced two plans that website owners could subscribe to receive DDoS mitigation and CDN services.

The initial plans included a free plan with limited functionality and a Pro plan for $20/month with additional features. Over time, Cloudflare introduced a Business plan for $200/month and an Enterprise plan with custom pricing.

Today, Cloudflare announced that they are increasing the prices for the Pro and Business plans for the first time in 12 years.

Starting January 15, 2023, new customers will be charged $25 per month for the Pro plan and $250 per month for the Business Plan.

Existing customers or those who sign-up before January 15, 2023, will continue to have the current monthly prices until May 14, 2023.

To help reduce the plan's new prices, Cloudflare is now offering an annual option that brings the costs back to the original, current pricing at the expense of paying for the whole year upfront.

Cloudflare says they are not making these changes to increase revenue but rather to invest in building out their network.

"While we have over a decade of network expansion and innovation under our belts, what may not be intuitive is that our goal is not to increase revenue from this change," explains the announcement by Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince and President + COO Michelle Zatlyn.

"We need to invest up front in building out our network, and the main reason we're making this change is to more closely map our business with the timing of our underlying costs."

"Doing so will enable us to further accelerate our network expansion and pace of innovation — which all of our customers will benefit from."