Compare 2 free alternatives to Cloudflare for Startups for Startup Perks. Every one of their free tier limits side by side, with the read and catalogue dates we hold.
Best Cloudflare for Startups Alternatives with Free Tiers (2026)
2 free alternatives in Startup Perks. Sorted by pricing stability.
Current Cloudflare for Startups Situation
Risk Level:source unconfirmed
Why: Restricted to startup (Cloudflare for Startups) applicants — not generally available. We do not rate an offer we do not list. We are not publishing a stability judgement for it until that is fixed.
Cloudflare cut Tier 2's Workers AI credit cap from $25,000 to $10,000. The Internet Archive's capture of cloudflare.com/startups on 2026-08-06 says "$25,000 for Tier 2"; the capture of 2026-08-07 says "$10,000 for Tier 2". Tier 3 kept $2,500 and Tier 1 kept $50,000. Source ↗
reducedeffective 2026-07-02medium impact
Cloudflare replaced its startup programme's single Workers AI cap with caps by tier. The Internet Archive's capture of cloudflare.com/startups on 2026-07-01 says Workers AI is "Covered up to a $50,000 cap"; the capture of 2026-07-02 says "Covered up to a $2,500 cap for Tier 3, $25,000 for Tier 2, and $50,000 for Tier 1". Source ↗
reducedeffective 2026-05-28medium impact
Cloudflare's startup programme stopped covering AI Gateway. The Internet Archive's capture of cloudflare.com/startups on 2026-05-25 lists "$250 on AI Gateway"; the capture of 2026-05-28 says "AI Gateway: Temporarily not covered by credits". The same capture changed Tier 2's criterion from "$1M+ raised" to "Under $5M raised". Source ↗
restructuredeffective 2026-05-12medium impact
Cloudflare replaced its four startup tiers with three. In the Internet Archive's capture of 2026-05-11, cloudflare.com/forstartups offered $5K, $25K, $100K and $250K tiers. In the capture of 2026-05-12, cloudflare.com/startups offers Tier 3 at $10k (bootstrapped or self-funded, under $1M raised), Tier 2 at $100k ($1M+ raised, funded by an affiliated partner) and Tier 1 at $350k ($5M+ raised, funded by an affiliated partner), to startups founded within the last 10 years whose most recent round was within the last 12 months. Source ↗
reducedeffective 2025-06-04medium impact
Cloudflare capped its startup programme's Workers AI credits at $50,000. The Internet Archive's capture of cloudflare.com/forstartups on 2025-05-23 capped only R2 and Cache Reserve; the capture of 2025-06-04 adds "$50,000 of Credits for any Workers AI services". Source ↗
eligibility_restricted Restricted to accelerator (AWS Activate Portfolio) applicants — not generally available.
All Free Alternatives (2)
0 of these carry no recorded demerit and are indistinguishable under every signal we hold; their order rotates daily. 0 are demoted with the reason named, and 2 are listed last because they are not generally available or are not a free offer. How we rank.
eligibility_restricted Restricted to accelerator (AWS Activate Portfolio) applicants — not generally available.
Recompute today's order yourself. The order above is a permutation seeded only on the UTC date and the query key — no vendor name, slug, id or offer field is an input. The algorithm is published, so anyone can reproduce this page's order without asking us.
What are the best free alternatives to Cloudflare for Startups?
We publish no ranking of these. Nothing we record measures popularity or generosity, so naming a best or a top few would be our preference rather than our data. We hold 2 free alternatives to Cloudflare for Startups, each listed below with its tier, category and the read and catalogue dates we hold. Of those, 2 are listed last behind a stated gate. Our ranking rule is published at /criteria.
Is Cloudflare for Startups's free tier still available?
Restricted to startup (Cloudflare for Startups) applicants — not generally available. We do not rate an offer we do not list. No. What Cloudflare for Startups offers is a credit grant that runs out (Startup Credits), and we are not publishing a stability judgement over it.
How many free alternatives to Cloudflare for Startups exist?
There are 2 free alternatives to Cloudflare for Startups tracked on AgentDeals across the Startup Perks category.
Has Cloudflare for Startups changed their pricing?
Cloudflare for Startups has 6 recorded pricing changes. The most recent was on 2026-08-07: Cloudflare cut Tier 2's Workers AI credit cap from $25,000 to $10,000. The Internet Archive's capture of cloudflare.com/startups on 2026-08-06 says "$25,000 for Tier 2"; the capture of 2026-08-07 says "$10,000 for Tier 2". Tier 3 kept $2,500 and Tier 1 kept $50,000. Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20260807105059/https://www.cloudflare.com/startups/