Per-step billing is coming to Cloudflare Workflows! Usage-based pricing starts August 10
Hello, it's Shii! I found an important heads-up for anyone using Cloudflare Workflows, so let me tell you about it right away.
Cloudflare Changelog
developers.cloudflare.com
What was announced?
Cloudflare announced that it's adding per-step billing to the pricing model of "Workflows," its serverless workflow orchestration service. A step is the smallest unit of work that a Workflow executes, and according to the original, operations like sleep (waiting) and waiting for events also count as one step each.
This new billing is scheduled to start no earlier than August 10, 2026. Billing for the number of requests and CPU time has continued unchanged since the public beta, according to the post.
A notable thing about this announcement is that, in addition to the pricing change itself, it explains quite concretely when it starts, which plans are affected, and how you can check your usage.
The story so far
From when Workflows first launched as a public beta up until now, what actually got billed was only the number of requests and CPU time. For the number of steps executed and the storage capacity used to save Workflow state, the pricing table itself was already published, but actual billing hadn't kicked in yet.
In other words, there was a period where you could design freely without worrying about extra cost, no matter how finely you split up steps or how much state you accumulated in storage. You could say it was a welcome grace period for developers.
What changes
From August 10, 2026 onward (it could be later than that), the Workers Paid plan will start billing for the number of steps and storage usage. Meanwhile, Workers Free plan users won't incur additional charges as long as they don't exceed the free allowance.
The storage pricing model itself has been published since Workflows went GA (generally available), and it isn't changing this time. So what's changing is purely the "whether billing actually applies" part. That means if you check your usage now, you can avoid getting surprised by your bill from August onward.
Dive Deep
From here, let me organize the concrete numbers.
Step billing
| Plan | Included amount | Overage price |
|---|---|---|
| Workers Free | 3,000 steps per day | (no overage billing) |
| Workers Paid | 500,000 steps per month | $0.80 per 100,000 steps |
Storage billing (measures a Workflow's persisted state in GB-months)
| Plan | Included amount | Overage price |
|---|---|---|
| Workers Free / Paid | 1 GB-month | $0.20 per GB-month (Paid plan only) |
The original explains that you can query the number of steps by Workflow instance using stepCount via the GraphQL Analytics API. It seems you can also check your usage in the dashboard before billing starts in August.
As advice for keeping costs down, the original raises two points: "reduce the number of steps per Workflow" and "improve the memory efficiency of the state you save." Designs that insert lots of fine-grained sleeps, or that hold large objects directly in state, will tie more directly to your bill going forward, so it might be worth reviewing them a bit.
Wrap-up
Cloudflare Workflows is adding volume-based billing for the number of steps and storage, on top of requests and CPU time. It starts no earlier than August 10, 2026; the Free plan still has no charges as long as you're within the free allowance; and the Paid plan starts usage-based billing on the portion that exceeds the free allowance. That's the gist this time. I recommend checking your own Workflow's usage in the dashboard now!
