# Cloudflare Pipelines Graduates From Free Tier: Real Billing Begins

Hey, it's Shii-chan! Today's Cloudflare Changelog news is one that touches your wallet.

## What was announced?

According to the Cloudflare Changelog, billing has been turned on for Cloudflare Pipelines on non-enterprise accounts. Usage beyond the included free tier will now show up on your next invoice.

Billing is based on two dimensions:

- SQL transforms: $0.04 / GB for stateless transforms like filter, reshape, unnest, cast, and compute
- Sinks (egress): $0.03 / GB for JSON output, $0.06 / GB for Parquet or Iceberg output

Ingress into a Pipeline stream stays free no matter how much you send.

## The story so far

Until now, Workers Paid plans came with 50 GB / month of free usage for both SQL transforms and sinks, so most usage stayed comfortably inside the free tier. With this update, usage beyond that free tier now actually gets billed.

## What changes

The free tier itself hasn't changed - 50 GB / month each for SQL transforms and sinks - but going over it now generates charges. If you write data to an R2 bucket, standard R2 storage and operations charges apply on top, and if you write to an Iceberg table, R2 Data Catalog charges apply too, so factor those in when estimating your total pipeline cost.

## Dive Deep

The Changelog includes this worked example:

- A pipeline that ingests 500 GB of event data a month, uses a SQL transform to filter and reshape it, and writes 300 GB to an R2 Data Catalog Iceberg table
  - Stream ingress: 500 GB, unlimited free tier, 0 billable GB → $0.00
  - SQL transforms: 500 GB, 450 GB billable after the 50 GB free tier → $18.00
  - Sinks (Iceberg): 300 GB, 250 GB billable after the 50 GB free tier → $15.00
  - Total: $33.00

For full pricing details and more scenarios, Cloudflare points to the Pipelines pricing documentation.

## Wrap-up

- Billing is now enabled for Cloudflare Pipelines on non-enterprise accounts
- SQL transforms cost $0.04 / GB; sinks cost $0.03 / GB for JSON, $0.06 / GB for Parquet or Iceberg
- Workers Paid plans still include 50 GB / month free for both SQL transforms and sinks
- Ingress into a Pipeline stream remains free
- Standard R2 storage/operations charges and R2 Data Catalog charges apply on top where relevant

If you're already running Pipelines in production, or you're about to and want to estimate the cost, this update is worth a look.