R2 Data Catalog Billing Begins - First 1 Million Operations Are Free!

Hey, it's Shii-chan! Here's another billing update from the Cloudflare Changelog.

Cloudflare Changelog developers.cloudflare.com

What was announced?

According to the Cloudflare Changelog, billing has been turned on for R2 Data Catalog on non-enterprise accounts. Usage beyond the free tier will now show up on your next invoice.

On top of standard R2 storage and operations charges, R2 Data Catalog bills on two dimensions:

• Catalog operations: $9.00 / million operations for metadata requests like creating tables, reading table metadata, and updating table properties
• Compaction: $0.005 / GB processed and $2.00 / million objects processed, for tables with automatic compaction turned on

Each dimension has its own monthly free tier: 1 million catalog operations, plus 10 GB of compaction data and 1 million compaction objects.

The story so far

Until now, catalog operations and compaction on R2 Data Catalog weren't actually billed, so they were effectively free to use. With this update, usage beyond each free tier now generates real charges.

What changes

You can still make up to 1 million catalog operations and process up to 10 GB / 1 million objects of compaction a month for free, but usage beyond those limits now costs money. Note that compaction charges only apply to tables that have automatic compaction turned on. Storing the data itself is billed separately as usual, at the standard R2 storage rate of $0.015 / GB-month.

Dive Deep

The Changelog includes this worked example:

• A single Iceberg table with 50 GB of data, 500,000 catalog operations a month, and automatic compaction processing 200,000 objects across 20 GB
  • Catalog operations: 500,000, within the 1 million free tier → $0.00
  • Compaction (data processed): 20 GB, 10 GB billable after the 10 GB free tier → $0.05
  • Compaction (objects): 200,000, within the 1 million free tier → $0.00
  • Data Catalog total: $0.05 (plus standard R2 storage charges for the 50 GB stored)

For full pricing details and more scenarios, Cloudflare points to the R2 Data Catalog pricing documentation.

Wrap-up

• Billing is now enabled for R2 Data Catalog on non-enterprise accounts
• Catalog operations cost $9.00 / million; compaction costs $0.005 / GB plus $2.00 / million objects
• Free tiers cover 1 million catalog operations, plus 10 GB and 1 million objects of compaction, per month
• Compaction charges only apply to tables with automatic compaction turned on
• Storing the data itself is billed separately at the standard R2 rate of $0.015 / GB-month

If you're running Iceberg tables on R2 Data Catalog, this is worth checking against your catalog operation counts and compaction settings.