Hosting · replacement recipe

Go from Cloudflare to Cloudflare (free tier)

The job: CDN DNS security (DNS, CDN and caching, DDoS protection and WAF). Pick where you are today and where you want to land; the move below follows your pick.

From · what you pay for now
Cloudflare
Cloudflare Pro · $25/mo
Year one+$288modeled
To · your pickBest fit
Cloudflare (free tier)
Free plan · $0 a month
Change where you land

The money

$25/mo today $0/mo

Cloudflare Pro

Year one, net+$288
Pays back in0.5 months

Modeled from public list prices, with your time at $50 an hour. Show the math

Does it do the job? 2 of 3 covered, 1 not checked

  • DNS
  • CDN and caching
  • DDoS protection and WAF not checked

The work

Setup
About 15 min
Upkeep
None
Watch out
Doesn't cover: WAF: Cloudflare Managed and OWASP rulesets (Pro and up; Free has the Free Managed Ruleset and 5 custom rules)

Make the move in four steps

  1. Export from Cloudflare

    A domain's DNS records. Format: BIND zone file

    Export steps

  2. Check what Free plan keeps

    Free plan: DNS, CDN, SSL, DDoS. Workers Free: 100,000 requests/day, 10 ms CPU per invocation. R2 free: 10 GB-month storage, 1M Class A / 10M Class B ops

    Details

  3. Switch to Free plan

    Change the plan in Cloudflare's billing settings before your renewal date.

  4. Check the next bill

    Your next Cloudflare invoice should show the lower price. Check that your data and links still work.

Open CloudflareHow to cancel Cloudflare
Modeled, not measured. Savings use public prices and planning assumptions: the bill you stop paying, minus the new tool, your upkeep time and your setup time at $50/hour, over the first 12 months. Paths marked Tested by Stackcut were run end to end by us on our own products. They're our tests, not customer results. Check the must-haves in each recipe before you switch.

The whole recipe: 1 ways out, best first

What you use

  • DNS
  • CDN and caching
  • DDoS protection and WAF

Not covered

  • SSL certificates
  • Workers (serverless)
  • Pages (static hosting)
  • R2 object storage
  • Zero Trust access
  • Email routing

Check before switching

  • You only rely on: DNS, CDN and caching, DDoS protection and WAF
  • Export your data from Cloudflare before canceling

Agents: get_recipe("replace-cloudflare") on the Stackcut MCP server.

1 ways out, best first

Cheaper planCloudflare (free tier)Saves $288 in year one
$25/mo today → $0/mo · setup 0.25 h · then $300/yr · payback 0.5 mo
If your use fits the free tier (Free plan: DNS, CDN, SSL, DDoS. Workers Free: 100,000 requests/day, 10 ms CPU per invocation. R2 free: 10 GB-month storage, 1M Class A / 10M Class B ops).
Covers 67% of the core features (not: WAF: Cloudflare Managed and OWASP rulesets (Pro and up; Free has the Free Managed Ruleset and 5 custom rules))
Free: DNS, CDN, SSL, unmetered DDoS. WAF is partial (Free Managed Ruleset, 5 custom rules); Pro ($25/mo) adds the managed and OWASP rulesets.
How we got this
You pay now: Cloudflare Proflat price$25/mo
New cost: Cloudflare (free tier)free plan$0/mo
Difference each month$25 − $0+$25/mo
Over 12 months+$25 × 12+$300
Setup, once0.25 h × $50/h−$12
Year one+$300 − $12+$288
  • Not counting your time (0.25 h in year one): saves $300 in year one.

Year one = 12 × (what you pay now − the new cost − upkeep) − setup, with your time at $50/hour. Prices are public list prices; hours are Stackcut’s planning estimates. Price it for your team

Sources: cloudflare.comdevelopers.cloudflare.comdevelopers.cloudflare.com

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