Cloudflare Workers AI free tier and limits

What is free on Cloudflare

Both the Workers Free and Workers Paid plans include 10,000 Neurons per day at no charge, resetting at 00:00 UTC. On Workers Free, requests fail once the allocation is used; on Workers Paid, extra usage is billed. Some frontier models require a paid billing method and are not usable on the free allocation.

Examples listed as free when we checked: @cf/openai/gpt-oss-120b , @cf/openai/gpt-oss-20b , @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast , @cf/qwen/qwen3-30b-a3b-fp8 , @cf/google/gemma-4-26b-a4b-it . Check the current catalog and your account access. Ficelle refreshes catalog data and applies eligibility checks during selection.

Listed free model examples on Cloudflare

Qwen3.8 27B @cf/qwen/qwen3.8-27b
Gemma 4 @cf/google/gemma-4-26b-a4b-it
Nemotron 3 Super @cf/nvidia/nemotron-3-120b-a12b
gpt-oss-120b @cf/openai/gpt-oss-120b

Cloudflare free-tier limits

The daily free allocation is 10,000 Neurons, a compute unit rather than a token count. Each model consumes Neurons at its own rate, so there is no universal free token budget. Text generation defaults to 300 requests per minute; embeddings, speech, image and translation tasks have their own per-minute limits.

Get a Cloudflare API key

In the Cloudflare dashboard, open Workers AI, choose Use REST API and create a Workers AI API token. You also need your Account ID, which is part of the base URL.

https://dash.cloudflare.com/?to=/:account/ai/workers-ai

OpenAI compatibility

/v1/chat/completions and /v1/embeddings are supported; /v1/responses works for GPT-OSS models only. Replace {account_id} with your Cloudflare account id.

base URL

https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/v1

Data and privacy

Cloudflare does not use your prompts, outputs or embeddings to train models or improve its services without explicit consent, and stores content only if you use a storage product alongside Workers AI.

Through Ficelle, your Cloudflare key stays on your machine and prompts go straight to Cloudflare: there is no Ficelle proxy in between.

Before you rely on it

Read Neuron usage in the Workers AI dashboard. Models consume the shared 10,000-Neuron daily allocation at different rates.
REST API clients need both a token and the account id; a key alone does not identify the Workers AI endpoint.
Some frontier models (Kimi, GLM-5.x, DeepSeek V4) are paid-only.
On Workers Free, exhausting the daily allocation stops requests. Workers Paid bills usage above it; keep the account plan and billing settings in view.

Use Cloudflare with automatic failover

Ficelle can include Cloudflare behind your local OpenAI-compatible endpoint when the integration is enabled and its models pass free-access and capability checks. Cloudflare is listed in Ficelle Pro's maintained provider pack. Check your installed configuration, credentials and account entitlement before relying on it. Another eligible candidate must be available for failover to succeed. Local routing guards do not control upstream billing when an account permits paid usage beyond its free allocation. See strict-zero routing and account limits.

shell

# Cloudflare ships in Ficelle Pro's maintained provider pack.
ficelle doctor --text          # check this install before configuring provider access

python

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(base_url="http://127.0.0.1:8646/v1", api_key="ficelle-local")

# Ficelle selects among configured, enabled, eligible models.
# If none can serve the request, it returns an error.
client.chat.completions.create(
    model="ficelle/auto-tools",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "..."}],
)

See what Ficelle Pro includes →

Pick a model type

Choose a model type for your request. Eligibility depends on the installed provider configuration, catalog data, free-access evidence and capability checks. A catalog listing alone does not confirm that your account can call a model.

Questions

Is the Cloudflare API free?

Both the Workers Free and Workers Paid plans include 10,000 Neurons per day at no charge, resetting at 00:00 UTC. On Workers Free, requests fail once the allocation is used; on Workers Paid, extra usage is billed. Some frontier models require a paid billing method and are not usable on the free allocation.

What are Cloudflare's free rate limits?

The daily free allocation is 10,000 Neurons, a compute unit rather than a token count. Each model consumes Neurons at its own rate, so there is no universal free token budget. Text generation defaults to 300 requests per minute; embeddings, speech, image and translation tasks have their own per-minute limits.

Is Cloudflare OpenAI-compatible?

Partly. /v1/chat/completions and /v1/embeddings are supported; /v1/responses works for GPT-OSS models only. Replace {account_id} with your Cloudflare account id. Base URL: https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/v1.

What happens when Cloudflare rate-limits my agent?

Ficelle applies a cooldown to the affected model or provider quota scope and can retry another configured, enabled candidate that meets the request requirements and free-access checks. Recovery probes can restore eligibility. If no eligible candidate can serve the request, Ficelle returns an error; it does not switch to a paid fallback.

Sources

Official Cloudflare references. Last complete source review: 28 September 2026; later partial updates are dated in the text: