The Real Cost of Serverless:
A 12-Month Production Analysis
Actual bills from running 28 Cloudflare Workers in production. Hidden costs, break-even analysis, and when serverless doesn't make sense.
Everyone talks about serverless being "cheaper." Few show actual bills. Here's every dollar spent running a production system on Cloudflare Workers for 12 months.
The Monthly Breakdown
Total infrastructure cost for 28 Workers, KV storage, D1 database, R2 storage, and all associated services:
| Month | Requests | Workers | KV | D1 | R2 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2025 | 124K | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Mar 2025 | 287K | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Apr 2025 | 512K | $0 | $0.12 | $0 | $0 | $0.12 |
| May 2025 | 891K | $0 | $0.34 | $0 | $0.02 | $0.36 |
| Jun 2025 | 1.2M | $5 | $0.89 | $0 | $0.08 | $5.97 |
| Jul 2025 | 1.8M | $5 | $1.45 | $0.12 | $0.21 | $6.78 |
| Aug 2025 | 2.1M | $5 | $2.10 | $0.34 | $0.45 | $7.89 |
| Sep 2025 | 2.4M | $5 | $2.80 | $0.67 | $0.89 | $9.36 |
| Oct 2025 | 2.8M | $5 | $3.20 | $1.12 | $1.34 | $10.66 |
| Nov 2025 | 3.1M | $5 | $4.10 | $1.89 | $2.12 | $13.11 |
| Dec 2025 | 3.4M | $5 | $5.20 | $2.45 | $3.01 | $15.66 |
| Jan 2026 | 3.8M | $5 | $6.10 | $3.12 | $3.89 | $18.11 |
| 12-Month Total | 22.4M | $40 | $26.30 | $9.71 | $12.01 | $88.02 |
$88.02 total for 12 months. 22.4 million requests. 28 production workers. That's $0.000004 per request.
The Hidden Costs Nobody Mentions
The bill above is accurate but incomplete. Here's what else you pay for:
1. Workers Paid Plan ($5/month)
The free tier gives you 100K requests/day. Beyond that, you need the paid plan. This unlocks higher limits, Durable Objects, and Cron Triggers. Non-negotiable for production.
2. Domain & SSL (Included)
Cloudflare includes free SSL and domain management. On AWS, you'd pay for ACM certificates and Route 53 hosting. Savings: ~$12/year.
3. Bandwidth (Included)
This is the big one. Cloudflare doesn't charge for bandwidth. R2 has zero egress fees. On AWS, bandwidth alone would cost $200-500/month at our traffic levels.
4. Development Time (The Actual Cost)
Serverless isn't free to build. The learning curve for Workers, Wrangler, and edge-specific patterns took roughly 40 hours. That's the real investment.
Comparison: What Would This Cost Elsewhere?
- ✓ 28 Workers
- ✓ Zero egress
- ✓ Global edge
- ✓ DDoS included
- ✓ Edge functions
- ✗ Bandwidth charges
- ✓ Great DX
- ✗ Limited storage
- ✓ Full AWS ecosystem
- ✗ Expensive egress
- ✗ Complex pricing
- ✗ Cold starts
When Serverless Loses
Serverless isn't always the answer. Here's when traditional hosting wins:
Consistent high load: If you're running at 100% capacity 24/7, a dedicated server is cheaper. Serverless wins on variable traffic.
Large memory requirements: Workers max out at 128MB memory. Memory-intensive applications need traditional compute.
WebSocket-heavy apps: While Durable Objects support WebSockets, the pricing model gets expensive at scale.
Break-Even Analysis
At what point does a $20/month VPS beat serverless?
| Monthly Traffic | Cloudflare | $20 VPS | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| <100K requests | $0 | $20 | Cloudflare |
| 100K - 1M | $5-8 | $20 | Cloudflare |
| 1M - 10M | $8-25 | $20 | Cloudflare (edge benefits) |
| 10M - 50M | $25-80 | $20-40 | VPS (if single region OK) |
| 50M+ | $80+ | $40-100 | VPS or dedicated |
The break-even point is around 10-20M requests/month—but only if you don't need global distribution. If your users are worldwide, the edge advantage keeps Cloudflare competitive much longer.
The Verdict
- For startups and variable traffic: Serverless wins easily. Pay nothing until you have real usage.
- For global applications: Edge computing is worth the premium. Latency matters.
- For predictable, high-volume workloads: Traditional hosting may be more cost-effective.
- For complex applications: Hybrid approaches often make the most sense.
Our verdict: At $88/year for a production system handling millions of requests, serverless on Cloudflare is the best value in infrastructure today. The zero-egress model is a game-changer.
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