Cloudflare opens 12-month developer plan to U.S. students
Cloudflare is rolling out a new program that gives students at least 18 years old in the United States 12 months of free access to its paid developer features. The offering is aimed at removing cost as a barrier for students building class projects, portfolios, or full-stack applications. Eligible students need a verified .edu billing email address to take advantage of the plan.
What students get
The program provides the paid developer features plan, which increases usage allotments over the standard free tier for a range of Cloudflare services. Students can use Workers, Pages Functions, KV, Containers, Vectorize, Hyperdrive, Durable Objects, Workers Logpush, and Queues to build APIs, data pipelines, websites, and more.
At the end of the 12-month period, students can keep the paid plan by paying for the Workers Paid plan, or they can let the account revert to the free tier automatically without being charged. Usage above the included allotments is billed at standard usage rates.
Student community access
Participants also get access to a dedicated Discord channel for students. The space is intended as a place to connect with peers, ask for support, and share projects with other student developers.
Free Plan | Student Accounts (Paid developer features) | |
|---|---|---|
Workers | 100,000 requests/day | 10 million requests/month+ $.30 per additional million requests |
Workers KV | 100,000 read operations/day1,000 write, delete, list operations per day | 10 million read operations/month1 million write, delete, and list operations per month |
Hyperdrive | 100,000 database queries/day | Unlimited database queries / day |
Durable Objects | 100,000 requests/day | 1 million requests / day+ $0.15 / per additional million requests |
Workers Logs | 200,000 log events / day3 Days of retention | 20 million log events / month 7 Days of retention+$0.60 per additional million events |
Workers Logpush | Not Included | 10 million log events / month+$0.05 per additional million log events |
Queues | Not Included | 1 million operations/month included +$0.40 per additional million operations |
Examples of what developers have built
Adventure
Daniel Foldi built Adventure, a text-based adventure game running on Cloudflare Workers. The game uses Workers AI with the @cf/google/gemma-3-12b-it model to generate narrative content.
The developer chose Workers AI with the OpenNext adapter because it simplified deployment and handled scaling automatically. The project runs on the Workers Paid plan to enable Workers Logpush and detailed logs for monitoring and analysis.
When a game session starts, the server provides the AI with a custom prompt to set the scene and explain the game mechanics. Each time a player makes a choice, the accumulated story history is sent back to the server, which asks the AI to extend the narrative dynamically.
DNS over Discord
Matt Cowley created DNS over Discord, a bot that performs DNS lookups inside Discord via slash commands. Users can check A, AAAA, MX, TXT, and other record types without switching to a terminal or separate tool.
The developer used Cloudflare Workers to run the bot, since the platform fits small JavaScript applications that handle requests well and pairs naturally with Discord's slash command model. The bot runs on the Workers Paid plan because it sees enough traffic to exceed the free tier.
In the implementation, the Worker checks whether the request is a Discord interaction and routes it to the appropriate command handler, such as /dig or /multi-dig, using a custom framework for slash commands. Non-Discord requests can still be served routes like a privacy page or terms of service.
Placeholders.dev
James Ross runs placeholders.dev, a service that generates placeholder images on request. Developers can get placeholders by simply using a URL like https://images.placeholders.dev/350x150, avoiding the need to host or manage assets during prototyping.
The service runs on Cloudflare Workers for fast, consistent image delivery. It uses the Workers Paid plan because it regularly passes the free-tier limits on requests and compute time. When a request arrives, the Worker reads the path for dimensions, applies defaults for styling, and returns an SVG image immediately.
More examples from the community are available on the Built With Workers page.
Getting access
The offer applies to students in the United States who are at least 18 years old and have a verified .edu billing email. To get started, add the verified email to your billing details and subscribe to the Workers Paid plan.
New .edu accounts | Existing .edu accounts | |
|---|---|---|
Creation Date | Created on/after September 22, 2025 | Created prior to September 22, 2025 |
Confirm your eligibility | Sign up for a free Cloudflare account, add your credit card and ensure your verified .edu email address is added to your billing details. | Ensure your verified .edu email address is added to your billing details. |
How to Redeem | Visit your Workers Plans page in the dashboard and add the Workers Paid plan to your subscription |
The free credit requires the verified .edu address to be your billing address. If you choose not to remain on the paid plan after the year ends, the account automatically moves to the free plan without charge.
Expansion plans
Cloudflare says this first rollout is primarily aimed at U.S. institutions, but it is working to support students in other countries and plans to add more higher-education domain names after launch. Students outside the U.S. can apply to have their educational or academic domain added, and will be notified once it becomes available in their region.
