AWS Lambda vs Cloudflare Workers: pricing
AWS Lambda prices per request while Cloudflare Workers bills by resource-time, so they are hard to compare head-to-head. AWS Lambda is faas (request + gb-second) ($0.20 / 1M) and Cloudflare Workers is edge faas (request + cpu-ms) ($0.30 / 1M). Snapshot June 2026 — verify on the vendor's pricing page.
Data as of June 2026.
AWS Lambda vs Cloudflare Workers side by side
| Cost factor | AWS Lambda | Cloudflare Workers |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | Cloudflare |
| Pricing model | FaaS (request + GB-second) | Edge FaaS (request + CPU-ms) |
| Per 1M requests | $0.20 / 1M | $0.30 / 1M |
| Per GB-second | $0.0000167 / GB-s | n/a |
| Free tier | 1,000,000 requests/month + 400,000 GB-s/month, perpetual (does not expire after 12 months). | Free plan: 100,000 requests/day (about 3M/month), 10 ms CPU/invocation limit. Workers Paid is $5/mo and includes 10M requests + 30M CPU-ms. |
| Scale to zero | Yes | Yes |
| Egress | $0.09/GB | Free |
| Regions | 30+ AWS regions worldwide. | 330+ Cloudflare edge locations worldwide (runs at the edge, not a single region). |
Sources: Amazon Web Services pricing · Cloudflare pricing.
Sample monthly cost
A rough monthly total for a sample workload: 5,000,000 requests/month, each ~150 ms at 256 MB of memory, plus 25 GB of egress. Computed after each platform's free tier; excludes platform minimums and regional variation, so treat it as a starting point:
| Component | AWS Lambda | Cloudflare Workers |
|---|---|---|
| Compute (after free tier) | $0.80 | Usage-based |
| Egress (25 GB) | $2.25 | $0 |
| Estimated total / month | $3.05 | Usage-based |
Verdict
On cost for this sample workload, AWS Lambda prices per request while Cloudflare Workers bills by resource-time, so they are hard to compare head-to-head. But price is not the only factor: AWS Lambda (mature, deepest aws ecosystem (api gateway, sqs, dynamodb, eventbridge)) versus Cloudflare Workers (no egress/bandwidth charges, ever). Read each platform's full breakdown — AWS Lambda and Cloudflare Workers — and model your own workload in the calculator.
Frequently asked questions
Is AWS Lambda or Cloudflare Workers cheaper?
For a sample workload of 5M requests/month at 256 MB, 150 ms each plus 25 GB egress, AWS Lambda prices per request while Cloudflare Workers bills by resource-time, so they are hard to compare head-to-head. This is illustrative and after each platform's free tier; your real cost depends on memory, duration, egress and region. snapshot captured June 2026.
How do AWS Lambda and Cloudflare Workers price requests?
AWS Lambda: $0.20 per 1M requests + $0.0000166667 per GB-second (x86). Arm/Graviton2 is ~20% cheaper. Billed per 1 ms. Memory is configurable 128 MB-10 GB and sets the GB-second rate. Cloudflare Workers: Workers Paid: $5/mo minimum, includes 10M requests + 30M CPU-ms; then $0.30 per additional 1M requests and $0.02 per additional 1M CPU-ms. Billed on CPU time (not wall-clock), so I/O wait is free. No egress charges. Snapshot June 2026 — verify on the vendor's pricing page.
Do AWS Lambda and Cloudflare Workers scale to zero?
AWS Lambda: yes, no charge when idle. Cloudflare Workers: yes, no charge when idle. Scale-to-zero saves money for spiky traffic but adds cold-start latency on the first request.
Which has the better free tier, AWS Lambda or Cloudflare Workers?
AWS Lambda: 1,000,000 requests/month + 400,000 GB-s/month, perpetual (does not expire after 12 months). Cloudflare Workers: Free plan: 100,000 requests/day (about 3M/month), 10 ms CPU/invocation limit. Workers Paid is $5/mo and includes 10M requests + 30M CPU-ms.
More comparisons
Last updated: 2026-06-21