Reviewed November 10, 2026 · Privacy Needle editorial resources
Understand the metering unit
D1 bills rows read and rows written rather than the number of SQL statements alone. An inefficient query can scan many rows. Indexes can reduce scans but consume storage and add writes when indexed fields change.
Free plan allowances
As checked on November 10, 2026, Cloudflare documented 5 million rows read per day, 100,000 rows written per day, 5 GB of total storage and ten databases for Workers Free. These free limits can stop the operation when exceeded; they are not automatic pay-as-you-go overages. Check Cloudflare’s current pricing document before deployment.
Paid usage
Published paid-tier allowances and excess charges depend on the relevant D1 metering category. Workers Paid plan subscription costs sit outside D1 per-unit usage. Your architecture may also use KV, R2, Workers or third-party services that have distinct bills.
Plan for growth and sharding
Multiply current stored data by an index-overhead estimate and apply monthly storage growth to see when aggregate free limits might be reached. For multiple shards or copies, account for total physical storage, write amplification and operational recovery. Use the Cloud Database & Sharding Estimator with real database metrics.
These are educational estimates. They do not substitute for your provider’s current tariff or professional advice.