← Billing / billing / manage
Budget alerts
Budget alerts notify you by email when your account-wide usage-based spend crosses a dollar threshold you define. Use budget alerts to manage costs proactively instead of discovering unexpected charges at the end of a billing cycle.
Create a budget alert
-
Log in to the Cloudflare dashboard ↗ and select your account.
-
Go to Manage Account > Billing.
Go to Billing ↗ -
Select Billable Usage.
-
Select Create budget alert.
-
Configure the alert:
Field Description Alert name A descriptive name for the alert (for example, "R2 spend warning"). Description (Optional) A note about when this alert should fire. Budget threshold (USD) The dollar amount that triggers the alert. When your cumulative usage-based spend for the current billing period crosses this value, Cloudflare sends a notification. Email recipients One or more email addresses to notify. Select Add email to add additional recipients. -
Select Save.
View and manage budget alerts
To view your existing budget alerts, go to Manage Account > Billing > Billable Usage and select Budget alerts. The count next to the button shows how many alerts you have configured.
From there you can edit or delete existing alerts.
How budget alerts work
- Budget alerts evaluate your cumulative usage-based spend for the current billing period.
- When spend crosses the threshold, Cloudflare sends a single email notification to all configured recipients.
- The alert resets at the start of each new billing period.
- Budget alerts are informational only. They do not pause or cap usage. Your monthly invoice remains the authoritative source for billing.
Budget alerts compared to usage notifications
Cloudflare offers two types of spend monitoring:
| Feature | Budget alerts | Usage notifications |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Account-wide, all usage-based products combined | Per-product (for example, Argo bytes or Workers requests) |
| Threshold | Dollar amount | Product-specific metric (bytes, requests, minutes) |
| Setup location | Billing > Billable Usage | Notifications |
| Best for | Overall cost management | Monitoring a single product |
For per-product usage notifications, refer to Usage-based billing.
Related resources
- Monitor billable usage — Track daily usage-based costs
- Usage-based billing — Which products use metered billing
- How Cloudflare billing works — Billing lifecycle and charge types