Knowledge base
Putting a site behind a CDN
Whether you need to do anything at all depends on which product your site is on — on one of them the CDN is already there.
A CDN keeps a copy of your site in data centres around the world, so a visitor in Sydney is served from Sydney instead of waiting for Europe. What you have to do about it depends on which product the site is on.
Footprint-free sites: it is already on
Nothing to switch on and nothing to buy — the CDN is part of what that product is, and it is included. There is no provider name shown on the card, and that is deliberate rather than an omission: which edge account fronts which site is exactly the fact that product exists to keep private.
Mainstream hosting: off by default, and you choose
Open the site, then the CDN tab. Three options:
- Off. The site is served from its origin. Fine for a site with visitors in one country.
- Managed. We provision and run the edge for you. Pick it and it is live in a few minutes.
- Your own account. Connect your own Cloudflare account and we configure the zone in it.
Your bill for the CDN stays with them; you keep full access to their dashboard.
What the allowance means, and why Africa costs more
A managed plan comes with a traffic allowance in gigabytes. A gigabyte is not the same price everywhere — serving one to Africa or South America costs several times one served to Frankfurt — so the allowance is counted in base-region-equivalent gigabytes and traffic in dearer regions spends it faster.
That sounds like small print but it is the honest version: it means the number on your plan is the true worst case whatever mix of countries your visitors come from, rather than a headline figure that quietly does not apply to your audience.
Set a budget before you need one
The CDN tab has a budget. Set it. Traffic is the one cost on the platform that somebody else can move — a link that goes unexpectedly well is indistinguishable from a scraper — and a budget turns a surprise into an email.
Changing your mind
Switching tiers does not move your site or change its content; it changes where visitors are served from. Turning the CDN off leaves the site running from its origin.
Still stuck?
Support is included on every plan and answers in your own language.
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