Overview
Cloudinary is a media platform rather than a raw object store. You upload images and video through its widget or API, it stores them, and you request transformed versions by URL: resized, cropped, converted to modern formats, compressed automatically or edited with AI features. Delivery runs through a CDN, and video gets transcoding and adaptive streaming.
Plans are priced in credits that you spend across resources. One credit buys 1 GB of managed storage, 1 GB of image bandwidth, 1,000 transformations, or on paid plans 2 GB of video bandwidth. The free plan includes 25 credits a month for up to three users with no card required, enough for a small site's images.
Plus costs $99 a month ($89 billed yearly) for 225 credits and adds backup to your own S3 bucket, auto-tagging search and role-based access. Advanced at $249 ($224 yearly) gives 600 credits and custom domains. Enterprise adds SSO, SLAs and multi-CDN delivery.
Because storage and bandwidth draw on the same credits, a busy site can exhaust a plan through bandwidth even with little stored. Cloudinary suits teams that want image and video optimisation handled for them; for plain file storage it is much more expensive than object storage.
Pricing and plans
Free tier · no card
25 monthly credits (1 credit = 1 GB storage, 1 GB image bandwidth or 1,000 transformations), 3 users, no card required
At the limit Not stated The vendor does not say what happens at the limit, or we have not found it yet.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 25 monthly credits, 3 users, 1 account |
| Plus | $99/mo ($89/mo yearly) | 225 monthly credits, backup to your own S3, 3 users, 2 accounts |
| Advanced | $249/mo ($224/mo yearly) | 600 monthly credits, custom domain (CNAME), 5 users, 3 accounts |
| Enterprise | Custom | SSO, SLAs, multi-CDN, custom contracts |
What it does
- URL-based transformations
- Resize, crop, convert formats and apply effects by changing the delivery URL.
- Video pipeline
- Transcoding and adaptive bitrate streaming for uploaded video.
- Upload widget and search
- An upload widget, API and search, with remote fetch and revision tracking.
- AI tagging
- Auto-tagging based search on paid plans, and AI-powered image features.
- Backup to your S3
- Paid plans can back assets up to your own S3 bucket.
- MCP servers
- The free plan includes access to Cloudinary's MCP servers for AI tools.
Strengths and limitations
Strengths
- Complete image and video transformation and delivery
- Free plan with 25 credits and no card required
- Single credit pool is flexible across storage, bandwidth and processing
- Mature SDKs and integrations
Limitations
- Storage and bandwidth share one credit pool, so heavy traffic eats into storage headroom
- Custom domains (CNAME) require the $249 Advanced plan
- Paid plans start at $89 to $99 a month
- Not an S3-compatible store
Who it suits
Good for
- Sites with many images needing responsive, optimised delivery
- Apps with user-uploaded photos and video
- Marketing and e-commerce teams managing media
Look elsewhere if
- Plain file or backup storage
- Download-heavy apps where per-GB price matters
Alternatives to Cloudinary
| Tool | From | Free option | Stages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uploadcare File upload, processing and CDN | $66/mo | Free tier | |
| Supabase Managed Postgres backend platform | $25/mo | Free tier | |
| ImageKit Image and video CDN with media library | $89/mo | Free tier | |
| Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage Flat-rate object storage | $7.99/mo | ||
| Amazon S3 Object storage (hyperscaler) | Usage-based | ||
| SeaweedFS Self-hosted distributed storage | — |
Questions
Is Cloudinary free?
Yes. The free plan gives 25 credits a month for up to three users with no credit card.
What is a Cloudinary credit?
One credit equals 1,000 transformations, 1 GB of storage, 1 GB of image bandwidth, or 2 GB of video bandwidth on paid plans.
How much does Cloudinary cost?
Plus is $99 a month ($89 billed yearly) and Advanced $249 ($224 yearly); Enterprise is custom.
Can Cloudinary use a custom domain?
Custom domain (CNAME) support is included from the Advanced plan.
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