When a daily limit is hit, queries return errors until it resets. Cloudflare D1 is a serverless SQL database built on SQLite and used from Cloudflare Workers. On the Workers Free plan the pricing page lists 5 million rows read per day, 100,000 rows written per day and 5 GB of total storage. When you hit a daily limit, queries fail with errors until the limit resets, and a full storage quota blocks inserts and schema changes until you delete data. Workers Paid removes those limits and bills reads at $0.001 per million beyond 25 billion a month, writes at $1.00 per million beyond 50 million, and storage at $0.75 per GB-month beyond 5 GB. Price is the strength. Performance is the complaint: in a 2025 Hacker News thread, several developers reported slow queries and errors in production, and others pointed to a 10 GB per-database cap and the lack of multi-request transactions.
Free tier quotas
Rows read
5 million per day on Workers Free
Rows written
100,000 per day on Workers Free
Storage
5 GB total
When a daily limit is hit
Queries return errors until the limit resets. Upgrading to Workers Paid removes the limits, typically within minutes
When storage is full
You must delete data before you can insert rows, create or alter tables, or add indexes and triggers
Read replicas
No extra charge
Billing model
Rows read, rows written and storage, with scale-to-zero billing
Last sniffed Oct 16, 2026. Always confirm on the official pricing page.
👍 Good boy
+The free plan gives 5 million rows read a day and 5 GB of storage, enough to run a small Workers app with real data.
+Paid pricing is low and simple: $0.001 per million rows read beyond the 25 billion included, $1.00 per million rows written beyond 50 million, and $0.75 per GB-month beyond 5 GB.
+Read replicas cost nothing extra, according to the pricing page.
+Upgrading from Free to Workers Paid removes the daily limits, typically within minutes, so a traffic spike does not need a migration.
+A Hacker News commenter argued D1 costs far less than a hosted Postgres in a different building from the app server, which is a fair point for small projects.
+Scale-to-zero billing means an idle database costs only its storage, per the pricing page.
👎 Watch out
−Performance and reliability draw the harshest comments. One Hacker News commenter who ran D1 in production for over a year said simple queries often take 400ms or more and that there are constant network, connection and internal errors. Another measured 300 to 3,000 ms on D1 against 50 to 100 ms on a DigitalOcean Postgres.
−A poster on r/CloudFlare called D1 highly unreliable, reporting 30+ second stalls with about 50 MB of data and simple queries.
−A transaction cannot span multiple D1 requests, so you cannot read, run application logic and write atomically except through a single batch, per a Hacker News commenter.
−Commenters cite a 10 GB cap per database, a database that lives in one location, and 100 bound variables per query as limits that bite larger apps.
−Hitting the free daily read or write limit makes every query fail until the reset, including cheap ones.
−I found no G2 or Trustpilot listing for D1. Independent feedback comes from forum threads, most of them about production use rather than the free tier.
The catch
The free limits are daily, and they are hard stops. Past 5 million rows read or 100,000 rows written in a day, D1 returns errors until the counter resets, and a full 5 GB storage quota blocks new inserts and schema changes until you delete data. Upgrading to Workers Paid lifts the limits, typically within minutes.
The larger risk is fit. Developers in a 2025 Hacker News thread and on r/CloudFlare describe slow queries (400ms and up for simple ones), connection errors, no multi-request transactions, and a 10 GB per-database ceiling. Others say it works well for read-heavy, light-write apps. Test with your own traffic pattern before committing.
I could not confirm whether signup needs a card or what commercial terms apply to the free plan, so both are unknown.
What’s included
✓SQLite-based SQL
✓Cloudflare Workers bindings
✓Read replication with no extra charge
✓Scale-to-zero billing
✓Batch statements that run atomically
✓Free and Workers Paid plans, with daily limits on Free
Free tier value
Generosity
B
Estimated value
5 million rows read a day and 5 GB of SQLite storage
Feature parity
Workers Paid includes 25 billion rows read and 50 million rows written a month.
Screenshots
Cloudflare D1 homepageCloudflare D1 pricing page
Paid plans
Workers Paid: rows read
First 25 billion rows read per month included, then $0.001 per million rows.
Workers Paid: rows written
First 50 million rows written per month included, then $1.00 per million rows.
Workers Paid: storage
First 5 GB included, then $0.75 per GB-month.
Common questions
Is Cloudflare D1 free?
Yes, on Workers Free: 5 million rows read per day, 100,000 rows written per day and 5 GB of total storage.
What happens when I hit the daily limit?
D1 returns errors to your client until the daily limit resets, or until you upgrade to Workers Paid.
What happens when storage is full?
You must delete unused databases or stale data before you can insert data, create or alter tables, or add indexes and triggers.
Is D1 production ready?
Opinions split. Some commenters report slow queries and errors in production, while others use it for read-heavy apps. Test with your own workload.
How big can a database be?
Commenters cite a 10 GB per-database limit. Check the current limits page before you design around it.
Change history
Checked October 22, 2026
Pricing page read. Hacker News and Reddit comments read as excerpts; the HN thread is from April 2025. No G2 or Trustpilot listing found. Card requirement and commercial terms not confirmed.
