# Cloudflare Pay per crawl

[7 · Pay](/category/pay/)

| Cloudflare Pay per crawl |
| --- |
| Category | [Pay](/category/pay/) |
| Governed by | Cloudflare (single vendor) |
| Status | Closed beta; documentation updated 2026-07-28 |
| Phase | candidate |
| Implementation | developer trial |
| Adoption | unmeasured |
| Version | closed beta (2026-07-28) |
| Specification | [https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-crawl-control/features/pay-per-crawl/what-is-pay-per-crawl/](https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-crawl-control/features/pay-per-crawl/what-is-pay-per-crawl/) |
| Found at | HTTP 402 response carrying a crawler-price header |
| Last checked | 2026-10-16 |
| Freshness | current · checked 2026-10-16 |
| Solves | Accept payments from agents, Control AI crawling and training use, Prove an agent's identity |

Cloudflare Pay per crawl is an agentic-web standard (HTTP header) at step 7, Pay, governed by Cloudflare (single vendor); its own status is "Closed beta; documentation updated 2026-07-28" (candidate). It answers: How can a site charge an AI crawler per request, and how does the crawler agree to pay? Adoption is unmeasured, last verified 2026-10-16.

[Pay](/category/pay/) Pay per crawl is Cloudflare's way for a site to charge AI crawlers per request. The site answers with HTTP 402 and a crawler-price header; the crawler agrees by sending crawler-exact-price or crawler-max-price, and a charged response carries crawler-charged [[1]](#ref-1). Crawlers must sign requests with Web Bot Auth, so a priced crawl is also an identified one [[1]](#ref-1).

## Overview
Cloudflare documents it as a closed beta, and the documentation was last updated on 2026-07-28 [[1]](#ref-1). It is a single-vendor mechanism, not an open standard, and sits in the HTTP 402 family with x402 and MPP.

The record could equally sit under permit; it is placed at pay because the exchange is a payment.

## Discovery and probe

HTTP 402 response carrying a crawler-price header

```
GET {origin}/{priced-path}
parse:     HTTP 402 with a crawler-price response header; a crawler pays by sending crawler-exact-price or crawler-max-price, and the charged response carries crawler-charged. The crawler must sign requests with Web Bot Auth.
on absent: A 200 or a 402 without a crawler-price header means this path is not priced by pay per crawl; the probe cannot see an unsigned-agent decision.
```

Not probed live: no-fixed-path. candidate record; probe rule pending

## History
- 2026-10-15 — curated update 2026-10-15
- 2026-10-16 — use-case tags (auto)

## Instances

No instances recorded yet.

## See also

- [x402](/protocols/x402/)
- [L402](/protocols/l402/)
- [Machine Payments Protocol](/protocols/mpp/)
- [s402](/protocols/s402/)

- [HTTP 402 Payment Required](/terms/http-402-payment-required/)
- [Pay per crawl](/terms/pay-per-crawl/)

## Comparisons
- [Cloudflare Pay per crawl vs x402](/compare/cloudflare-pay-per-crawl-vs-x402/)
- [Cloudflare Pay per crawl vs L402](/compare/cloudflare-pay-per-crawl-vs-l402/)
- [Cloudflare Pay per crawl vs Machine Payments Protocol](/compare/cloudflare-pay-per-crawl-vs-mpp/)
- [Cloudflare Pay per crawl vs s402](/compare/cloudflare-pay-per-crawl-vs-s402/)

## References

- Cloudflare's documentation says pay per crawl uses HTTP 402 with crawler-price, crawler-exact-price / crawler-max-price and crawler-charged headers, requires Web Bot Auth signing, and is in closed beta (documentation updated 2026-07-28). — [https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-crawl-control/features/pay-per-crawl/what-is-pay-per-crawl/](https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-crawl-control/features/pay-per-crawl/what-is-pay-per-crawl/) (2026-07-28) VERIFIED
- Cloudflare's introductory post describes pay per crawl. — [https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-pay-per-crawl/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-pay-per-crawl/) REPORTED

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