Cloudflare Traces Enters Open Beta: Proxy-Layer OpenTelemetry Spans with Volume-Based Pricing

Cloudflare has launched Traces in open beta, turning security rules, transformations, cache decisions, routing, Worker execution and origin handling into OpenTelemetry spans in a single request-level timeline without instrumentation. Starting December 1, 2026, pricing shifts to volume-based: the free plan includes 0.5GB of ingestion per day with seven-day retention, while paid plans include 50GB of ingestion and 10GB-month of storage, with overage at $0.25 per GB ingested and $0.10 per GB-month stored.

• Traces renders the full request path as OpenTelemetry spans without manual instrumentation
• W3C traceparent support enables end-to-end tracing from client to origin
• From December 1, 2026, billing moves to volume-based instead of per-span
• Free plan: 0.5GB ingestion per day with seven-day retention