Manage, transform, and deliver images and videos at scale
Visit WebsiteThe Bottom Line
Entry price
From $89/mo (free plan available)
Biggest pro
Powerful transformations
Biggest con
Can get expensive
TL;DR - Cloudinary
- Media management and delivery platform
- Image and video optimization on the fly
- CDN-powered delivery worldwide
What is Cloudinary?
Available on: Web
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Powerful transformations
- Auto optimization
- Great free tier
Cons
- Can get expensive
- Complex pricing
Ratings Across the Web
What people say
“But it starts getting pricey as you scale beyond the free tier, and I've found the documentation to be a little daunting trying to work out advanced transforms myself.”via G2
“I love how easy Cloudinary makes it to upload and display images and videos on a website with a few API calls — the optimization features alone blew my website's load times in half, with lightning-fast delivery over a CDN.”via Capterra
Ratings aggregated from independent review platforms. Learn more
Key Features
Pricing Plans
Pricing checked Aug 14, 2026
Free
Getting started
- 25 credits/month
- 25K transformations
- 25GB storage OR bandwidth
- Basic support
Plus
$89/per month
Growing sites
- 225 credits/month
- Add-ons available
- Email support
Advanced
$224/per month
High volume
- 600 credits/month
- Advanced features
- Priority support
Enterprise
Custom
Large scale
- Custom credits
- Custom SLA
- Dedicated support
- Enterprise features
Is Cloudinary worth the price?
Cloudinary is the most feature-rich media management platform but its credit-based pricing is deliberately confusing.
The free tier (25 credits) is adequate for small sites, but the jump to $89/mo Plus feels steep compared to simpler alternatives.
Hidden Costs & Gotchas
Credit system bundles transformations, storage, and bandwidth, hard to predict actual costs
1 credit = 1,000 transformations OR 1GB storage OR 1GB bandwidth OR 500 SD video seconds
Video processing burns credits 2-4x faster than images
Overages are soft limits, Cloudinary contacts you to upgrade rather than cutting off
Advanced Extra ($549/mo) and Pro ($1,099/mo) plans exist but are not prominently listed
How Cloudinary Compares to Competitors
Imgix is simpler and cheaper for image-only CDN with URL-based transforms. Cloudflare Images ($5/100K images) is far cheaper for basic storage and delivery. ImageKit offers clearer pricing at $49/mo with 50GB bandwidth. Cloudinary wins on transformation depth and video processing but costs 2-3x more than alternatives.
How Cloudinary's pricing compares
At $89/mo, Cloudinary is the most premium of its 2 direct competitors.
Entry paid plan, monthly. Pricing checked Aug 14, 2026.
Reviews
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Across 251 verified user reviews on G2, Capterra
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Cloudinary FAQ
How does Cloudinary help with media delivery?
Which teams benefit most from using Cloudinary?
How is Cloudinary priced?
Can Cloudinary optimize images automatically?
What kind of transformations can be applied with Cloudinary?
How does Cloudinary compare to imgix?
What are the potential trade-offs when using Cloudinary?
Source: cloudinary.com