Shield pricing
Free. That's the pricing.
No verification caps, no widget limits, no plans and no card. Not free until you grow; free at whatever size you grow to.
The shortest pricing page we have.
Why it's free
Protection isn't a product tier
reCAPTCHA starts charging past 10,000 assessments a month. hCaptcha keeps its score and invisible mode for paying customers. Shield's core protection has no cap and no paid gate at any scale.
Shield is how many developers first meet Edge. If it earns your trust with bot protection, we'd like the chance to run your CDN, DNS or compute too. That's entirely optional, and Shield never requires it.
Optional paid extras, such as advanced analytics and enterprise support, may come later. The protection itself stays free.
Shield
Everything included$0/ month, forever
No card required. Nothing to subscribe to, nothing that expires.
- Unlimited widgets and sitekeys
- Unlimited verifications and siteverify calls
- 1–100 humanity score on every verification
- Managed, non-interactive and invisible modes
- Shadow (report-only) mode
- The tarpit for repeat offenders
- Offline verification via public JWKS
- Test sitekeys for CI
- Hostname allowlists and anti-replay
- Analytics dashboard and the Examiner
- Turnstile-compatible siteverify
At your volume
Is it still free at your size?
“Free” means something different at every provider. Move the slider to see what each free offer covers at your monthly volume, and whether you get a score with it.
1K50K1M50M
- Edge ShieldFree, no capScore: 1–100 on every call
- Cloudflare TurnstileFree (Cloudflare account)Score: Pass / fail only
- Google reCAPTCHAOver the 10k/mo free tier: paidScore: 0.0–1.0 (v3)
- hCaptchaFree tier; invisible mode is paidScore: Enterprise only
From each provider's publicly listed plans at the time of writing. Plans change; check before you commit.
The rate card
Everything you need costs nothing
The only paid items are optional extras, and they don't exist yet.
| Resource | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| VerificationsChallenges, solves and siteverify calls | Free, unlimited | Fair-use limits protect the service itself from abuse |
| Widgets and sitekeysPer account | Free, unlimited | One per site, form or environment |
| Humanity score1–100 on every siteverify response | Free | Included, not an enterprise upsell |
| AnalyticsHourly challenge, solve and score metrics | Free | Included with every widget, with the Examiner |
| Advanced analyticsExtended retention, exports, alerting | Coming later | Optional add-on; core protection stays free |
| Enterprise support and SLADedicated support, custom rules, WAF integration | Coming later | Optional. Talk to us if you need it now |
FAQ
The questions everyone asks about free
Is it really free? What's the catch?
Core protection is free forever with no verification caps. We may charge for optional extras later (advanced analytics, enterprise support, WAF integration), never for the protection itself.
Do I need a credit card?
No. Create an account and a widget, and you have a sitekey and secret. There's nothing to subscribe to.
Are there rate limits?
Only fair-use limits that protect the service itself, set well above anything a legitimate website sends. There's no monthly assessment quota like reCAPTCHA's 10,000.
How is this different from Turnstile being free?
Turnstile is free too, but it doesn't expose a confidence score and it requires a Cloudflare account. Shield returns a 1–100 score on every verification, runs independently of any cloud you use, and uses the same siteverify response shape, so switching either way is easy.
What happens during a traffic spike?
Nothing changes, including your bill. Challenges are stateless, so Shield scales horizontally on dedicated infrastructure.
The price is zero. The setup is five minutes.
Unlimited bot protection with a humanity score on every verification.
No card, no caps, no catch.