CLOUDFLARE has launched a beta for Pay Per Use, a mechanism to turn downstream use of published content by AI products into revenue. The approach lets buyers propose a price for a defined use of content, publishers decide whether to accept, and Cloudflare handles enrollment, usage reporting, billing, and payments. Publishers can track earnings and usage in a Cloudflare dashboard, while buyers report usage through a single API. The aim is to price content by the actual value it provides, rather than charging for every crawl.
The process works as follows: AI companies set up a program, identify crawlers as Verified bots, define the paid use and price, and connect a payment account. Publishers review offers and choose whether to participate, retaining control over access and downstream use. Buyers report each use as a JSON line, including when it happened, the source URL, and an event ID. Cloudflare then aggregates uses, bills the buyer, and pays publishers monthly.
There is no required origin change or per-site integration; publishers can choose different offers for different uses, and terms may restrict training or other downstream activities.
Cloudflare notes that Pay Per Use complements their Pay Per Crawl model, which charges for access, by charging for what happens next. They are also planning enhancements such as more contextual reporting for publishers (keywords, topic, product powered) and integration with tools like Business Insights and the Answer Engine Optimization suite to illuminate how content is found, used, and paid. The beta is intended to determine practical uptake and inform broader scale deployment.