Summary

R2 SQL is a serverless, distributed query engine that runs SQL against Apache Iceberg tables in R2 Data Catalog. Cloudflare published R2 SQL pricing based solely on compressed data scanned: $2.50 per TB ($0.0025 per GB). Billing is not yet enabled; customers will receive at least 30 days' notice before charges begin.

Key Points

• Pricing metric: compressed bytes scanned from R2 object storage (matches file size on disk). Example: a 100 MB Parquet file billed as 100 MB.
• Rate: $2.50 / TB ($0.0025 / GB). Cloudflare states this is ~50% of AWS Athena and <50% of Google BigQuery on‑demand.
• Minimum billing increment: 10 MB per query.
• Monthly free allowance: 1 GB on Free plans; Paid plans include 10 GB / month.
• R2 storage, operations, and R2 Data Catalog charges are billed separately.
• Billing is disabled today; Cloudflare will provide >=30 days notice before enabling billing.

Practical notes for engineers

• Plan queries and file layouts to minimize unnecessary full-file scans (e.g., use partitioning, pruning, and Iceberg metadata).
• Remember compressed bytes read (not uncompressed scan) is what is billed; use compression and columnar formats like Parquet.
• Factor in the 10 MB per-query minimum when designing many small queries or ad-hoc workloads.

For full pricing details and billing examples, refer to the official R2 SQL pricing documentation.