Cloudinary is a leading image and video management API and CDN. Compare 2026 pricing plans, features, pros, cons, and alternatives.
Category
Hosting
Pricing
Freemium, credit-based tiered subscription (Free, Plus, Advanced, Enterprise) with a separate Digital Asset Management product line, from Free plan available (25 monthly credits); paid plans start at $89 per month billed annually ($99 month-to-month)
Verified
Not yet
Last updated
July 19, 2026
Founded
2012
Headquarters
San Jose, California, United States
What Is Cloudinary
Cloudinary is a cloud-based platform for uploading, storing, transforming, and delivering images and videos through an API, SDKs, and a global CDN. Founded in Israel in 2012, it grew into one of the most widely used media management platforms for developers before relocating its headquarters to San Jose, California.
Rather than requiring developers to pre-generate every image or video size and format, Cloudinary applies transformations on the fly using URL parameters, then caches and serves the result from its CDN, which simplifies responsive image and video delivery across devices.
How Cloudinary Transformations Work
Developers upload an original asset once, then request different resized, cropped, compressed, or reformatted versions simply by changing parameters in the delivery URL. Automatic format and quality optimization detects the requesting browser and device and serves the smallest acceptable file automatically.
AI-powered features layered on top of this pipeline include automatic tagging, content-aware cropping, background removal, generative AI editing tools, and content moderation, which extend Cloudinary beyond basic resizing into a broader media intelligence platform.
Cloudinary Pricing Plans
Cloudinary's core Image and Video APIs product uses a freemium, credit-based model with a Free plan (25 monthly credits), a Plus plan starting at 89 dollars per month billed annually, an Advanced plan starting at 224 dollars per month billed annually, and a custom-priced Enterprise plan.
A separate Digital Asset Management (DAM) product is sold on its own pricing track, with a 30-day free trial including 25 GB of storage before moving to a custom-quoted Enterprise DAM plan aimed at marketing and creative teams.
Key Features
URL-Based Image and Video Transformations — Resize, crop, compress, and reformat media on the fly by changing parameters in a delivery URL.
Automatic Format and Quality Optimization — Automatically serves the smallest acceptable file format and quality based on the requesting browser and device.
AI-Powered Auto-Tagging and Cropping — Uses AI to automatically tag content and generate content-aware crops for different aspect ratios.
Global CDN Delivery — Serves transformed media from a global content delivery network for fast load times worldwide.
Digital Asset Management — A separate DAM product provides a searchable media library, approval workflows, and brand guideline enforcement.
Upload Widget and Wide SDK Support — Provides a drop-in upload widget plus SDKs for frameworks including React, Next.js, Vue, WordPress, Shopify, iOS, and Android.
Video Transcoding and Adaptive Streaming — Transcodes video into multiple formats and supports adaptive bitrate streaming for different network conditions.
Generative AI Editing Tools — Offers generative fill, background removal, and other AI-assisted editing capabilities directly through the API.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Industry-recognized transformation API with strong reliability
Generous free tier suitable for small projects and prototypes
Strong CDN performance for global media delivery
Broad framework, SDK, and platform integration support
Powerful AI-assisted media features beyond basic resizing
Scales from hobby projects to large enterprise deployments
Cons
Credit-based pricing can be hard to predict at high scale
Advanced AI add-ons increase cost beyond base plan pricing
Enterprise plan requires a sales contact with no published price
Transformation URL structure creates some vendor lock-in
Digital Asset Management is a separate paid product from the core API
Free tier's 25 monthly credits are modest for production traffic
Pricing
Free $0 Monthly
Plus $99 per month (monthly) or $89 per month billed annually Monthly or annual
Advanced $249 per month (monthly) or $224 per month billed annually Monthly or annual
Enterprise Custom quote Annual contract
DAM Trial Free for 30 days 30-day trial
Enterprise DAM Custom quote Annual contract
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Cloudinary used for?
Cloudinary is used to upload, store, transform, optimize, and deliver images and videos for websites and applications, commonly for tasks like responsive image resizing, video transcoding, and automatic format optimization.
Does Cloudinary have a free plan?
Yes. Cloudinary offers a Free plan with 25 monthly credits, 3 users, and 1 account, with no credit card required to sign up.
How does Cloudinary's credit-based pricing work?
Cloudinary allocates a monthly credit balance per plan, and different actions such as storage, transformations, and bandwidth consume credits at different rates; higher-tier plans include larger monthly credit allowances.
Does Cloudinary support video, not just images?
Yes. Cloudinary supports video upload, transcoding, transformation, and adaptive delivery in addition to its image transformation capabilities.
What is a Cloudinary transformation URL?
A transformation URL is a Cloudinary delivery URL where parameters such as width, height, crop mode, format, and quality are embedded directly in the URL, letting Cloudinary generate the requested asset variant on demand.
How is Cloudinary different from a generic CDN?
Unlike a generic CDN that only caches and serves existing files, Cloudinary actively transforms, optimizes, and generates new versions of images and videos on request, in addition to caching and delivering them globally.
Is Cloudinary's Digital Asset Management the same product as its core API?
No. Cloudinary sells Digital Asset Management as a separate product with its own pricing and trial, aimed at marketing and creative teams managing brand asset libraries, distinct from the core Image and Video APIs product.