Cloudinary Plus
by Cloudinary Ltd.
API-driven image and video management, transformation, optimization, and delivery for websites and applications.
Score
Score
Our verdict
Cloudinary Plus is a strong developer-focused media platform with broad image, video, CDN, API, SDK, and team-management capabilities. Its main drawback is a combined credit model that can make usage costs harder to forecast.
Overview
Screenshot
Score breakdown
Overall score
Scores are editorial assessments by the Compare Best AI team on a 0–10 scale.
Expert review
CBAI Editorial Team
Compare Best AI · Editorial Team
Cloudinary Plus is best viewed as a broad, developer-oriented image and video infrastructure plan rather than a standalone design application. It brings together uploads, a web Media Library, URL-based transformations, automatic format and quality optimization, CDN delivery, video transcoding, adaptive streaming, APIs, SDKs, S3 backup, search, and team controls. The verified API breadth and transformation capabilities are major strengths, while expedited support improves on the Free plan. The principal tradeoff is its shared credit system: transformations, storage, bandwidth, and video workloads consume the same monthly allocation, making forecasting less straightforward than separately metered services. Plus also should not be treated as including every documented AI operation without qualification, because add-on charges, transformation counts, or activation rules were not fully established. Enterprise governance, SSO, provisioning, custom contracts, and enterprise support are reserved for higher-level arrangements.
How we tested
Tasks evaluated
- ·Opened and quoted the official Cloudinary pricing and plan-comparison pages
- ·Verified plan definitions and credit rules in official billing documentation
- ·Reviewed official API, SDK, integration, AI, video, trust, and support documentation
- ·Checked official release notes, newsroom, legal updates, and integration announcements
- ·Compared verified public pricing and capabilities for ImageKit and Imgix
Method
Automated desk research using only the supplied first-party pages and quoted evidence. No hands-on product testing was performed.
Reviewer
CBAI Editorial Team
Plans & pricing
Free
Individuals or small projects starting with Cloudinary
- 3 users
- 1 account
- 25 monthly credits
- Upload widget, API, and search
- Remote fetch, automatic backup, and revision tracking
- Video transcoding and adaptive streaming
- Forums, tickets, and email support
Plus
Teams extending digital-media capabilities for websites and applications
- 3 users
- 2 accounts
- 225 monthly credits
- Free plan features
- Backup to a customer-controlled S3 bucket
- Auto-tagging-based search
- Access to free and paid add-ons
- Expedited support
- Allowlist and blocklist asset access
- Role-based multi-user administration
- 2,000 Admin API requests per hour
Advanced
Teams requiring custom-domain support and authentication options
- 5 users
- 3 accounts
- 600 monthly credits
- Plus plan features
- Custom domain (CNAME) support
- Optional HTTPS SSL certificate
- Authentication options
Advanced Extra
Higher-volume self-service usage
- 1,350 monthly credits
- 5 users
- 5 product environments
Pro PAYG
High-volume pay-as-you-go usage
- 2,750 monthly credits
- 5 users
- 5 product environments
- Additional charges for usage above the included quota
Enterprise
Organizations needing custom resources, infrastructure, contracts, and support
- Custom resource allocations
- Volume-based pricing
- Flexible payment terms
- Security and compliance review
- Multi-CDN infrastructure
- Enterprise SLAs and support
- Designated customer success manager
- Custom contracts
- Single sign-on
- Provisioning API access
Pricing may vary by region. Always verify on the vendor's website.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Cloudinary Plus | ImageKit | Imgix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | |||
| Permanent free tier | |||
| Developer tools | |||
| REST API access | |||
| Transformations | |||
| URL-based media transformations | |||
| AI | |||
| Background removal | |||
| Video | |||
| Video transformation capabilities | |||
Is it right for you?
Good fit for
Media-heavy websites and applications
Combines image and video uploads, transformations, optimization, CDN delivery, and asset management.
API-oriented development teams
Provides REST APIs, transformation URLs, and official backend, frontend, and mobile SDKs.
Small collaborative teams
Plus includes 3 users, 2 accounts, access controls, and role-based administration.
Mixed image and video workloads
Credits can be used across transformations, storage, image bandwidth, video bandwidth, and video processing.
Less suited for
Buyers requiring independently metered resources
Storage, transformations, delivery, and video usage share a combined credit model that can complicate forecasting.
Enterprise DAM governance at the Plus price
Enterprise-only capabilities include SSO, provisioning API access, custom contracts, enterprise SLAs, and a designated success manager.
Teams requiring bundled 24/7 phone support
The Plus plan documents expedited support, but 24/7 emergency coverage appears in separately presented support offerings.
Unrestricted large-file workflows
Plus documents file-size, megapixel, credit, and Admin API limits.
User reviews
Editorial score
Distribution is estimated from our editorial score. Verified user reviews coming soon.
Use cases
Typical ways teams rely on this tool — from everyday tasks to specialized workflows.
- Upload and organize website or application media
- Transform and optimize images through delivery URLs
- Transcode video and provide adaptive-bitrate streaming
- Deliver images and videos through CDN infrastructure
- Search assets using auto-tagging
- Back up assets to a customer-controlled S3 bucket
- Manage media through REST APIs and SDKs
- Apply AI-assisted image transformations
Integrations
Reported connectors
Apps and services commonly connected out of the box or via official connectors.
- AWS
- Braze
- Builder.io
- Canva
- Contentful
- Contentstack
- Dropbox
- Figma
- Shopify
- WordPress
- Zapier
- Adobe InDesign
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Microsoft 365
- Google Workspace
- Google Drive
- Box
- Gmail
- Slack
- Excel
- Adobe Commerce
- commercetools
- Salesforce Commerce Cloud
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud
- SAP Commerce
Privacy & compliance
Security & data practices
Highlights we track from the vendor's documentation. Always confirm current terms, subprocessors, and regional policies on their official site.
- Cloudinary states that it is SOC 2 Type II certified and implements controls and policies supporting GDPR compliance. It also states support for customer obligations under CCPA and CPRA. Its SOC controls address Security
- Availability
- Privacy
- Confidentiality
- and the HIPAA Security Rule
- but this is not a claim of HIPAA certification. Cloudinary is also ISO 14001 certified for environmental management
- not information security. EEA data-storage selection is available to Enterprise customers.
Details
Category
Price
- Free plan
- Plus $99/mo ($89/mo with yearly selection)
- Advanced $249/mo ($224/mo with yearly selection)
- Advanced Extra $549/mo ($494/mo annual subscription)
- Pro PAYG $1,099/mo ($989/mo annual subscription)
- Enterprise custom
Free version
Best for
Best for teams that need API-driven image and video uploads, transformations, optimization, CDN delivery, adaptive streaming, and basic multi-user asset administration in one platform.
Frequently asked questions
Cloudinary Plus
Content & Design
Ready to get started?
Visit the Cloudinary Plus website to explore plans and start your free trial.
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