Head-to-head
Cloudflare vs AWS WAF Bot Control
In short
AWS WAF charges AI bots with an x402 HTTP 402 and settles in stablecoins through Coinbase (since 2026-06-15, CloudFront only); Cloudflare charges through pay per crawl with itself as Merchant of Record. For a security engineer: Both verify Web Bot Auth (AWS needs rule set Version_4.0 or later selected).
The sourced difference
AWS WAF charges AI bots with an x402 HTTP 402 and settles in stablecoins through Coinbase (since 2026-06-15, CloudFront only); Cloudflare charges through pay per crawl with itself as Merchant of Record. Source, read 2026-11-04.
Side by side
| Question | Cloudflare | AWS WAF Bot Control |
|---|---|---|
| Tells a verified agent from a spoof | Yes Web Bot Auth signatures, IP validation, verified bot and signed agent directory (BotBase) |
Yes Web Bot Auth (rule set Version_4.0+), verified self-identifying bots |
| Per-purpose policy (train, search, answer, act) | Yes separate Search, Training and Agent controls on all plans, plus Disallow AI Training since 2026-09-15 |
Yes rules on bot category and name labels; prices can differ by bot identity and verification status |
| Charging for access | Partial Pay per crawl with HTTP 402, Cloudflare as Merchant of Record, private beta |
Yes HTTP 402 x402 monetization on CloudFront, Coinbase x402 settlement in stablecoins |
| Lets signed commerce agents through | Partial Visa TAP and Mastercard Agent Pay built on Web Bot Auth, managed rulesets announced Oct 2025; current rule name not confirmed in docs (checked 2026-11-04) |
Not published Visa TAP or Mastercard Agent Pay support (checked 2026-11-04) |
| Cost | free tier covers AI Crawl Control; Pro from USD 20/month; Bot Management and BotBase are Enterprise and sales-led | published: USD 10/month per web ACL plus USD 1 or USD 10 per million requests after free allowance |
| Reporting | Yes AI Crawl Control analytics on crawler activity, request patterns and robots.txt compliance |
Yes Bot Control console dashboard, AI activity dashboard, CloudWatch metrics and logs |
| Where it runs | edge: enforced on Cloudflare's reverse proxy, no app code needed | edge or regional: CloudFront edge and regional resources such as load balancers and API Gateway |
| Points, rank | 8 of 10, rank 1 (tied) | 8 of 10, rank 1 (tied) |
| Price read 2026-11-04 | AI Crawl Control and the Search, Training and Agent controls are on all plans including Free (USD 0). Pro USD 20/month billed annually or USD 25 monthly; Business USD 200/month annually or USD 250 monthly; Enterprise Bot Management and BotBase are sales-led. Pay per crawl prices are set by the site owner (private beta). | Bot Control USD 10/month per web ACL. Common level: first 10M requests/month free, then USD 1.00 per million. Targeted level: first 1M requests/month free, then USD 10.00 per million. Standard AWS WAF web ACL and rule charges also apply; AI traffic monetization has no extra charge. |
Verdicts by reader
- Platform engineer
- On AWS, Bot Control is USD 10 a month per web ACL plus per-request fees; Cloudflare AI Crawl Control is on the free plan.
- Security engineer
- Both verify Web Bot Auth (AWS needs rule set Version_4.0 or later selected).
- Publisher operations
- AWS charging is generally available with Test mode; Cloudflare pay per crawl is in private beta.
What each does not do
Cloudflare
- BotBase does not block traffic itself; mitigation needs Security rules or AI traffic options (BotBase docs, updated 2026-10-08).
- Disallow AI Training cannot pass a no-training preference to Bing until Microsoft ships robots.txt support, targeted early 2027 (Cloudflare blog, 2026-09-15).
- Web Bot Auth verification does no nonce validation today; Cloudflare relies on short expires values (Web Bot Auth docs).
- Pay per crawl is not self-serve: the docs (updated 2026-07-28) tell site owners to reach out to Cloudflare to join the beta.
AWS WAF Bot Control
- Monetize only works with CloudFront-associated web ACLs, not regional resources (Bot Control docs).
- Stripe payouts and Machine Payments Protocol are not live yet; settlement is via Coinbase x402 in stablecoins (what's new, 2026-06-15).
- Web Bot Auth is off unless the rule group version is pinned to Version_4.0 or later (Bot Control docs).
More: alternatives to Cloudflare, alternatives to AWS WAF Bot Control.
Sources
- aws.amazon.com: aws waf ai traffic monetization
- cloudflare.com: network cdn.md
- aws.amazon.com: pricing
- developers.cloudflare.com: verified bots
- docs.aws.amazon.com: waf bot control
- Have it both ways: stay discoverable in search while disallowing AI training
- developers.cloudflare.com: what is pay per crawl
- Securing agentic commerce: helping AI Agents transact with Visa and Mastercard
Last reviewed 2026-11-04