--- description: Queue visitors in a virtual waiting room during traffic surges. title: Cloudflare Waiting Room image: https://developers.cloudflare.com/og-docs.png --- [Skip to content](#main-content) > Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Cloudflare Waiting Room Last updated Aug 24, 2026|Copy as Markdown|[View as Markdown](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/index.md)|[Agent setup](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/agent-setup/) A virtual waiting room to manage peak traffic. Business and above Cloudflare Waiting Room allows you to route excess users of your website to a customized waiting room, helping preserve customer experience and protect origin servers from being overwhelmed with requests. --- ## Benefits Waiting Room protects your origin server by preventing surges in legitimate traffic that may overload your origin. Waiting Room also benefits your visitors by: * Keeping your application online and preventing them from reaching error pages. * Showing estimated wait times that are continuously updated. * Opening up new spots more quickly by tracking dynamic inflow and [outflow](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/reference/configuration-settings/#session-duration). * Remembering each visitor's status to prevent someone from losing their place in line or having to re-queue if they leave your site. * Appearing in your own [branding and style](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/how-to/customize-waiting-room/), which enhances trust and lets you provide additional information as needed. --- ## Features [Scheduled Event](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/additional-options/create-events/) Customize the behavior of a waiting room for a specific period of time. Use Scheduled Event [Waiting Room Rules](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/additional-options/waiting-room-rules/) Create rules to indicate specific traffic or areas of your site or application that you do not want a waiting room to apply to. Use Waiting Room Rules [Waiting Room Analytics](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/waiting-room-analytics/) Get insights into the traffic going through your waiting room. Use Waiting Room Analytics [Additional hostname and path coverage](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/how-to/place-waiting-room/) Apply a single waiting room to multiple hostnames and paths within the same zone. Use Additional hostname and path coverage --- ## Related products [Cloudflare for SaaS](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-for-platforms/cloudflare-for-saas/) Cloudflare for SaaS allows you to extend the security and performance benefits of Cloudflare’s network to your customers via their own custom or vanity domains. [Rules](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/rules/) Cloudflare Rules allows you to make adjustments to requests and responses, configure Cloudflare settings, and trigger specific actions for matching requests. [SSL/TLS](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/ssl/) Cloudflare SSL/TLS encrypts your web traffic to prevent data theft and other tampering. --- ## Availability The following customers have access to Cloudflare Waiting Room: * Those qualified under [Project Fair Shot ↗](https://www.cloudflare.com/fair-shot/) * Customers on a Business or Enterprise plan Access to certain features depends on a customer's [plan type](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/plans/). Note Enterprise customers can preview this product as a [non-contract service](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/billing/understand/preview-services/), which provides full access, free of metered usage fees, limits, and certain other restrictions. --- ## Prerequisites * [Cloudflare’s CDN](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/cache/) is required to use the Waiting Room feature. * Configure a [proxied DNS record](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/dns/manage-dns-records/how-to/create-dns-records/) or a [proxied load balancer](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/understand-basics/proxy-modes/) for the waiting room’s hostname. A DNS record is not auto-configured after a waiting room is created. * Visitors must enable cookies. Refer to [Waiting Room cookies](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/reference/waiting-room-cookie/) for information on how cookies are used in Cloudflare Waiting Room. --- ## More resources ### [Pricing](https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/) Explore pricing options for Waiting Room. Was this helpful? YesNo ## On this page [![](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/_astro/logo.te5VL_aD.svg)Docs](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/#page","headline":"Cloudflare Waiting Room · Cloudflare Waiting Room docs","description":"Queue visitors in a virtual waiting room during traffic surges.","url":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/","inLanguage":"en","image":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/og-docs.png","dateModified":"2026-08-24","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Cloudflare","url":"https://www.cloudflare.com/"},"isPartOf":{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/#website","name":"Cloudflare Docs","url":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/"}} ```