Cloudinary, ImageKit, Uploadcare
Side by side on what we have verified on each vendor’s own pages. Where a fact was not checked, the table says so rather than leaving a blank that reads as “no”.
Everything else
Verdict
Not checked
Not checked
Not checked
Price published
Yes
Yes
Yes
Billed on
Credits: one credit is 1,000 transformations, or 1 GB of storage, or 1 GB of video bandwidth
Bandwidth, storage and user seats, with published per-unit rates above the limits
Operations, traffic and storage, with published overage rates
Deployment
Cloud
Cloud
Cloud
Free plan
Yes
Yes
Yes
Free trial
Yes
Yes
No
Transparency index
60%
70%
70%
Most common complaint
Prices are published for the API but not for the DAM, so the product being compared with a DAM still has no price
Several units are metered at once: bandwidth, storage, video units and seats
The free tier is stated as personal use only
“Not checked” means exactly that: we have not verified it, not that the platform lacks it. Every other value was read off the vendor’s own pages on the date shown on each platform page.
What to ask on the demo
One question per platform, drawn from what actually goes wrong with it — not a generic checklist. Vendors run the demo; this hands the agenda back to you.
Cloudinary
Prices are published for the API but not for the DAM, so the product being compared with a DAM still has no price — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
ImageKit
Several units are metered at once: bandwidth, storage, video units and seats — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Uploadcare
The free tier is stated as personal use only — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
No email required — the page prints as it stands.