Argo Smart Routing

Argo routes traffic over Cloudflare’s private backbone to avoid internet congestion. It can make a noticeable difference to TTFB on cross-continent traffic, especially in regions with messy peering.

The problem is the pricing model: per-GB billing means your bill scales with your success, and a traffic spike (or an attack that gets through to origin-bound requests) shows up on the invoice. It’s one of the few Cloudflare products where the cost dashboards need regular attention.

Turn it on if origin latency matters and your traffic profile is predictable. If you serve heavy assets, do the math first. More aggressive caching may be better value.