Activate the Cloudflare WordPress plugin

After you change your nameservers, activate the Cloudflare WordPress plugin.

Prerequisites

Before activating the Cloudflare WordPress plugin, review the following prerequisites.

Plan type

For users on the free plan, purchase APO before installing the WordPress plugin.

For users on a Pro plan or higher, continue to Install and activate the Cloudflare WordPress plugin.

Plugin compatibility

Cloudflare recommends turning off plugins such as WP Rocket Cache Plugin, W3 Total Cache, or similar plugins when first setting up APO. After confirming APO is working, we recommend testing whether turning on the plugins listed above improves results or causes unexpected behavior. In many cases, using APO along with other caching plugins can cause unexpected results.

We also recommend clearing the server cache for the WP Rocket Cache plugin, W3 Total Cache, or similar plugins after APO activation.

For more details, refer to Plugin compatibility.

Limitations

The Cloudflare APO WordPress plugin does not support multisite WordPress installation.

Purchase APO

1. Log into the Cloudflare dashboard ↗.
2. Select your account and zone.
3. Go to Speed > Optimization > Content Optimization.
4. For Automatic Platform Optimization for WordPress, select Purchase.
5. Enter your payment information and select Confirm payment.

Install and activate the Cloudflare WordPress plugin

The easiest way to begin using APO is directly from Cloudflare’s WordPress plugin. Before you can use APO, you must first install and activate the plugin and then activate APO.

1. Navigate and log in to your WordPress account.
2. Select Plugins > Add new.
3. In the search field, enter Cloudflare.
4. Locate the Cloudflare plugin and select Install now.
5. After the plugin finishes installing, select Activate. The Cloudflare plugin now displays in your Plugins list.

Activate APO

To create the connection between WordPress and Cloudflare, you will create an API token from your Cloudflare dashboard and add it to WordPress. To set up APO on a subdomain, refer to Subdomains and subdirectories.

Create the API token from Cloudflare

1. Open your Cloudflare dashboard.
2. Select My Profile from the top of the page.
3. Select API Tokens > Create Token.
4. Locate WordPress from the list and select Use template.
5. Select Continue to summary at the bottom of the page.
6. On the WordPress API token summary page, select Create Token. Your API token displays.
7. Select the Copy button to copy your token. You will need to paste the token in the next section.

Note

Copy and paste your API token into a document saved on your computer to easily reference it again.

Add your API token to WordPress

1. Open your WordPress account and navigate to Plugins.
2. Locate the Cloudflare plugin and select Settings.
3. Select the option to sign in with an existing account.
4. Enter your email address and paste the token you copied in Step 7 of Create the API token from Cloudflare.
5. Select Save API Credentials.
6. For Apply Recommended Cloudflare Settings for WordPress, select Apply.
7. For Automatic Platform Optimization, switch the toggle to On to enable APO.

To verify APO is working, see Verify APO works.