`ZoneSubscription` returns 404 for free-plan zones despite `"free"` being a valid `RatePlan.Id`

[yuliiaandreieva-ol]

Describe what happened

When upgrading from pulumi-cloudflare v5 to v6, the Plan field was removed from cloudflare.Zone. The recommended approach is to use a separate cloudflare.ZoneSubscription resource. However, creating or importing a ZoneSubscription for zones on the free plan fails with a 404 error from the Cloudflare API.

This happens despite the Pulumi registry docs listing "free" as a valid RatePlan.Id value and showing it in the example usage.

error: [ERROR] GET "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/<zone_id>/subscription":
404 Not Found
{
  "success": false,
  "errors": [{
    "code": 1207,
    "message": "Add a core subscription first and try again. The zone does not have an active core subscription."
  }]
}

Meanwhile, paid zones (e.g., Pro plan) import successfully using the same pattern. This means free-plan zones cannot have their subscription managed at all — the only workaround is to conditionally skip creating ZoneSubscription for free zones.

Sample program

package main

import (
	"github.com/pulumi/pulumi-cloudflare/sdk/v6/go/cloudflare"
	"github.com/pulumi/pulumi/sdk/v3/go/pulumi"
)

func main() {
	pulumi.Run(func(ctx *pulumi.Context) error {
		zone, err := cloudflare.NewZone(ctx, "my-zone", &cloudflare.ZoneArgs{
			AccountId: pulumi.String("your-account-id"),
			Zone:      pulumi.String("example.com"),
		})
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}

		_, err = cloudflare.NewZoneSubscription(ctx, "my-zone-subscription", &cloudflare.ZoneSubscriptionArgs{
			ZoneId: zone.ID(),
			RatePlan: &cloudflare.ZoneSubscriptionRatePlanArgs{
				Id: pulumi.String("free"),
			},
		}, pulumi.Import(zone.ID()))
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}

		return nil
	})
}

Log output

Previewing update:

error: [ERROR] GET "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/<zone_id>/subscription":
404 Not Found {"success":false,"errors":[{"code":1207,"message":"Add a core subscription first and try again. The zone does not have an active core subscription."}]}
: failed to make http request
error: Preview failed: failed to make http request

Affected Resource(s)

• cloudflare.ZoneSubscription (cloudflare:index/zoneSubscription:ZoneSubscription)

Output of pulumi about

CLI: 3.226.0
Go: go1.25.6
Host: darwin, arm64

Plugins:
  cloudflare  6.14.0

Additional context

The discrepancy:

Source	Says about "free"
Pulumi docs (v6.14.0)	Valid RatePlan.Id, shown in example
Terraform docs (v5.18.0)	Valid rate_plan.id, shown in example
Cloudflare API	GET /zones/{zone_id}/subscription returns 404 for free zones

Direct API verification confirms free zones do not have a subscription object:

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $CF_TOKEN" \
  "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/<free_zone_id>/subscription"
# Returns 404 with code 1207

This likely originates from the upstream Terraform provider (cloudflare/terraform-provider-cloudflare) which auto-generates the schema from the Cloudflare OpenAPI spec — the spec lists "free" as a valid enum value, but the API doesn't actually support it.

Related upstream issues:

• cloudflare_zone_subscription schema & state discrepancy on "free" plans cloudflare/terraform-provider-cloudflare#5971
• cloudflare_zone_subscription: uses wrong ID field in Read/Update cloudflare/terraform-provider-cloudflare#5670

Contributing

No response

[yuliiaandreieva-ol]

@guineveresaenger can you tell me please should I wait smth for this issue or what is better to do? we can't migrate because of this bug, any recommendations ?

[guineveresaenger]

hi @yuliiaandreieva-ol, I've verified that this is an issue on the most recent version of this provider. Thank you for opening cloudflare/terraform-provider-cloudflare#7083 to track this upstream.

It sounds like the correct course of action is to not create a Subscription for Free Plan zones. We apologize for the documentation discrepancy and may add a warning if cloudflare/terraform-provider-cloudflare#7083 moves slowly.