Real-time validation

Last updated Apr 15, 2026 When you use a real-time validation method, Cloudflare verifies your customer's hostname when your customers adds their DNS routing record to their authoritative DNS.

Use when

Real-time validation methods put less burden on your customers because it does not require any additional actions.

However, it may cause some downtime since Cloudflare takes a few seconds to iterate over DNS records. This downtime also can increase - due to the increasing validation backoff schedule - if your customer takes additional time to add their DNS routing record.

To minimize this downtime, you can continually send no-change PATCH requests for the specific custom hostname until it validates (which resets the validation backoff schedule).

To avoid any chance of downtime, use a pre-validation method

How to

Real-time validation occurs automatically when your customer adds their DNS routing record.

The exact record depends on your Cloudflare for SaaS setup.

Normal setup (CNAME target)

Most customers will have a CNAME target, which requires their customers to create a CNAME record similar to:

mystore.com CNAME customers.saasprovider.com

Apex proxying

With apex proxying, SaaS customers need to create an A record for their hostname that points to the IP prefix allocated to the SaaS provider's account.

example.com.  60  IN  A   192.0.2.1

Note

For BYOIP customers, Cloudflare automatically enables the Apex Proxy Access feature on your BYOIP block, which allows Custom Hostnames to be activated via Apex proxying when Authoritative DNS for a customer's hostname targets any IP addresses in your BYOIP block.

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