Gene Quinn (in 2015) estimated that patent search with the attorney's opinion on patentability for software costs around $2500 to $3000 [1]. Obviously the cost is going to be higher now. Compare that alone against the $1000 ("at least") per winner that Cloudflare's offering.

But Cloudflare isn't asking for an opinion on a particular invention. A patent searcher could come back and say there is no prior art that reads on the invention in that case and still be paid. Instead, Cloudflare's asking for invalidating prior art, which I think sets the bar even higher and should increase the payout to account for the fact that much of the time there won't be invalidating prior art and thus won't be a payout.

If the platform is not taking on as much risk, the payouts should be higher.

[1] https://ipwatchdog.com/2015/04/04/the-cost-of-obtaining-a-pa...