What your observability stack actually costs.
Observability vendors price on different axes on purpose, so the same workload costs wildly different amounts and the bill surprises you. We read each vendor's own pricing page, line it up on one set of axes, and keep it current. Put in your usage and see the real spread.
How they bill
The axes do not line up, which is the trap. Per-host tools punish big fleets, per-GB tools punish chatty logs, per-seat tools punish big teams.
| Datadog | New Relic | Grafana Cloud | SigNoz | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Billing model | Per host | Per GB ingested | Platform + usage | Per GB usage |
| Platform / minimum | None | None | $19/mo | $49/mo min |
| Per host | $15/host | Not billed by host | Not billed by host | Not billed by host |
| Per GB data | $0.1/GB | $0.4/GB (after 100 GB free) | $0.55/GB | $0.3/GB |
| Per seat | Included | $99/user | $8/user | Included |
| Self-host free | No | No | Yes, open source | Yes, open source |
A typical mid-size bill
25 hosts, 300 GB/mo, 10 users. Same workload, very different totals. The calculator lets you change every number.
| Tool | Est. monthly | How it adds up |
|---|---|---|
| SigNozcheapest here | $90/mo | Data (300 GB x $0.3): $90 |
| Grafana Cloud | $264/mo | Platform fee: $19 · Data (300 GB x $0.55): $165 · Seats (10 x $8): $80 |
| Datadog | $405/mo | Hosts (25 x $15): $375 · Data (300 GB x $0.1): $30 |
| New Relic | $971/mo | Data (200 GB after 100 GB free x $0.4): $80 · Seats (9 after 1 free x $99): $891 |
Per-tool breakdowns
The broadest platform, priced per host with every module billed on its own line.
One usage pool priced by data ingested, plus a per-seat charge for full users.
Pay-as-you-go on top of a small platform fee, with a per-active-user charge to view dashboards.
Open-source first: pure per-GB cloud with no host or seat charges, or self-host for free.