Grafana Cloud Pricing Explained: What You Pay for Metrics, Logs and Users
Prices checked on vendor pages on Nov 8, 2026.
Prices below come from Grafana's public pricing page and billing docs, read on November 8, 2026. Grafana says its rates fall automatically with volume, so the figures here are the "starts at" rates and your effective price at scale can be lower. Use Grafana's calculator for your own numbers.
Grafana Cloud is a bundle of hosted products: metrics, logs, traces, profiles, Kubernetes monitoring, application and frontend observability, incident response, testing and AI. You pay a small platform fee, then usage for each product you turn on. The free tier is generous. The bill grows when metric series or log volume grow.
The Short Version
- Free is $0 with limits. Pro starts at $19 per month plus usage. Enterprise starts at a $25,000 per year commit.
- Metrics start at $6.50 per 1k active series, with 10k series included on Pro.
- Logs start at $0.05 per GB processed and $0.40 per GB written, with 50 GB included.
- Visualization starts at $8 per active user beyond 3 included.
- Retention on Pro is 13 months for metrics and 30 days for logs, traces and profiles.
Plans
How Metrics Are Billed
Metrics bill on active series, which Grafana's docs define as a time series that received new data points in the previous 20 minutes. The measure is the 95th percentile over the billing period, so a short spike does not set your bill.
Data points per minute (DPM) is the second measure. Pro includes 1 DPM per active series. If your average DPM per series is higher, the docs say you are billed on total DPM instead. The billable figure is whichever is higher.
That matters for scrape intervals. A 60-second interval gives 1 data point per series per minute, which Grafana notes is the default for its integrations. The Prometheus default of 15 seconds gives 4. At 15 seconds, 50,000 active series would be rated as 200,000 billable series on Pro, which is $1,235 at the starting rate after the 10k included, against $260 for 50,000 series at 60 seconds. This follows from Grafana's formula, and your own contract may differ.
Queries are metered in metrics query units, but the docs give each stack an allowance of 20 billion MQU per 1,000 billable series, and only usage above it is billed.
How Logs Are Billed
Grafana's logs docs list four dimensions:
Minimum retention is 14 days on free accounts and 30 days on paid accounts. The docs give this formula for billable queries: queried GB minus written GB times the fair use ratio. Grafana says most customers never reach it.
The split between processed and written is the main lever. Per the docs, dropping data with Adaptive Telemetry reduces written volume but not processed volume, so you save on the $0.40 line while the $0.05 line stays.
A Worked Monthly Example
Take a team with 50,000 active metric series scraped every 60 seconds, 500 GB of logs a month with 30-day retention, and 8 active Grafana users. List "starts at" rates, no volume discount, no traces and no queries above the allowance.
Grafana's volume discounts would lower the metrics and logs lines at larger sizes. The example leaves out Kubernetes Monitoring, Application Observability, IRM and AI products. For scale, the pricing page lists Kubernetes Monitoring from $0.01 per host hour ($7.20 per host) and $0.0007 per container hour, Application Observability from $0.025 per host hour ($18 per host), and IRM from $20 per active user.
Other Meters on the Page
- Traces and profiles: the same starting rates as logs ($0.05 processed, $0.40 written, $0.10 retained), with 50 GB free.
- Grafana Assistant: from $20 per active AI user including 40M tokens, then $2 per 1M tokens.
- Frontend Observability: from $0.75 per 1k sessions, 50k sessions free.
- Synthetics: from $5 per 10k API test executions and $50 per 10k browser test executions.
- Performance testing (k6): from $0.15 per virtual user hour, 500 hours free.
- Visualization with Enterprise plugins: from $55 per user.
How to See What You Are Paying
In your stack, open Cost Management and Billing, then Usage, and pick a product under Product Breakdown. Logs has its own view of processed, written and retained volume, and the Grafana Cloud Billing and Usage dashboard shows query usage. Grafana's usage data source also exposes metrics such as grafanacloud_instance_active_series.
Where Sazabi Compares
Sazabi is AI-native observability and security. We compare logs only, since Grafana covers many more products, and we wrote this page, so we are a party to the comparison.
Sazabi charges $0.10 per GB ingested and $0.10 per GB scanned by searches, after 200 GB and 50 GB included per 30-day cycle. Startup is $200 per 30 days with 30-day retention, and Hobby is $50 per 30 days with 7-day retention. Issues are $4 each after 20 included. See our pricing page.
Assumptions: Grafana is the $19 platform fee, plus $0.05 per GB processed and $0.40 per GB written after 50 GB, at starting rates with no volume discount and no query overage. Sazabi assumes searches scan 40% of ingested volume, which is our own assumption, and no extra issues. Grafana is cheaper at 100 GB, and Hobby at $50 is close for a small team. Grafana's volume discounts could narrow the gap at 1 TB and 10 TB, and its Adaptive Telemetry can cut written volume. Sazabi does not meter by active series or by user, though plans cap members.
If you run Grafana Alloy, you can add Sazabi as another exporter beside Loki. It works for otelcol.* receivers. Loki sources (loki.source.*) are not compatible with the OTLP exporter, so check your pipeline first.
When Grafana Is Worth the Price
Grafana fits teams that already use Prometheus and Grafana dashboards, want one hosted stack for metrics, logs and traces, or need the open source path and an upgrade route. The free tier covers small projects, and a $19 platform fee is low for a hosted stack.
If you mostly want logs searched and triaged by the team without managing series counts and scrape intervals, a per-GB model may be simpler. See the Sazabi and Grafana comparison and the Grafana alternatives page. For other vendors, see the Datadog pricing guide and Sentry pricing guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Grafana Cloud cost?
Grafana Cloud has a free plan and a Pro plan from $19 per month plus usage. Pro starts at $6.50 per 1k metric series and, for logs, $0.05 per GB processed plus $0.40 per GB written. Enterprise starts at a $25,000 yearly commit.
Is Grafana Cloud free?
There is an always-free plan with 10k active metric series, 50 GB of logs ingested a month, 3 active users and 14 days of retention, with community support. Pro adds 13 months of metrics retention and 30 days for logs.
How is Grafana Cloud logs pricing calculated?
Four dimensions: GB processed, GB written, GB retained beyond 30 days, and GB queried above a fair use ratio of 100 times written volume. Dropping data before it is written reduces the written line but not the processed line.
What counts as an active series in Grafana Cloud?
Grafana docs define it as a time series that received new data points within the previous 20 minutes. Billing uses the 95th percentile of active series over the period.
Can I send logs to Grafana Cloud and Sazabi at the same time?
Yes, if your logs flow through Grafana Alloy otelcol components, according to Sazabi docs. Add an otelcol.exporter.otlphttp block for Sazabi. Loki sources cannot route through it.
Sources
- Free, Pro and Enterprise plans, platform fee, starting rates for metrics, logs, traces, Kubernetes Monitoring, active users, IRM and Assistant, free tier limits, retention by plan, $25,000 Enterprise minimum (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Four logs billing dimensions (processed, written, retained, queried), 50 GB written allotment, fair use query ratio of 100, retention minimums and increments, where to view usage (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Active series and DPM billing at the 95th percentile, included 1 DPM per series on Pro, fair use query allowance, active series definition (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Sazabi plans, included allowances, per-unit rates, retention, member limits (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Forwarding logs and traces from Grafana Alloy otelcol components to Sazabi, Loki sources not compatible (accessed Nov 8, 2026)