Synthetic monitoring and high time series count (feedback)

Grafana Cloud
1

I decided to try synthetic monitoring in my Grafana Cloud account. To my surprise, it generated almost 900-time series. Given that GC charges $8 per 1000 series, this seems quite expensive per check and a bit misleading at the same time.

I assume that I can reduce the number of series by reducing the number of probs, but that seems to miss the entire point of synthetic monitoring.

2

Hello,

How many checks did you plan to have in place? Grafana Cloud Free offers up to 10k metrics and Grafana Cloud Pro has 15k metrics included.

3

I’m aware of the current pricing. Point is the hidden cost that is not being advertised anywhere in the service. $8 per check is quite a lot.

4

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your question. I just wanted to clarify that when you create a check that generates, say, 900 active series, this is the total amount of series this check will “cost” you all month long. You are not charged for 900 series every time the check runs throughout the month. You can read more about that here: Synthetic Monitoring billing | Grafana Labs

As Aaron mentioned, we include 15,000 active series in the $49/mo Pro plan. Using the example of the check you created that generated 900 active series, what this means is that you could set up 16 different checks like that one to run all month long, continuously at frequent intervals that you set up in the check such as every 60s, and you would never spend more than that the $49/mo (900 active series x 16 checks = 14,400 active series).

Now, if you created say 20 of these checks, you would have some additional costs (900 x 20 = 18,000 // 18,000 - 15,000 (included) = 3,000 (additional series)). For that 3000 additional series above the 15,000 included, at that rate of $8/1000 you would pay an additional $24 dollars that month for for your 20 continuously running checks.

I hope this was helpful.

5

I just want to make it clear - there is no question here. This is pure feedback to the way Grafana Cloud markets this feature. There is a hidden cost that is not being advertised anywhere. At least I couldn’t find any location where this was stated.

Additionally, 8$ per static check for any check that makes you go over the 15k time series is, in my opinion, a rip-off. But that’s a different story.

6

Thanks for replying, Michael. We’ve taken your feedback about the overall cost per check into view. As you noted in your original message the cost per check is dependent on the frequency and number of location probes that you set for the check but I understand the resulting cost still feels burdensome to your needs.

For reference the $8 pricing is listed on our Grafana Cloud Pricing page with a handy calculator that estimates how much you can expect to pay at that $8/1000 active series rate depending on the # of active series you’re ingesting/creating. You can also find that calculator and rate inside your Grafana Cloud Customer Portal under the “Manage Subscription” page.

I’m sorry that this wasn’t more easy to find. We’ve made note of that as well and will consider on how to improve that visibility.

Ximena
Customer Success Engineer, Grafana Cloud