Distributed tracing pricing compared
Tracing · 15 vendors · Pricing snapshot: June 2026
Tracing is rarely a standalone line item -- it ships with APM or is billed by span/event volume. Datadog, Dynatrace and Splunk bundle tracing into their per-host APM (Splunk keeps every trace with NoSample). Honeycomb is trace-native and bills per event (free 20M/month, Pro from $130 per 100M). Sentry bills tracing by accepted spans. Coralogix charges $0.16/GB for traces (cheaper than logs) and Logz.io $0.16 per 1M spans/day. Grafana Cloud (Tempo) and Elastic price traces by GB. For deep, high-cardinality debugging, event-native tools (Honeycomb) shine; for an integrated APM view, the bundled per-host platforms are simpler.
Source: Vendor pricing pages. Data as of June 2026.
Distributed tracing pricing by vendor
| Vendor | Rate | Unit | Billing | Free tier? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Datadog | Bundled in APM | bundled in APM (per host) | Per host | Yes |
| New Relic | Counted in the shared ingest meter | per GB ingested | Per GB / usage | Yes |
| Grafana Cloud | 50 GB free, then ~$0.45/GB | per GB ingested | Per GB / usage | Yes |
| Sentry | Bundled with Performance (spans) | per span / month | Per event / volume | No |
| Dynatrace | Bundled in Full-Stack | bundled in full-stack | Per host | No |
| Honeycomb | Free: 20M; Pro from $130 per 100M events | per million events / month | Per event / volume | Yes |
| Splunk Observability Cloud | Bundled in APM (full-fidelity) | bundled in APM | Per host | No |
| Elastic Observability | Part of Complete tier | per GB ingested + retained | Per GB / usage | No |
| Better Stack | Per-GB telemetry | per GB telemetry / month | Per GB / usage | Yes |
| Coralogix | $0.16/GB (up to $0.75/GB Frequent Search) | per GB ingested | Per GB / usage | No |
| Logz.io | $0.16 per 1M spans/day (10-day retention) | per 1M spans/day | Per GB / usage | Yes |
| Sumo Logic | Tracing priced per span/usage | per span | Per GB / usage | Yes |
| Splunk AppDynamics | Bundled in APM editions | bundled in APM | Per vCPU | No |
| Last9 | Counted in the event meter (14-day retention) | per event ingested | Per event / volume | Yes |
| Chronosphere | Custom / contact sales | usage-based (custom) | Custom / quote | No |
Pricing snapshot: June 2026 - verify current pricing on the vendor's site before relying on these figures.
How distributed tracing is priced
Tracing is bundled into APM (Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk, AppDynamics) or billed by span/event volume (Honeycomb per event, Sentry per span, Logz.io per 1M spans/day) or by GB (Coralogix, Grafana Tempo, Elastic).
Every vendor for distributed tracing
Per-GB telemetry
ChronosphereCustom / contact sales
Coralogix$0.16/GB (up to $0.75/GB Frequent Search)
DatadogBundled in APM
DynatraceBundled in Full-Stack
Elastic ObservabilityPart of Complete tier
Grafana Cloud50 GB free, then ~$0.45/GB
HoneycombFree: 20M; Pro from $130 per 100M events
Last9Counted in the event meter (14-day retention)
Logz.io$0.16 per 1M spans/day (10-day retention)
New RelicCounted in the shared ingest meter
SentryBundled with Performance (spans)
Splunk AppDynamicsBundled in APM editions
Splunk Observability CloudBundled in APM (full-fidelity)
Sumo LogicTracing priced per span/usage
Frequently asked questions
Which observability vendor is cheapest for distributed tracing?
Most vendors in this category price by usage, so the cheapest depends on your volume. Several vendors are usage-based here (Better Stack, Chronosphere, Coralogix, Datadog, Dynatrace, Elastic Observability, Grafana Cloud, Honeycomb, Last9, Logz.io, New Relic, Sentry, Splunk AppDynamics, Splunk Observability Cloud, Sumo Logic), so the real winner depends on your data volume. Pricing snapshot: June 2026.
How is distributed tracing priced?
Tracing is bundled into APM (Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk, AppDynamics) or billed by span/event volume (Honeycomb per event, Sentry per span, Logz.io per 1M spans/day) or by GB (Coralogix, Grafana Tempo, Elastic). Pricing snapshot: June 2026 - verify current pricing on the vendor's site before relying on these figures.
Which vendors offer distributed tracing?
We track 15 vendors for distributed tracing: Datadog, New Relic, Grafana Cloud, Sentry, Dynatrace, Honeycomb, Splunk Observability Cloud, Elastic Observability, Better Stack, Coralogix, Logz.io, Sumo Logic, Splunk AppDynamics, Last9, Chronosphere. Each has its own pricing page with rates, free-tier details and pros/cons.
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Last updated: 2026-06-21