Metrics Experience Changes for Metric Name Pricing
Overview
With the Metric Name Pricing billing model for custom metrics, Datadog updated the metrics experience to reflect how usage is measured. This guide describes what has changed in the Datadog UI and APIs for organizations on Metric Name Pricing.
Note: This page applies only if your organization is on Metric Name Pricing. If your contract uses Timeseries (cardinality) pricing, your metrics experience is unchanged.
Summary of changes
When configuring tags on custom metrics, the Manage Tags modal estimates the impact of tag changes on point volume instead of cardinality volume.
For more information on configuring tags, see Metrics without Limits™.
Metric side panel
The metric details side panel displays ingested and indexed point volume instead of timeseries volume.
To open the metric side panel, click any metric name on the Metrics Summary page.
Volume Management page
The Volume Overview graphs on the Metrics Volume Management page display the following Metric Name Pricing billing dimensions:
- Estimated unique metric names
- Billable indexed point volume
- Ingested-to-indexed points ratio
Plan & Usage page
The Plan & Usage page reflects the Metric Name Pricing billing breakdown for organizations on the new model.
Estimated usage metrics
Datadog provides estimated usage metrics so you can monitor your Metric Name Pricing usage in real time. Use these metrics to set up monitors and dashboards for cost visibility.
Cardinality-based estimated usage metrics (datadog.estimated_usage.metrics.custom and related metrics) are no longer available for organizations on Metric Name Pricing. Any monitors, dashboards, or other assets that use the cardinality-based metrics have stopped receiving data. Use the points-volume metrics listed below instead.
Billable usage metrics
Use these metrics to estimate your month-to-date billable usage:
| Metric | What it represents |
|---|
datadog.estimated_usage.billable.metrics | Count of metric names with more than 100 indexed points, month-to-date. |
datadog.estimated_usage.billable.points | Sum of indexed points above the included 10M points per metric name, month-to-date. |
datadog.estimated_usage.metrics.points.ratio | Comparison of total ingested points to total indexed points. |
Points-volume usage metrics
For more granular analysis, use the following real-time and hourly metrics:
| Metric | What it represents |
|---|
datadog.estimated_usage.metrics.points.indexed | Estimated indexed custom metric points over a rolling 60-minute window. |
datadog.estimated_usage.metrics.points.indexed.by_tag | Estimated indexed custom metric points over a rolling 60-minute window, broken down by usage attribution tags. |
datadog.estimated_usage.metrics.points.indexed.hourly | Estimated total indexed custom metric points submitted each hour, for cumulative month-to-date calculations. |
datadog.estimated_usage.metrics.points.ingested | Estimated ingested custom metric points over a rolling 60-minute window. |
datadog.estimated_usage.metrics.points.ingested.hourly | Estimated total ingested custom metric points submitted each hour, for cumulative month-to-date calculations. |
For more information, see Estimated Usage Metrics.
Managing your metric usage
To optimize your usage under Metric Name Pricing, use the following tools:
- Metric names: Use Agent-side filtering to prevent unused or unwanted custom metrics from being sent to Datadog, reducing the count of billable metric names.
- Indexed and ingested points: Use Metrics without Limits™ to configure tag allowlists or blocklists per metric, or Tag Indexing Rules to apply org-wide tag configurations across metric groups, reducing indexed point volume and your per-metric overage.
Troubleshooting
For technical questions, contact Datadog support.
For billing questions, contact your Customer Success Manager.
Further reading
Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:
