Grafana Cloud vs Instatus Pricing (2026)

How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.

Grafana Cloud Instatus
Starts at $19/mo Custom
Number of plans 3 4
Free plan
Free trial
Pricing model usage-based hybrid

Free

$0/mo
  • All Grafana Cloud services, with limited usage
  • Community support
  • 14 days retention for metrics, logs, traces, profiles, & k6 performance tests

Pro

$19/mo
  • Pay as you go above the Free tier
  • 8X5 email support
  • 13 months retention for metrics; 30 days retention for logs, traces, profiles, & k6 performance tests

Enterprise

Custom
  • Premium support
  • Custom retention
  • Deployment flexibility (Public Cloud, Federal Cloud, or Bring Your Own Cloud)

Starter

$0/mo
  • 15 Monitors
  • 2 min checks
  • Email alerts
  • 5 team members
  • 2 on-call members
  • Public status page
  • 200 subscribers

Pro

Custom
  • 50 Monitors
  • 30 sec checks
  • Email & SMS alerts
  • 50 team members
  • 20 on-call members
  • Public status page
  • 1+ custom domain
  • 5,000 subscribers

Business

Custom
  • 1,000 Monitors
  • 30 sec checks
  • SMS & Calls alerts
  • team members
  • 50 on-call members
  • SAML SSO
  • All status pages
  • 3+ custom domain
  • 25,000 subscribers

Enterprise

Custom
  • SCIM Directory Sync
  • Priority customer support
  • 99.99% Uptime SLA
  • Multiple SSO connections
  • Custom contracts
  • Custom policies

Grafana Cloud vs Instatus FAQ

Which one is cheaper?
One or both use custom pricing, so it depends on your specific needs.
Can I use either one for free?
Both offer free plans, so you can try each without paying. Start with whichever fits your workflow better and upgrade when you hit the limits.
How do they charge?
Different approach here. Grafana Cloud uses usage-based pricing, while Instatus goes with hybrid. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
Which one is a better deal?
Depends on what you need. Grafana Cloud: Grafana Cloud undercuts Datadog and New Relic on entry price by giving away a genuinely usable free tier, positioning itself as the open-source-friendly, cost-conscious alternative for teams that already know Grafana's dashboards. It's not chasing the premium observability buyer out of the gate — it's winning teams at the free-to-Pro stage before they're locked into a pricier incumbent. Instatus: With a genuinely free tier and gated custom pricing above it, Instatus is angling to undercut incumbents like Statuspage (Atlassian) on entry cost while still competing for mid-market and enterprise budgets once teams need more polish. It's the land-with-free, expand-with-custom-quotes play rather than a pure budget or pure premium position.

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