Documentation Grafana Cloud Cost management and billing Create usage alerts Create usage and cost alerts

Create usage and cost alerts

Create usage and cost alerts to maintain control over your observability spending by receiving notifications when usage or costs approach predefined thresholds. This proactive approach prevents unexpected billing surprises and helps optimize your Grafana Cloud investment.

Before you begin

To create alerts, you must have the permissions granted by the Usage alerts admin role.

Create a usage alert

Usage alerts monitor data ingestion rates and notify you when consumption exceeds expected levels.

To create a usage alert, complete the following steps:

1. Sign in to your Grafana Cloud instance.
2. Navigate to Cost Management and Billing.
3. Click Usage Alerts tab in the top navigation menu.
4. Click + Create usage alerts if no alert exists yet, or click + Create new alert from the list view.
5. In the Product drop-down, select the product you want to monitor.
6. Set the monthly threshold:
   • For Global Spend enter your planned monthly budget in United States dollars (USD)
   • For Metrics, Logs, or Traces, enter your planned monthly usage threshold (for example, 4000 for metrics billable series or 1 GiB for logs)
7. In the Select alert levels section, select one or more suggested thresholds (for example, 50%, 70%, or 85% of your budget). You can also enter a custom percentage
8. From the Contact point drop-down, select where alert notifications should be sent. If you haven’t set up a contact point, click View or create contact points to configure one
9. Click Create alerts to save your new usage alert

The alert becomes active immediately and begins monitoring your specified usage metrics.

Properly configured alerts help you maintain budget control and prevent unexpected costs in your Grafana Cloud environment.