Documentation Grafana Cloud Monitor applications Application Observability Host-hours pricing

Application Observability host-hours pricing

Grafana Cloud Application Observability bills based on host hours — the total number of hours per month that each host sends application telemetry to Grafana Cloud. This pricing model applies to every customer that uses Application Observability.

• Self-Serve users on Pro and Advanced plans: The pricing model was applied on September 1, 2024.
• Contracted organizations: The pricing model is applied upon contract renewal.

Starting February 13, 2026, Application Observability introduces a new pricing model:

• All new customers: $0.025 per host hour plus separate charges for telemetry (metrics, traces, logs, profiles) at $0.50 per 1,000 active series (metrics) and $0.50 per GB for traces, logs, and profiles. This model does not include telemetry credits.
• Existing customers (before February 13, 2026): $0.04 per host hour with included telemetry credits (1.5 active series and 0.02 GB of traces per host hour). Standard pricing applies for usage exceeding included credits.

For information about pricing and billing for Application Observability, refer to these resources:

• Grafana Cloud Pricing for Application Observability
• Understand your Application Observability Invoice

Definition of host

Hosts can be any of the following:

• Physical Servers: Dedicated machines that run an operating system and applications.
• Virtual Machines (VMs): Instances of operating systems running on virtualized environments, such as those managed by VMware, Hyper-V, or cloud providers like AWS EC2, Azure Virtual Machines, and so on.

What is not a host

A container is an isolated application environment running on a host system. Containers, like those managed by Docker, are not considered hosts because they do not represent a full operating system instance.

How Application Observability identifies hosts

Application Observability identifies hosts automatically from standard OpenTelemetry resource attributes attached to your telemetry. You don’t need to send a dedicated billing metric or enable a billing connector — host detection happens in Grafana Cloud based on attributes that Grafana Alloy, the OpenTelemetry Collector, the OpenTelemetry SDKs, and Beyla emit by default for most deployment models.

For every service, Application Observability evaluates the following resource attributes in priority order and uses the first match as the host’s billing identifier — you only need to satisfy one tier, not all three:

Priorities 1 and 2 are emitted out of the box by most Grafana-recommended setups. Priority 3 (grafana.host.id) is not emitted automatically by any tool — it’s an explicit opt-in attribute that you set deliberately when neither priority 1 nor priority 2 is available in your environment.

If none of these attributes are present on a service’s telemetry, the service is not counted for host-hours billing and Application Observability surfaces a configuration warning. This is the safe failure mode — services without a verifiable host identifier are excluded rather than billed under an unreliable key.

Make sure your hosts are identified

Confirm one of the priority tiers is satisfied for each environment that sends telemetry to Application Observability. Start with priority 1 if you run on Kubernetes, priority 2 if you run on cloud VMs, and only fall back to priority 3 when neither applies.

Priority 1: k8s.node.name (Kubernetes)

Run the k8sattributes processor on your collector or gateway so it stamps k8s.node.name on incoming telemetry. The Grafana Cloud Kubernetes Monitoring Helm chart configures this for you. Beyla emits k8s.node.name natively on Kubernetes — no additional configuration is needed.

If you instrument applications with the OpenTelemetry SDK directly (no collector in the path), inject k8s.node.name via the Downward API:

YAML Copy

spec:
  containers:
    - name: app
      env:
        - name: K8S_NODE_NAME
          valueFrom:
            fieldRef:
              fieldPath: spec.nodeName
        - name: OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES
          value: "k8s.node.name=$(K8S_NODE_NAME)"

Without this, host.name resolves to the pod name and every pod is counted as a separate host.

Priority 2: host.name and cloud.provider (cloud VMs)

On cloud VMs (AWS, GCP, Azure), enable the cloud-specific resource detector on your collector agent. It queries the cloud Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) and sets both host.name and cloud.provider:

Grafana AlloyOpenTelemetry Collector

Alloy Copy

// Substitute ec2 with gcp or azure as appropriate
otelcol.processor.resourcedetection "default" {
  detectors = ["env", "ec2"]

  ec2 {
    resource_attributes {
      host.name      { enabled = true }
      cloud.provider { enabled = true }
      cloud.platform { enabled = true }
    }
  }

  // output: wire to your next component
  output {}
}

YAML Copy

# AWS EC2 — substitute gcp or azure as appropriate
processors:
  resourcedetection:
    detectors: [env, ec2]
    override: true
    ec2:
      resource_attributes:
        host.name: {enabled: true}
        cloud.provider: {enabled: true}
        cloud.platform: {enabled: true}
# Add resourcedetection to service.pipelines processors

Beyla detects these attributes natively on cloud VMs — no additional configuration is needed.

Priority 3: grafana.host.id (last-resort fallback)

grafana.host.id is the last-resort identifier. Only set it when neither priority 1 nor priority 2 is available — typically on bare metal, in Docker on hardware you manage, or in on-premises Kubernetes deployments where k8sattributes and a cloud resource detector are both absent. Unlike priorities 1 and 2, no tool emits grafana.host.id automatically; you must set it deliberately on your collector.

Bare metal

Set grafana.host.id on your collector agent by copying host.name into it. This gives the host a stable, explicit identifier.

Grafana AlloyOpenTelemetry Collector

Alloy Copy

otelcol.processor.resourcedetection "default" {
  detectors = ["env", "system"]

  system {
    hostname_sources = ["dns", "os"]

    resource_attributes {
      host.name { enabled = true }
    }
  }

  output {
    traces  = [otelcol.processor.transform.add_host_id.input]
    metrics = [otelcol.processor.transform.add_host_id.input]
    logs    = [otelcol.processor.transform.add_host_id.input]
  }
}

otelcol.processor.transform "add_host_id" {
  error_mode = "ignore"

  trace_statements {
    context    = "resource"
    statements = [`set(attributes["grafana.host.id"], attributes["host.name"])`]
  }

  metric_statements {
    context    = "resource"
    statements = [`set(attributes["grafana.host.id"], attributes["host.name"])`]
  }

  log_statements {
    context    = "resource"
    statements = [`set(attributes["grafana.host.id"], attributes["host.name"])`]
  }

  // output: wire to your next component
  output {}
}

YAML Copy

processors:
  resourcedetection:
    detectors: [env, system]
    system:
      hostname_sources: [dns, os]
      resource_attributes:
        host.name: {enabled: true}
  resource:
    attributes:
      - key: grafana.host.id
        from_attribute: host.name
        action: insert
# Add resourcedetection and resource to service.pipelines processors

Docker

Set OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES to inject the host identifier. Replace my-server-hostname with your host’s actual identifier:

DockerDocker Compose

Bash Copy

# Static value
docker run -e OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES="grafana.host.id=prod-web-01" ...

# Or use dynamic hostname
docker run -e OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES="grafana.host.id=$(hostname)" ...

YAML Copy

services:
  collector:
    environment:
      # Replace with your host's actual identifier
      OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES: "grafana.host.id=prod-web-01"

Then configure your collector to read it:

Grafana AlloyOpenTelemetry Collector

Alloy Copy

otelcol.processor.resourcedetection "default" {
  detectors = ["env"]

  // output: wire to your next component
  output {}
}

YAML Copy

processors:
  resourcedetection:
    detectors: [env]
# Add resourcedetection to service.pipelines processors

Passthrough gateway

If you run an OpenTelemetry Collector as a passthrough gateway in front of a collector agent that has already set host attributes, set override: false on the gateway’s resourcedetection processor. The default of true causes the gateway to silently overwrite the agent’s host attributes with its own identity, which leads to over-counting:

Grafana AlloyOpenTelemetry Collector

Alloy Copy

otelcol.processor.resourcedetection "default" {
  detectors = ["env"]
  override  = false

  // output: wire to your next component
  output {}
}

YAML Copy

processors:
  resourcedetection:
    detectors: [env]
    override: false
# Add resourcedetection to service.pipelines processors

The traces_host_info metric

The traces_host_info metric is no longer required for host-hours billing. If your collectors still emit it — for example, via the host_info connector in Grafana Alloy or the grafanacloud connector in the OpenTelemetry Collector — your bill is unaffected. You can leave the connector in place or remove it at your convenience.

Host identification notification

If Application Observability can’t identify a host for one or more of your services, the system displays a notification. To resolve it, follow the host identification checklist for your environment.

If you don’t plan to use Application Observability any longer, read how to disable it to avoid charges.

Disable Application Observability in Grafana Cloud

If you don’t want to use Application Observability in Grafana Cloud or incur billing, you can disable it.

1. Select Configuration under Application in the left navigation of your Grafana Cloud instance.
2. Click the System tab.
3. Under Deactivate Application Observability, click Deactivate.