Understand Grafana Assistant pricing and usage
Grafana Assistant is billed based on usage. This article explains how pricing works, defines billing terms, and shows you where to find current rates and included usage for Assistant and Assistant Investigations.
Pricing details and plan tiers change over time. Refer to the Grafana pricing page for the latest rates and what each plan includes. Different plan types offer different pricing structures and included usage, including free tiers for trial and limited use.
Before you begin
- Confirm you can open Assistant and Assistant Investigations in your stack.
- Connect with your Grafana Labs account contact for billing and usage questions.
Understand what is billed
Assistant and Assistant Investigations are separate products with their own pricing pages, but both are billed in the same unit — tokens — drawing from the same per-user allowance and system-initiated token pool.
Assistant billing depends on your plan and usage. This billing is independent from other Grafana Cloud features like visualization or IRM. If you use Assistant from a self-managed Grafana deployment, usage is still tracked against the paired Grafana Cloud stack.
The LLM plugin is open source and has no charge.
Know the pricing model
The pricing model uses different billing units for each product. Grafana Cloud offers different plan types for Assistant, including self-serve and contracted options. Each plan type has different pricing structures and included usage allowances. Refer to the Grafana pricing page for current plan details and what’s included in each tier.
Active users
An active user is anyone who sends a message to Assistant, presses an action button like Explain this panel, connects through the Grafana Cloud MCP server, or uses another Assistant feature within the billing period. Running an Assistant Automation manually, or having one run automatically, also counts as active use. The billing period is one month.
For Free plan users, monthly active user limits are enforced as hard limits. When usage reaches the plan limit, additional users can’t use Assistant until the next monthly reset or until the stack moves to a plan with higher limits.
Token-based usage
Grafana Assistant uses token-based usage. A token is the basic unit of content processed by an AI model. Token usage is counted across Assistant surfaces, including integrations, Slack, Microsoft Teams, service accounts, and the gcx CLI.
Usage is attributed based on how the AI interaction starts. User-initiated usage counts toward the user’s token usage. This includes chat messages, action buttons, Grafana Cloud MCP activity, Slack and Microsoft Teams activity, gcx CLI activity, and manually triggered investigations.
System-initiated usage counts toward the organization’s system-initiated token pool. This includes service account API usage and investigations triggered by automated systems. If a user manually interacts with a system-initiated AI session, that user interaction counts toward the user’s token usage.
A manual Automation run uses the Grafana permissions of the user who starts the run and counts toward that user’s token usage. Scheduled and event-triggered runs use the creator’s Grafana permissions and count toward the creator’s token usage. Frequent schedules can add up quickly.
For Pro plan users, token limits aren’t set by default. Administrators can configure monthly token limits to manage Assistant usage for their stack. If a configured limit is reached, Assistant prevents further use for that limit until the next monthly reset or until an administrator changes it.
For Free plan users, monthly token limits are enforced as hard limits. When usage reaches a limit, Assistant prevents further use for that limit until the next monthly reset.
Investigation usage
Assistant Investigations uses token-based usage. Manually triggered investigations count toward user-initiated usage. Investigations triggered by automated systems count toward the system-initiated token pool until a user manually interacts with the investigation.
User-initiated investigations require access to Grafana Assistant. System-initiated investigations don’t require per-user Assistant access for the automated trigger, but users need the required Assistant permissions to view or interact with investigation results.
Review Watcher preview usage
Assistant Watchers are free during the preview period. Preview usage may be subject to usage caps. Pricing and metering may change when Watchers become generally available.
Grafana Labs support usage
When Grafana Labs employees work on your stack on behalf of your organization, their Assistant activity doesn’t count toward active users or your stack’s token usage. This applies when Grafana Labs staff provide support or troubleshooting assistance.
Contracted accounts
Contracted accounts may have custom commercial terms. Assistant and Assistant Investigations are billed separately. Refer to the Grafana pricing page or your Grafana Labs contact for current plan details.
Understand conversation limits
Grafana Assistant shows the current state of limits that affect your current conversation or your ability to send messages.
Each conversation includes a context limit indicator that shows how much of the chat fits in the current context window. If a conversation gets close to the model’s context window, Assistant may compact the conversation. If a request exceeds the context window, Assistant may offer to start a new chat with a summary.
When monthly usage approaches a configured limit, Assistant shows a warning indicator in the chat input with current usage details. When a limit is exhausted, Assistant shows a limit message and prevents further use for that limit until it resets or the limit is changed.
Limit messages show actions based on your permissions and the limit type. Users with usage permissions can open Assistant > Usage. Administrators on Free plans may see an option to upgrade for token limits. Users without usage permissions are asked to contact an administrator.
Investigation usage warnings appear only in Investigation mode, because investigation usage applies only to investigation workflows.
View organization usage analytics
The Usage Analytics dashboard helps you track consumption and plan your budget.
Navigate to Assistant > Usage to access the Usage Analytics dashboard. This dashboard shows active users, messages, investigations, and total used tokens for your stack. Access to this page requires grafana-assistant-app.usage:read.
By default, grafana-assistant-app.usage:read is included in the Assistant Admin role, and that role is granted to the Grafana organization Admin basic role.
You can also view your current usage against limits for tokens and investigations directly in the dashboard. This visibility helps you track how close you are to reaching limits associated with your plan.
You can filter the dashboard by time range to understand adoption patterns and usage trends. Use the time range picker to select Month to date, Last 7 days, Last 30 days, or Last 90 days. This helps you plan budgets and communicate with stakeholders about expected costs.
Ask your Grafana Labs contact for usage summaries if you don’t have access to Usage Analytics. Your contact can provide reports and help you understand your usage patterns.
Control organization access and limits
You can manage who has access to Assistant and configure usage limits. Use the limits controls to set monthly user and token limits, or use RBAC to restrict access to specific users and teams.
Set usage limits
Navigate to Assistant > Usage, open the Active Users view, and click Edit limits to configure the maximum unique users per month for your stack.
Set the monthly active user limit to 0 to disable the cap and allow unlimited active users. When you set a positive number, the system tracks monthly active users against this cap. The settings display your current monthly active users count alongside the configured limit.
You can also configure monthly token limits from the Tokens view by clicking Edit limits. Token limits are entered in millions of tokens and can apply to the whole stack, to the default per-user limit, and to the system-initiated token pool.
In Grafana Cloud, you can also set per-user token limits for specific teams. If a user belongs to multiple teams with token limits, the highest per-user team limit applies. The stack limit applies to total token usage across the stack, regardless of per-user, team, or system-initiated token pool limits.
Token limits apply to month-to-date usage, including usage from before the limit was set. If a user’s current monthly usage already exceeds a newly configured limit, Assistant blocks that user immediately. The user can use Assistant again after the next monthly reset, or after you raise or remove the limit.
The limits controls require the grafana-assistant-app.usage:write permission. By default, this permission is also included in the Assistant Admin role. Click Save to apply your changes.
Restrict access with RBAC
Use role-based access control (RBAC) to restrict Assistant access to specific users or teams. You can modify custom roles to include or exclude Assistant permissions. Refer to Manage Assistant access with RBAC for the Assistant roles and permissions.
To remove Assistant access from a basic role such as Viewer or Editor, update the basic role with the RBAC API and remove the Assistant permissions you don’t want that role to grant. Refer to Manage Grafana RBAC roles for API instructions.
Changing basic role definitions to remove Assistant access may have other impacts on user permissions. Contact Grafana Labs support if you need help with RBAC configuration. Your support contact can review your requirements and recommend the best approach for restricting access or managing costs.
Review billing timing
Billing for Grafana Assistant is active. Pricing and metering for Assistant Investigations start on October 1, 2026. Assistant Investigations has its own pricing model and billing unit. Refer to the Grafana pricing page for current rates and included usage.
Before October 1, investigation token usage appears in your usage views but doesn’t count toward allowances and isn’t billed.
Review your usage dashboard regularly to understand patterns and budget accordingly. To restrict access or adjust usage caps, refer to Control organization access and limits.
