Journey overview on Grafana Labs

Journey overview

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 10:05:27 -0400

Keep cardinality, cost, and query performance under control

Welcome to the Grafana Cloud journey that teaches you how to design a labeling strategy for your metrics and logs.

What you’ll learn

When you complete this journey, you’ll be able to:

Explain how label combinations multiply into unique active series and log streams
Inspect your own cardinality with the Cardinality tab in the Cost Management and Billing app
Choose metric labels deliberately and avoid unbounded values
Reduce existing metrics cardinality with relabeling and Adaptive Metrics
Decide when log data belongs in a label, in structured metadata, or in the log line
Move high-cardinality context to the right signal instead of deleting it
Link a metric spike to the exact trace with exemplars, without adding labels

Journey duration

~25-35 minutes

Why labels affect your bill

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 10:05:27 -0400

Why labels affect your bill

A label is a name-value tag attached to a metric or log, such as env=prod. Every label you attach to a metric or log multiplies the number of unique series or streams you generate. Most billing surprises in Grafana Cloud trace back to labeling decisions made at instrumentation time, often by accepting defaults without realizing their cost impact.

This journey teaches you the math behind that multiplication, how to inspect it in your own stack, and how to choose labels deliberately for metrics and logs.

Prerequisites

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 10:05:27 -0400

Before you begin

Before you design your labeling strategy, ensure that you have:

A Grafana Cloud account. To create an account, refer to Grafana Cloud. A stack that’s already receiving metrics and logs shows richer data in the hands-on interactive guides.
The permissions granted by the Billing and usage reader role, including cardinality read access. Refer to Manage access to the Cost Management and Billing app.
Basic familiarity with metrics and logs concepts.