Datadog licensing is the set of terms and billing rules under which Datadog, Inc. sells its cloud observability and security platform: infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring (APM), log management, database monitoring, digital experience, security and AI products. Datadog describes itself as a subscription-based, multi-tenant, third-party cloud-hosted software-as-a-service platform, so customers do not install the application on their own servers.[7] The contract is the Master Subscription Agreement (MSA), a click-through agreement between Datadog, Inc. and the customer that takes effect when the customer enters into an Order.[1] The MSA grants a right to access and use the Services for the customer’s own environment during the Order Term, in line with the Documentation.[1] There is no installed licence to count. Instead, each product has a billing unit, such as a host, a container, a custom metric, a gigabyte of ingested logs or a million indexed log events. Datadog measures these units itself and invoices for them.[2] For the general model, see subscription and consumption licensing.
Editions
Datadog’s public price list has more than 100 lines. It gives each product a billing unit and three rates: Billed Annually, Billed Month-to-month and Billed On-demand.[4] The main product families and their entry SKUs on 2026-10-02 were:
| Product family | Editions or tiers (catalog SKU) | Billing unit | Annual / month-to-month / on-demand (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure Monitoring | Pro, Enterprise, DevSecOps Pro, DevSecOps Enterprise | Per infra host per month | 15 / 18 / 18; 23 / 27 / 27; 22 / 27 / 27; 34 / 41 / 41[4] |
| APM | APM, APM Pro, APM Enterprise | Per APM host per month | 31 / 36 / 36; 35 / 42 / 42; 40 / 48 / 48[4] |
| Log Management | Ingestion, Indexed Log Events, Flex Logs Storage | Per GB ingested; per 1M events indexed or stored | 0.10 per GB; 1.70 / 2.04 / 2.55 (15-day retention); 0.05 / 0.06 / 0.075[4] |
| Database Monitoring | Database Monitoring | Per database host per month | 70 / 84 / 84[4] |
| AI products | AI Credits | Per 500-credit bundle, or per credit on demand | 500 / 600 / 650, or 1.30 per credit[4] |
A Free plan covers Infrastructure Monitoring for up to 5 hosts with one day of full-resolution data retention. The Pro and Enterprise plans keep data for 15 months.[5] The DevSecOps SKUs bundle Infrastructure Monitoring with Cloud Security Management. They must cover all hosts and containers, and they cannot be combined with standalone Infrastructure or Cloud Security SKUs.[5] Product-level rules are described in Datadog infrastructure and container billing and Datadog APM and Log Management billing.
Metrics
Datadog’s documentation names the pricing unit for each product. The main ones are listed below and recorded as catalog metrics:
| Datadog term | Catalog row | How Datadog defines or counts it |
|---|---|---|
| Host | Host | A physical or virtual operating system instance, recorded hourly.[2] |
| APM host | APM host | A host whose application generates traces and submits them to Datadog.[2] |
| Container | Container | Recorded every five minutes and charged on fractional hours.[2] |
| Custom metric | Custom metric | A unique combination of metric name, host ID and tags, charged on the monthly average per hour.[2] |
| Log; log event | Ingested log GB; Indexed log event | Gigabytes submitted to the Logs service; millions of events indexed at the rate for the chosen retention.[2] |
| Indexed span; ingested span | Indexed span; Ingested span GB | Spans kept by retention filters; gigabytes of spans ingested into APM.[2] |
| Committer | Committer | An active Git committer with at least three commits in the month.[2] |
| AI Credit | AI Credit | A unit of work performed by a Datadog AI product.[10] |
Other units, such as RUM sessions, Fargate tasks, active serverless functions and database hosts, are described in the product articles.
Counting / floors
Calendar-month usage. Unless the order says otherwise, Datadog calculates fees from product usage during each calendar month.[2] The billing cycle starts on the first of the month (UTC), whatever the sign-up date, and the first month is prorated.[3] Catalog: Fees are calculated on usage in each calendar month unless the order says otherwise; Billing cycle starts on the first of the month (UTC) and the first month is prorated.
The 99th percentile. Hosts and custom metrics are metered hourly. The billable host count is the highest count in the lower 99 percent of the month’s hours, so the busiest 1 percent of hours is ignored. The billable custom metric count is the monthly average.[3] This is the high watermark plan (HWMP). Datadog also offers a hybrid monthly/hourly plan (MHP), with a monthly minimum and an hourly rate for host hours above it. Datadog describes the MHP as suited to autoscaling and short-lived workloads.[2] Catalog: Billable host count is the high-water mark of the lower 99 percent of hours; Hybrid monthly/hourly plan bills host hours above the monthly commitment hourly.
Allotments. Many parent products include usage of a child product. For example, every infrastructure host comes with a container allotment.[6] Datadog subtracts committed and allotted usage, together called included usage, from billable usage. What remains is on-demand usage.[6] The price list notes that existing customers should check their latest billing agreement for their included allotments.[4] See Datadog commitments, allotments and subscription terms.
Floors. The price list has no minimum quantity. Minimums come from what a customer commits to in its Order. Log Management, for example, uses a monthly commitment on indexed log events. Usage above it is charged as on-demand usage with a 50% premium.[11]
Virtualization & partitioning
Datadog has no processor, core or partitioning metric for its main products. Virtual machines count as hosts in the same way as physical servers. A host can be a server, a VM, a Kubernetes node, an Azure App Service Plan instance or a Heroku dyno.[3] If the Agent is installed inside each container instead of once per host, each container is billed as a host.[3] Hosts that stop reporting stop counting within about two hours.[3] Container, Kubernetes and cloud-integration rules are covered in Datadog infrastructure and container billing. See also virtualization and partitioning.
Cloud / BYOL
Datadog is itself a cloud service, so bring-your-own-licence rules do not apply. Two cloud topics still affect the bill. First, VMs that the AWS, Azure, Google Cloud or vSphere integrations discover are billable hosts even without the Agent, although a VM is never billed twice.[3] Second, Datadog can be bought through a cloud marketplace or an approved reseller. In that case MSA sections 5 (Pricing and Fees) and 6 (Order Renewal) do not apply, and the terms agreed with the Intermediary govern instead.[1] Catalog: Indirect purchase (marketplace or reseller).
Programs
- Annual commitment, month-to-month and on-demand. These are the three price-list columns.[4] The MSA treats use of the Services on a pay-as-you-go basis as an Order.[1] Accounts that sign up with a credit card start on a monthly plan and need Customer Success to move to an annual plan.[8]
- Free plan and free trial. Free trials for new customers last 14 days. Free and beta services are excluded from the availability commitment, support and warranties.[1]
- Datadog Partner Network. Using the Services for the benefit of third parties requires acceptance into the Partner Network.[1] A parent organization can create child organizations. Each child inherits the parent’s plan and is added to the parent’s billing account.[9]
- AI Credits. AI products are billed in credits on Annual Commit, Monthly Commit or On-Demand tiers. Unused commit credits do not roll over to the next month.[10]
Contract terms
Fees. Unless an Order says otherwise, prices are those on the Pricing Page, and fees are calculated on usage and invoiced monthly in arrears. Fees are payable in US dollars within 30 days and include standard Support.[1] Catalog: Fees are usage-based, invoiced monthly in arrears in US dollars.
Renewal. Orders renew automatically for the same duration unless either party acts.[1] For Orders of 12 months or longer, Datadog may raise prices at renewal by up to 9% or by the prior year’s CPI increase, whichever is greater. Credits and promotional pricing do not carry into the renewal.[1] To stop renewal, the customer must ask its Customer Success Manager at least 15 days before the term ends.[1]
No exit for convenience. Datadog’s Contracting FAQs say subscriptions cannot be terminated for convenience mid-term.[7] Under the MSA, apart from termination for cause or an availability failure, committed fees for the full term become due on early termination.[1] Catalog: Subscriptions cannot be terminated for convenience mid-term; Committed fees for the full term are due on early termination.
Restrictions. The customer may not resell or make the Services available to third parties, including as part of a managed services offering.[1] Datadog may change the MSA by posting a new version. For Orders with a fixed term of 12 months or longer, changes take effect only at the next renewal, and each Order follows the version in force when it was placed.[1]
Audits and compliance
The MSA has no licence audit clause. Datadog measures usage itself. The customer authorizes Datadog to use Usage Data, meaning information about the customer’s configuration and use of the Services, to manage the account and calculate Fees.[1] In practice, compliance means reconciling the Usage page and invoices with the Order. The main exposure is on-demand usage above commitments and allotments, not unlicensed deployment. For the general discipline, see license compliance and true-up.
Out of scope
- Negotiated Orders, volume and multi-year discounts, and private marketplace offers. They override public prices and were not retrievable.
- Datadog for Government (ddog-gov) sites and the GovCloud support terms.
- Products outside the core observability families, such as Cloud SIEM, Code Security, Synthetic Monitoring and RUM, apart from their billing units. Rates for these are on the price list.
- The open-source licences of the Datadog Agent and integrations, which are not the commercial licence for the Services.