New Relic Buying Programs and terms are the commercial and contractual layer of New Relic licensing. A customer’s rights come from an Order placed under New Relic’s Terms of Service. The Order names a Buying Program, which the Usage Plan in New Relic’s documentation describes.[1][4] Since 2023-02-01 New Relic has called these plans “Buying Programs” rather than subscriptions. An Order that still says “Subscription” refers to the relevant Buying Program.[1]
The Usage Plan can change. Changes that benefit the customer and changes to the list prices take effect immediately. Other changes take effect when the customer assents or at a new or renewal Commitment Term.[1] A Commitment Term is “the non-cancelable, committed Subscription Term or Order Term for the Products”.[4]
Editions
Buying Programs are independent of the edition, but not every combination is offered. New Relic offers pay-as-you-go for Standard and Pro, and offers commitment contracts with volume and savings plans to Pro and Enterprise customers.[11] Edition details are in New Relic user types and editions.
Metrics
Each Buying Program prices the same meters: GB Ingested, Full Platform User, Core User and Advanced Compute Capacity Unit (aCCU). Monthly “Per Unit usage” of each Product is multiplied by its rate and summed.[1] Original product-based contracts used other units, described below.
Counting / floors
| Buying Program | How usage is paid | Renewal | Unused value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay As You Go (PAYG) | Billed monthly in arrears on the first business day of the next month | Rolling one-day term; terminable by written notice | Not applicable |
| Volume Plan | Commitment Fee for Licensed Monthly Quantities; excess on a Monthly Add-on Invoice | Auto-renews at the same rates unless 30 days’ notice of an increase | Not stated |
| Savings Plan | Usage deducted monthly from the prepaid Commitment Fee; excess invoiced monthly | Does not auto-renew; converts to PAYG | Rolls over up to 12 months with a renewal of at least 80% |
| Annual Pool of Funds (APOF) | Usage at Monthly Discounted Rates deducted from the annual Commitment Fee | Closed to new customers | Lapses at the end of each year |
All rows are from the Usage Plan.[1]
Pay As You Go. The customer “commits to paying for the New Relic Products on a consumption basis”, and “A PAYG Order has a rolling one-day term”. Usage above the Free edition is billed monthly in arrears, and the customer may terminate at any time by written notice, paying fees up to termination.[1] The pricing page adds that a pay-as-you-go organization’s first bill covers usage from the moment its credit card details were entered.[11] Catalog proof: PAYG usage is billed monthly in arrears.
Volume Plan. The Commitment Fee is invoiced under the Order’s Billing Terms. Additional Products, or monthly usage above the Licensed Monthly Quantities, are invoiced monthly at the corresponding rates. The Monthly Fee and discounted rates are “blended fees based on volume discounting”, so if a later Order lowers the Commitment Fee, New Relic may raise those rates. The plan renews automatically at the same rates unless New Relic gives at least 30 days’ notice of an increase to then-current List Prices.[1] Catalog proof: Volume Plan renews at the same rates unless 30 days' notice.
Savings Plan. Monthly usage is deducted from the prepaid Commitment Fee, and any excess is invoiced monthly. The plan converts to Pay As You Go on the earlier of full depletion of the Commitment Fee or the end of the Rollover Period. After conversion, usage is billed monthly in arrears at “the higher of List Price or current rates/price defined in your Order”. Product names on invoices then carry a “(PAYG)” suffix.[1] Unconsumed funds remain available for up to 12 months after the Renewal Date, but only if the customer buys, in an immediately succeeding Order, a new annual commitment “equal to or greater than eighty percent (80%) of the average annual Commitment Fee”. Otherwise they lapse at the end of the Commitment Term.[1] The pricing page describes this as an automatic rollover of unused funds for up to 12 months.[11] Catalog proof: Savings Plan balance rolls over only with an 80% renewal; Depleted Savings Plans convert to PAYG at the higher of list or Order rates.
Annual Pool of Funds. This program “is no longer generally available” and applies only to existing customers until the end of their Commitment Term. Unconsumed balances lapse at the end of each contract year.[1] A closed program does not simply carry on. If New Relic says a Buying Program is no longer available and no new Order is signed by the Renewal Date, New Relic may convert the customer to PAYG at List Price.[1]
Invoicing terms. The Usage Plan’s Order terms apply to every program. “All amounts stated in an Order are non-cancelable payment obligations of the Customer regardless of usage”, and payments are non-refundable. Products enabled in an account count towards Monthly Product Usage. Products are “deemed accepted upon its provisioning”.[1] Disputes over invoices billed in arrears must be received in writing within three business days of the invoice date.[1] The Terms of Service otherwise allow 15 days “Unless the Usage Plan provides otherwise”.[2] Catalog proof: Order amounts are non-cancelable and New Relic may review use at any time; Disputes over arrears invoices within three business days.
Terms of Service
Paid Terms (2022-11-08). The paid Terms of Service took effect on 2022-11-08 for new or renewal Subscription Terms, and 30 days later for existing ones. They do not change a separate signed agreement.[2] The main licensing clauses are:
- Grant and restrictions (s.1.1, s.1.5). The Service may be used “for its internal business purposes only”. The customer may not use it to build a competing product, avoid fees, reverse engineer it, publish benchmarks, run security or load tests against New Relic, sublicense it, or use it “on behalf of, or to provide any product or service to, third parties”. New Relic may monitor or review use to ensure compliance.[2] Catalog proof: Service may be used only for internal business purposes.
- Users and Affiliates (s.1.2, s.3.5). Employees and contractors of the customer or its Affiliates may use the Service. An Affiliate is an entity in which the customer owns more than 50% of the voting securities. An Affiliate may sign its own Order, which creates a separate agreement.[2] Catalog proof: Affiliate employees and contractors may use the Service; Affiliate Orders are separate agreements.
- Fees and overage (s.3.1). If the customer exceeds usage limits in an Order, it pays overage fees under the Order, the Usage Plan or the Terms. Fees are non-cancellable and non-refundable except as the agreement states.[2]
- Renewal (s.3.4). Each Subscription Term renews for an equal period unless either party gives notice at least 30 days before it ends. Per-unit renewal rates stay the same “unless New Relic notifies you in advance of an increase”.[2] Catalog proof: Subscription Terms auto-renew unless 30 days' notice.
- Termination (s.9). On expiry or termination, access ends and the customer must stop sending data. Unpaid use after a Subscription Term ends is governed by the Unpaid Terms.[2]
- Channel partners (s.11.13). A customer buying through an authorized channel partner pays the partner, but the agreement is directly with New Relic, and New Relic may suspend the service if the partner does not pay.[2]
Unpaid Terms (2021-10-21). Use of the Free edition, trials, no-cost, lite or preview access is governed by the Unpaid Terms of Service.[1] Under those terms New Relic may terminate “at any time, with or without cause”, and support is provided through the public forums and documentation.[3] Continued use after an evaluation ends is chargeable at Order or Usage Plan rates.[1] Catalog proof: Free, trial and evaluation use is governed by the Unpaid Terms.
Service Specific Terms (2026-09-17). These add terms for pre-release services, CodeStream, Vulnerability Management, generative AI, AI agents, New Relic Control and AI Monitoring, on top of the customer’s agreement.[12]
Service levels and support
The Usage Plan overrides service level and support terms in older agreements. For Pro and Enterprise Orders, the documented service level availability commitment applies.[1] New Relic aims for Service Availability of at least 99.8% a month. If availability falls below 98.5% for two consecutive months or below 96.5% in one month, the customer may terminate the affected Service without penalty.[5] For Standard, and for subscriptions without full platform users, any availability commitment in the customer’s Terms is “vacated and nullified”.[5] The New Relic Support Plan in the Documentation likewise “supersedes and replaces” other support commitments, except for New Relic K.K. customers in Japan.[1] P1 first-response targets are 2 business days on Standard, 2 hours on Pro and 1 hour on Enterprise. The support plan “is subject to change at any time”.[6]
Virtualization & partitioning
The contract terms contain no virtualization or partitioning rules. Under the usage-based model, monitored hosts are not licensed. Host counting appears only in original product-based contracts (see below).[9]
Cloud / BYOL
Not applicable to the Service, which New Relic hosts. Distributed software has its own licence. Software under the New Relic Software License may be used only with New Relic’s SaaS service and requires “a valid and active subscription agreement”. It may not be exposed to third parties, modified (beyond compiling or linking as documented) or distributed.[7] Catalog proof: Licensed agent software is only for use with the New Relic Service.
Programs
Besides the Buying Programs, New Relic runs two discount programs:
- Observability for Good. Eligible nonprofits must hold a legal status equivalent to US 501(c)(3), pass validation by goodstack, and “Be a direct customer of New Relic and have a direct billing relationship with New Relic”. Marketplace sign-ups through Heroku or Azure are excluded. Higher education, schools and patient-care healthcare organizations are among the ineligible types.[13]
- New Relic for Startups for early-stage startups.[11]
Original product-based pricing
Before the usage-based model, New Relic sold individual products, and all organizations created from 2020-07-30 are on usage-based pricing.[14] Existing contracts on the New Relic Platform Pricing (product-based) usage plan list Eligible Services with their own units, for example:[8]
| Eligible Service | Unit | Monthly standard fee rate |
|---|---|---|
| New Relic APM Pro CU Annual | 10,000 Compute Units | USD 166.70 |
| New Relic APM Pro Host Annual | 1 Host | USD 149 |
| New Relic Browser Pro Annual | 500,000 Page Views | USD 149 |
| New Relic Infrastructure Pro Annual | 10,000 Compute Units | USD 12 |
| New Relic Logs Annual (8, 15 or 30 days) | 1 per GB daily | USD 55, 65 or 75 |
| New Relic Synthetics Pro Annual | 10,000 Checks | USD 69 |
A customer may use APM Pro by host or by compute units, “but not both”, and gets CUs by default.[8] A Host (original pricing) is a physical computer or virtual machine running one copy of an operating system. Host usage is the hours all hosts are connected in a month divided by 750. A Compute unit (original pricing) measures the computing resources of a physical or virtual host.[9] A paying customer can switch to usage-based pricing only if it is on month-to-month billing or within 60 days of its subscription renewal.[10] Catalog proof: APM Pro is licensed by host or by compute units, not both; Original pricing host usage is connected hours divided by 750; Paying original-model customers can switch only on month-to-month or within 60 days of renewal.
Out of scope
- Negotiated Order terms, rates and discounts. The Usage Plan states that the terms, rates and pricing in an Order are New Relic’s confidential information.[1]
- Technical Services (training and enablement), which are bought separately and are not part of the Service.[2]
- The Data Processing Addendum and HIPAA terms, which govern personal and health data rather than licence scope.