Sumo Logic credits are the prepaid unit in which Sumo Logic charges for its platform under the Sumo Credit - Tiers licensing option. A credit is “a pre-paid unit of value” that the SaaS Services consume at a Credit Burn Rate for each Product Variable’s unit of measure.[1] The plan was formerly called Cloud Flex Credits.[2] Sumo Logic describes a credit as a unit of measure that tracks use, whether data ingested, storage or metrics, throughout a contract period.[2] Credits are bought for a contract period. Under this option, log ingest is priced by data tier: Continuous for data that is monitored and analysed constantly, Frequent for data searched often, and Infrequent for data that is rarely searched and is charged per search.[4] The Flex option, which charges for scans instead of ingest, is covered in Sumo Logic Flex and Cloud SIEM licensing. The overall terms are in Sumo Logic licensing.
Editions
Credits accounts come in six types: Free, Trial, Essentials, Enterprise Operations, Enterprise Security and Enterprise Suite.[2] On the pricing page, Essentials is limited to Continuous-tier log ingest. Enterprise Suite can buy Continuous, Frequent or Infrequent tiers, or move to Flex.[7]
| Account | Key limits and features |
|---|---|
| Free | No ingestion, 7-day log retention, three users; deleted after 90 days if not upgraded[2] |
| Trial | 30 days, 1 GB a day credit allocation, 30-day retention, up to 20 users; converts to Free at the end[2] |
| Essentials | Paid credits plan for small and mid-sized teams; self-service upgrade with monthly or annual billing[2][3] |
| Enterprise Operations | Operational monitoring at any ingest volume; Ingest Budgets[2] |
| Enterprise Security | Security capabilities for SOCs, including PCI compliance frameworks[2] |
| Enterprise Suite | All capabilities, including tiered analytics (Frequent and Infrequent tiers)[2][4] |
The Supplemental lists the capabilities each plan excludes. Essentials excludes security PCI frameworks, ingest budgets, enterprise audit and logging, the Search API, SIEM Enterprise, Cloud SOAR, Global Intelligence and the SOC Analyst Agent. Enterprise Operations excludes the security frameworks, SIEM, Cloud SOAR, Global Intelligence and the SOC Analyst Agent. Enterprise Security excludes Tracing, Cloud SOAR and Global Intelligence.[1] Catalog: Plan exclusions limit which variables each plan can use. Catalog SKUs record the list price per credit for each plan, for example Enterprise Suite at USD 0.25.[1]
Legacy plans. Older accounts use Cloud Flex Legacy plans (Free, Trial, Professional and Enterprise), sized by daily log volume, retention and users. A Free legacy account, for example, is limited to 500 MB a day, three users and 4 GB of retention.[6] Sumo Logic recommends that these customers move to the newer Flex plan.[6]
Metrics
Each Product Variable has its own unit of measure, and all are counted per OrgID.[1]
| Product Variable | Unit of measure | Example burn rate | Worked example from the Supplemental |
|---|---|---|---|
| Continuous GB Ingest | GB of log data ingested | 25 | 10 GB a day for 12 months = 91,250 credits[1] |
| Frequent GB Ingest | GB of log data ingested | 12 | No worked example |
| Infrequent GB Ingest | GB ingested daily | 5 | 10 GB a day for 12 months = 18,250 credits[1] |
| Infrequent Search | GB scanned in Infrequent storage | 2 | No worked example |
| GB Storage | GB of log data stored | 0.05 | 10 GB a day kept 30 days for 12 months = about 5,475 credits[1] |
| Metrics | Average DPM, in thousands, per day | 10 | 5,000 DPM for 12 months = 18,250 credits[1] |
| Tracing | GB of span data ingested daily | 35 | 10 GB a day for 12 months = 127,750 credits[1] |
The burn rate is “the number of Credits required to complete a Product Variable specific UOM”. Rates are set on the Order Form, and utilization can be reviewed in the Account Overview.[1] The Supplemental describes its rates as examples only.[1] Catalog: Credits are consumed at Order Form burn rates per unit of measure.
Counting / floors
Daily consumption against a contract pool. The worked examples multiply a daily unit count by 365. Consumption is therefore effectively daily, and an annual pool is sized as daily volume multiplied by burn rate multiplied by 365.[1] The Account Overview shows credits used and remaining, a forecast of usage to the end of the contract, the estimated date the credits will run out, and a breakdown by category (Continuous, Frequent and Infrequent ingest, Infrequent scan, Cloud SIEM ingest, metrics, storage and promotional credits). Usage can be downloaded as CSV, and alerts can be set at 70% and 90% of credits used.[2]
Data tiers. Data with no tier assigned goes to the Continuous Tier. Only data routed to a partition can go to the Frequent or Infrequent Tier, and the General Index always stays in the Continuous Tier.[4] Frequent and Infrequent tiers are available only on Enterprise Suite plans. Searching Frequent data is included in its ingest price. Infrequent data has a pay-per-search model with very low ingest cost.[4] A partition’s tier cannot be changed after it is created. Moving data to another tier means decommissioning the partition and creating a new one.[4] Only Continuous Tier data can feed dashboards and scheduled searches.[4] Catalog: Frequent and Infrequent tiers are Enterprise Suite only and fixed per partition.
Scans. Infrequent searches are metered in 5-minute intervals starting at 12 AM Pacific Standard Time. A scan shorter than five minutes is pro-rated with a normalized distribution formula.[1] Catalog: Data scans are metered in 5-minute intervals.
Credit blocks and promotions. Credits bought mid-term at a different burn rate form a separate credit block, so existing credits keep their rate. Older blocks are consumed before newer ones.[2] Promotional credits are consumed before paid credits for the credit type they cover. They are non-transferable and expire at the end of the promotion period.[2] Catalog: Additional credits bought mid-term form a separate credit block; Promotional credits are used first and expire.
Running out. For self-service Essentials, month-to-month and month-to-annual plans allow overage when credits are fully used. Overage is charged at the start of the next billing cycle. Annual plans instead renew immediately when credits are depleted.[3] Unused credits never carry forward, under any plan type.[3] For contracted plans, the Service Agreement provides for additional fees where use exceeds the Order Form.[8] The ingestion documentation says on-demand charges apply only if the average daily ingestion over the billing cycle exceeds the contracted daily rate. Storage is likewise judged on the average over the cycle.[5] Catalog: Essentials self-service overage and depletion policy; Use above the Order Form is billed as additional Fees.
Throttling. All accounts are subject to throttling, whatever the plan or data tier.[5] Throttling starts when the per-minute ingestion rate exceeds 4 to 10 times the per-minute rate derived from the contracted daily volume. Smaller accounts get the 10x multiplier.[5] Collectors queue throttled data on disk, but HTTP sources may lose data.[5] Catalog: Ingestion is throttled above a multiple of the contracted rate.
Virtualization & partitioning
Not applicable in the licensing sense. Sumo Logic’s “partitions” are indexes that route data to a tier and so decide its burn rate.[4] No host or core metric applies.
Cloud / BYOL
Not applicable. The service is hosted by Sumo Logic. The deployment region raises the price per credit by 10% to 40% outside the base US region.[1]
Programs
- Essentials self-service checkout. Administrators can upgrade a Free or Trial account to Essentials by credit card, choosing monthly or annual billing. Payment covers the full day of purchase, and the subscription starts at midnight PST that day.[3] Customers billed through order forms cannot switch to self-service. Downgrades between paid plans take effect at the next billing cycle.[3]
- Promotional credits. These are described as “use it or lose it”.[2]
- Free and Trial accounts. If a trial uses up its credits before the 30 days end, Sumo Logic’s standard throttling is applied to log ingest.[2] Unpaid trials can be terminated at any time.[8] Catalog: Trial and Free account limits.
Out of scope
- Customer-specific burn rates and committed-spend discounts, which are on Order Forms.
- Metrics and tracing throttling detail beyond the DPM definition.
- The Flex option and the security add-ons, covered in Sumo Logic Flex and Cloud SIEM licensing.