Uptrace

Why bill by data size instead of spans?

Data size is simple and predictable. An average span is about 500 bytes plus custom attributes, so you can estimate costs easily. This model is fairer for microservices that generate many small spans and RPC calls. You pay for what you actually store, not arbitrary span counts.

How does metrics billing work?

Metrics cost $1 per 1,000 active timeseries. A timeseries is a metric with a unique set of labels. The value and time fields don't count as labels, so they don't increase your timeseries count.

How long is data retained?

Uptrace Cloud keeps all data for 4 weeks (28 days) by default. Need longer retention? Store data on cold storage (S3 or HDD) for up to 100 weeks. Spans cost $0.01 per GB-month. Metrics cost $0.20 per 1,000 timeseries-month.

How does billing work?

We use Paddle for secure billing and global tax compliance. Your payment details stay with Paddle, so we never see them. Pay by credit card (automatic) or bank transfer (manual).

Can I reduce costs with sampling?

Yes. Configure Uptrace to sample a percentage of data and drop the rest to lower your bill. Dropped data costs just $0.01 per GB. For example, dropping 1,000 GB costs $10.

Where is data stored?

Uptrace Cloud runs in Hetzner's Germany datacenters with redundant backups in Finland. Sending from AWS or GCP? OTel Arrow cuts bandwidth 30–70% versus standard OTLP.

Can I run Uptrace on my own servers?

Yes. Install Uptrace on-premises with a license. Your telemetry never leaves your infrastructure, making it ideal for compliance and security audits. On-premises includes a free evaluation period, Terraform and Ansible automation, custom retention policies, and dedicated support.

Is Uptrace production-ready for large-scale environments?

Yes. Uptrace is built on ClickHouse, a columnar database designed for petabyte-scale analytics. Customers run Uptrace in production with billions of spans per day. Both Cloud and on-premises deployments support horizontal scaling.