New Relic pricing guide details
Pricing Overview
New Relic uses a usage-based + per-user pricing model with two billing dimensions: data ingest volume (per GB) and user seats (by user type). This dual-axis approach means your bill depends on both how much telemetry data you send and how many people need access to the platform.
New Relic offers a perpetual free tier (not a trial) that includes 100 GB of data ingest per month and 1 full-platform user, making it accessible for small teams to get started with full-stack observability, APM, infrastructure monitoring, distributed tracing, and the NRQL query language without any upfront commitment.
Plan Comparison
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| Plan | Price | Billing | Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free (100 GB/month, 1 full-platform user, unlimited basic users) | Perpetual | Full-stack observability, APM, infrastructure monitoring, NRQL, dashboards |
| Standard | First full-platform user $10/month + $99/each additional (max 5) | Monthly | Enhanced data retention, standard support, up to 5 full-platform users |
| Pro | ~$349/user/month (full-platform, annual) | Annual commitment | Extended retention, SLA guarantees, advanced security, priority support |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | Annual contract | Dedicated support, compliance certifications, custom data retention, volume discounts |
New Relic defines three user types that affect pricing:
- Basic users: Free on all plans. Can view dashboards and run basic queries but cannot access advanced features.
- Core users: $49/user/month. Access to core platform features without full APM and distributed tracing.
- Full-platform users: $99-$349/user/month depending on edition. Unrestricted access to all New Relic capabilities.
Hidden Costs and Considerations
New Relic uses usage-based pricing for full-stack observability. Key items to review include:
- Data ingest: The Free tier includes 100 GB of data ingest per month. Data ingested beyond that allowance is billed at $0.40/GB under the Original data option.
- User access: New Relic has basic, core, and full platform user types, and user prices vary by edition. Basic users are free.
- Optional features: Enabling add-on features, such as Advanced Compute, can add charges. New Relic also lists optional billable add-ons for additional synthetic monitor checks and additional data-retention time.
- Buying model: Standard and Pro have pay-as-you-go options. Pro and Enterprise customers can also use commitment contract options, including volume and savings plans.
Before choosing an edition, confirm the expected monthly data ingest, the user types required, and whether optional features or commitment terms apply to your deployment.
Cost Estimates by Team Size
Small team (5 engineers, 2-3 services): The Free tier (100 GB/month, 1 full-platform user, unlimited basic users) can cover a small team's core needs. With 4 basic users and 1 full-platform user monitoring 2-3 services generating ~50-100 GB/month, you may stay within the free allocation. If you exceed 100 GB, the Standard plan bills additional data at $0.40/GB.
Mid-size team (25 engineers, 10-20 services): A team with 5 full-platform users on the Standard plan costs approximately $10 + (4 x $99) = $406/month for users. Data ingest for 10-20 services commonly ranges 500 GB-2 TB/month.
Enterprise (100+ engineers, 50+ services): Pro and Enterprise are quoted rather than published, so an annual contract at that scale depends on the seat count and the ingest volume you negotiate. Volume discounts on data ingest and committed-use agreements reduce per-unit costs at this scale.
How New Relic Pricing Compares
New Relic's usage-based model competes directly with Datadog (per-host pricing starting at $15/host/month for infrastructure, $31/host/month for APM) and Grafana Cloud (free tier with usage-based pricing for metrics, logs, and traces). The key difference is pricing axis: New Relic charges per GB of data plus per user, while Datadog charges per host plus per feature.
For teams with many small services, New Relic's per-GB model can be cheaper than Datadog's per-host pricing. For teams with fewer, larger hosts generating high data volumes, Datadog's per-host model may be more predictable. Grafana Cloud's open-source-based approach offers lower entry costs but requires more operational expertise.
We recommend starting with New Relic's perpetual free tier to evaluate the platform with real production data. The 100 GB/month free allocation is generous enough for small deployments. When you outgrow it, the Standard plan's $0.40/GB data pricing and $99/full-platform-user model provides clear cost scaling. Monitor your data ingest volume closely -- it is the primary cost driver for most teams.