Pricing

DataDog is expensive.

Not "premium product" expensive. "Surprised by the bill" expensive. "Had to turn off features" expensive. "Finance asked what happened" expensive.

I've been there. Most developers have.

Brainz Lab is different.

The problem with usage-based pricing

Observability tools charge per:
- Log GB ingested
- Error event
- Trace span
- Metric data point
- Host monitored

Sounds fair until you realize: you can't control these numbers.

Traffic spike? Bill spikes. Bug causes log spam? Bill spikes. Enabled detailed tracing? Bill spikes.

Usage-based pricing punishes you for using the product.

Our approach

Simple tiers. Predictable costs.

Free
- 100K events/month
- 3-day retention
- 1 project
- Community support

Good for: Side projects, learning, evaluation.

Team — $49/month
- 2M events/month
- 30-day retention
- 5 projects
- Email support

Good for: Small teams, early-stage startups.

Business — $149/month
- 20M events/month
- 90-day retention
- Unlimited projects
- Priority support
- SSO/SAML

Good for: Growing companies, compliance needs.

Self-Hosted — $499/month
- Unlimited everything
- Your infrastructure
- Full data control
- Direct support

Good for: Enterprise, data sovereignty, high volume.

The math

Let's compare to DataDog for a typical startup:

Your usage:
- 10GB logs/month
- 50K errors/month
- 1M trace spans/month
- 10 hosts

DataDog:
- Logs: $2.55/GB = $25.50
- APM: $31/host + $0.10/span = $310 + $100K = expensive
- Errors: included with APM
- Total: $1,000+/month easily

Brainz Lab:
- All of the above fits in Team tier
- Total: $49/month

That's 20x cheaper. Not a typo.

How is this possible?

1. Efficient architecture

TimescaleDB with compression. Shared infrastructure. No VC-funded growth at all costs.

Data costs less when you're not running a sprawling cloud empire.

2. Self-hosted option

Heavy users self-host. They pay for the license, run on their own metal.

No egress fees. No per-GB charges. Fixed cost, unlimited scale.

3. No sales team

Product-led growth. No enterprise sales reps. No expensive dinners.

Lower costs, lower prices.

4. Solo founder efficiency

One person. No coordination overhead. No meetings about meetings.

Ship fast. Keep costs low. Pass savings to customers.

Compared to AppSignal

AppSignal is the other "affordable" option. Let's compare:

| Feature | AppSignal | Brainz Lab |
|---------|-----------|------------|
| Logs | $0.15/GB | Included |
| APM | Included | Included |
| Errors | Included | Included |
| Custom Metrics | Included | Included |
| Alerting | Basic | Advanced (Signal) |
| AI Integration | None | Full MCP |
| Self-Hosted | No | Yes |
| Price (Team) | $49/month | $49/month |

Same price. More features. AI-native.

The self-hosted advantage

DataDog can't be self-hosted. Neither can New Relic, Honeycomb, or most others.

We can.

Data sovereignty — Your data never leaves your infrastructure.

Cost control — High volume? Fixed license cost.

Customization — Modify the stack for your needs.

No vendor lock-in — Export everything. Standard formats.

For companies that care about control, there's no comparison.

No surprises

The worst thing about observability pricing is surprises.

"We need to cut features to reduce costs."

"Finance is asking why observability costs more than our database."

"We're turning off detailed tracing to save money."

These conversations shouldn't happen.

With Brainz Lab, you know what you're paying. Every month. No surprises.

Try free, upgrade when ready

Start on Free. See if you like it.

Upgrade to Team when you need more retention or projects.

Go Business when you need SSO or compliance.

Self-host when you need full control.

Grow at your own pace. Pricing that grows with you, not against you.

— Andres