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Cost Comparison: Micromegas vs. Grafana Cloud

Disclaimer: These are estimates, not quotes. Actual costs vary based on usage patterns, active series count, scrape frequency, and negotiated agreements. Pricing figures were verified in early 2026 — confirm current rates at grafana.com/pricing before use.

For shared methodology, workload definition, and Micromegas baseline cost, see the Comparison Methodology page.

Grafana Cloud Pro Pricing (Logs & Metrics)

Grafana Cloud Pro pricing is component-based, with separate charges for logs (Loki), metrics (Mimir), and users.

  • Platform Fee:

    • Subtotal: $19/month

  • Logs (Loki):

    • Pricing includes process ($0.05/GB) + write ($0.40/GB) + retain ($0.10/GB) = $0.50/GB total
    • This rate includes 30-day retention only
    • 1,500 GB/month × $0.50/GB
    • Subtotal: ~$750/month

  • Extended Log Retention (beyond 30 days):

    • Grafana Cloud does not publicly list pricing for log retention beyond 30 days — it requires contacting sales
    • The reference workload requires 90-day retention, so the actual cost would be higher than shown
    • Subtotal: Unknown (contact sales)

  • Metrics (Mimir):

    • Priced at $6.50 per 1,000 active series (at 1 data point per minute scrape frequency)
    • Higher scrape frequencies multiply cost proportionally
    • 1,000,000 active series × $6.50/1k
    • Subtotal: ~$6,500/month

  • Users:

    • 5 active users × $8/user
    • Subtotal: $40/month

  • Total Estimated Monthly Cost (30-day retention only): ~$7,309/month

Note: This estimate uses only 30-day log retention. The reference workload requires 90 days — the actual cost with extended retention would be higher. Metric costs dominate at this scale; 1 million active series at $6.50/1k series = $6,500/month.

Cost Comparison Summary

Category Micromegas Grafana Cloud Pro
Platform/Infrastructure Cost ~$1,100/month ~$7,300+/month (30-day retention only)
Ratio 1× ~6.6× more

Note: With 90-day log retention (not publicly priced), the actual ratio would be higher.

Qualitative Differences

  • Cost Driver: Metrics dominate the Grafana Cloud cost at this scale. At $6.50 per 1,000 active series, 1 million active series alone costs $6,500/month — nearly 6× the entire Micromegas deployment.

  • Open Source Foundation:

    • Grafana Cloud is built on open-source components (Grafana, Loki, Mimir, Tempo), which means organizations can self-host these components to reduce costs — but at the expense of operational complexity.
    • Micromegas is also open source and self-hosted, but its unified architecture means fewer components to manage.

  • Retention Transparency: Grafana Cloud's lack of publicly listed extended retention pricing makes it difficult to accurately estimate costs for workloads requiring 90+ day retention. Micromegas's retention cost is simply the cost of S3 storage.

  • Ecosystem: Grafana Cloud benefits from the rich Grafana visualization ecosystem. Micromegas provides SQL-based querying and integrates with standard analytics tools.

  • Control & Data Ownership: Micromegas provides full data ownership within your own cloud account — a critical requirement for many organizations.

References

  1. Grafana Cloud Pricing
  2. Grafana Cloud Logs