Hybrid pricing: how to budget logging spend on LoggerMan
Platform fees, included ingest volume, overage math, and operational tactics to stay predictable on Team and Scale plans.
Why hybrid pricing exists
Flat “unlimited” logging sounds friendly until a loop logs ten million lines per hour. Pure usage pricing surprises finance when traffic spikes.
LoggerMan uses a **platform fee + included events + overage** model documented in pricing & usage and mirrored on the marketing pricing calculator.
What counts as an ingest event?
Each accepted log line through HTTP ingest or the SDK increments owner-level usage for the billing period. Rejected payloads (validation, billing lock, rate limit) do not bill — see troubleshooting.
Successful responses may include usage headers — details in API reference.
Reading the dashboard banner
Project **owners** see **Plan & usage** on the logs dashboard. Invited teammates on shared projects do not — billing is always tied to the **project owner’s** subscription (team).
Open Billing for Stripe invoices, period totals, and upgrade paths.
FinOps tactics that work
- **Sample debug logs in production** — log DEBUG only with a feature flag metadata field.
- **Drop health-check noise** — filter at the edge before ingest.
- **Use retention intentionally** — older logs are not free storage; compaction follows plan tiers (platform).
- **Alert on overage thresholds** — create an internal WARNING when usage headers cross 80% of included volume.
Plan selection cheat sheet
- **Solo builder** → Starter for low volume and core triage.
- **Product squad** → Team for filters, CSV export, and more members.
- **24/7 on-call** → Scale for priority queue, on-call, and log read API.
Compare feature matrix on /compare.
Downgrade and project limits
When tiers shrink, owners may need to select which projects remain active — enforced in-dashboard and on ingest (billing). Communicate with teammates before downgrade so shared projects are not surprised.