Usage

In this documentation, you can learn more about AppSignal's usage policies, how your usage is calculated, and what that means for your AppSignal plan.

Requests Explained

AppSignal has request-based pricing, meaning you are charged based on the number of requests your application makes.

We treat the following actions as requests:

  • Your app handles a request from a client.
  • Your app runs a background job.

We measure the total monthly requests from all your applications, and we have no host limit per app. For example, 1M requests could mean ten applications generating 100K requests each on a single server or a single application generating 1M requests across 50 servers.

A request always contains performance metrics and may include error metrics (in case of an error). Even though we populate different parts of AppSignal based on that data, we still consider this a single request. At this time, custom metrics, uptime monitors, and host metrics do not count against your plan's request limit.

Logging Storage Explained

Logging is a paid add-on and is charged based on storage buckets. All AppSignal plans come with 1GB of free logging storage. For logs above 1GB, you will be charged to the appropriate Logging plan, starting at 10GB.

So, for example, if you need to store 8GB of logging data on average, you'd use the 10GB logging plan.

We apply the same relaxed upgrade policy to our Logging plans, meaning that we'll only start an upgrade conversation if you've gone over your logging plan for 2 out of 3 months.

Viewing Your Monthly Usage

You can see a quick overview of your application's usage over the past 30 days from the usage page within the AppSignal application.

Exceeding Your Plan

If you've exceeded your plan by more than 10% for at least two out of the three most recent months, we'll give you 28 days notice to upgrade your account or reduce your usage before automatically upgrading your plan for you.

AppSignal has a relaxed upgrade policy, so there are no hard limits imposed on our customers. We will only upgrade your plan if you exceed 10% of your plan's limit for two out of the three most recent months. So you don't need to worry about your monitoring stopping during a one-off peak. You will only need to upgrade your plan if your usage grows consistently.

Upgrading Your plan

Screenshot of upgrade page
The above screenshot is for illustration purposes only. You can find actual information on plan pricing and limits on our pricing page.

You will need to upgrade your plan if you've exceeded your plan for at least two out of three months by 10% or more. AppSignal will email you automatically when it's time for an upgrade.

From when we first notify you, you'll have 28 days to manually upgrade or reduce your usage before automatically upgrading your plan.

Manual Upgrades

To upgrade your plan manually, head to the Usage page via the app, or from a link in our email. You'll see our plan calculation based on your current usage.

Once your plan has been upgraded, you'll receive a confirmation email from us. If you do not manually upgrade your plan, or reduce your usage within 28 days of us notifying you, your plan will be automatically upgraded.

When your plan has been upgraded, don't forget to email us to redeem some free stroopwafels 🍪.

Automatic Upgrades

If no action is taken within 28 days of receiving your first upgrade email, and your usage fits a bigger plan, we will automatically upgrade your plan.

Once your plan has been upgraded, you'll receive a confirmation email from us.

Reduce Your Usage

If your usage has been below your current plan's usage allowance for more than 30 days, you can downgrade to a lower usage plan on the plan page.

You have 28 days from when we first contact you to reduce your usage before your plan is automatically upgraded.

Reducing Your Requests

You can learn more about reducing your application's requests in our Limiting Requests documentation. You can also click the "Inspect my usage" button on the upgrade page to see if your usage is still over your current plan's limits.

On the 28th day, we will check your application's usage. If you are still over your plan, we will upgrade you to the one that fits your usage best. If your requests fit into your current plan, we will automatically cancel the upgrade and contact you again as per our upgrade policy.

Reducing Your Logging

If you want to reduce your logging usage, we recommend reading our "What logs should I store?" Learning Center article.

Contact Us

If you need more clarification about upgrading your application or extra support regarding reducing your usage, you can contact us for assistance. We'll help you choose a plan that best suits your needs and budget.

Throttling and Ignoring Actions

Currently, we do not support throttling or allow you to limit the number of requests AppSignal collects for a single action or logs stored. Doing this would interfere with the reliability of your application's monitoring data and severely limit AppSignal's ability to give you the accurate data you need to monitor and manage your application's usage and performance properly. For example, features such as Anomaly Detection would no longer be able to function correctly.