LogicMonitor vs Datadog pricing with per-unit vs per-host billing and which is cheaper
Short answer: LogicMonitor charges one rate per Hybrid Unit, $16 a month on Essentials, whether the unit is a server, a switch or a cloud instance. Datadog prices each resource type separately: $15 per infrastructure host and $7 per network device a month on annual billing. So Datadog lists cheaper for server-heavy and switch-heavy estates, and LogicMonitor lists cheaper for wireless-heavy ones, where five access points share one unit. LogicMonitor bundles logs and NetFlow into the unit price; Datadog meters both.
alertping ▸ check preview
simulated
▸ type a domain to watch a check and an alert play out
▸ simulation of 2 regions · US East · EU Central
▸ waiting…▌
queued
probing▌
If ever goes down, you get:
Alert fired ▸ 2 channels · 6.2 s after first failure
AlertPing app
● DOWN : HTTP timeout confirmed from 2/2 regions (US East, EU Central). Incident opened.
sms · on-call
AlertPing: DOWN. Confirmed 2/2 regions . First fail: EU Central.
Simulation, not a measurement of your site: this preview runs entirely in your browser and the latencies are generated from the domain you typed. Real checks on your monitors run from our US East and EU Central regions.
the short version
One sells a bundle per unit, the other sells a menu per resource
LogicMonitor and Datadog both end up on the shortlist when a US IT or platform team wants one place to watch servers, network gear and cloud accounts. They overlap heavily on infrastructure metrics. Where they part ways is how the bill is built, and that difference decides the renewal far more often than any feature does.
LogicMonitor sells three platform packages priced per Hybrid Unit: $16, $27 or $53 a month. One unit is one device monitored by a LogicMonitor collector, one cloud IaaS instance, seven cloud PaaS resources or five wireless access points. Logs, NetFlow, topology, config monitoring and SMS alerting are in every package.
Datadog sells a long list of separate products, each with its own meter. Infrastructure Pro is $15 per host a month on annual billing, $18 month to month. Network Device Monitoring is another $7 per device, wireless access points $4 each, log ingestion $0.10 per GB plus indexing, NetFlow $0.60 per million records. You pay for exactly what you switch on, and you pay for each thing you switch on.
Every price below is US list, read from logicmonitor.com/pricing, LogicMonitor's Hybrid Unit billing documentation and datadoghq.com/pricing/list. LogicMonitor describes its prices as starting list prices based on standard minimum quantities and terms, and both vendors negotiate, so read these as the numbers a quote starts from.
rate cards side by side
LogicMonitor vs Datadog pricing, line by line
Rows are matched by what you are buying. AlertPing appears in the third column only where it does the same job, and says so where it does not.
| What you are buying | LogicMonitor | Datadog | AlertPing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billing unit | Hybrid Unit, one rate for every resource type | Separate meter per product and resource type | Monitors (one URL, port or heartbeat) |
| Entry package | Essentials: $16 per unit a month, up to 999 units | Infrastructure Pro: $15 per host a month annual, $18 month to month | Starter: $49 a month, 20 monitors |
| Upper packages | Advanced $27, Signature + Edwin AI $53 per unit | Infrastructure Enterprise $23 per host annual, $27 month to month | Team $59, Business $189 a month |
| Server or VM | 1 unit: $16 | 1 host: $15 annual, $18 monthly | Outside-in checks only |
| Switch, router or firewall | 1 unit: $16, any port count | Network Device Monitoring: $7 annual, $8.50 monthly | Ping and port checks only |
| Wireless access point | 5 per unit: $3.20 each | $4 annual, $4.80 monthly | Not offered |
| Cloud PaaS (pods, serverless) | 7 per unit: $2.29 each | Priced by its own container and serverless meters | Not offered |
| Logs | LM Logs in every package, up to a package allowance | $0.10 per GB ingested plus $1.70 per million events indexed (15-day) | Not offered |
| NetFlow | Included | $0.60 per million records (15-day retention) | Not offered |
| APM | Not the focus of the packages | $31 per APM host annual, $36 monthly | Not offered |
| External website and API checks | LM Uptime: add-on on Essentials, included on Advanced and Signature | Synthetic API tests: $5 per 10,000 runs annual | Every plan, two regions |
| Browser journeys | LM Synthetics add-on, price not published | $12 per 1,000 browser test runs annual | Not offered |
| Public status page | Not listed in the packages | Not in the infrastructure SKUs | Included on every plan |
| Free trial | 15 days, any package | Yes | Demo check, no signup |
resource by resource
Who is cheaper depends on what the resource is
Because LogicMonitor uses one rate and Datadog uses many, the winner flips by resource type. Here is the list price of one resource on LogicMonitor Essentials against Datadog on annual and monthly billing.
| One resource, per month | LogicMonitor Essentials | Datadog annual | Datadog monthly | Cheaper on list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Server, VM or cloud instance | $16.00 | $15.00 | $18.00 | Datadog by $1 on annual, LogicMonitor by $2 on monthly |
| Switch, router or firewall | $16.00 | $7.00 | $8.50 | Datadog, 56% less on annual |
| Wireless access point | $3.20 | $4.00 | $4.80 | LogicMonitor, 20% less on annual |
The network row is the one most comparisons miss. LogicMonitor counts a firewall or a core switch as a full unit, the same $16 as a database server. Datadog's Network Device Monitoring is a cheaper SKU at $7, so an estate with many network devices and few servers lists far lower on Datadog. The access point row runs the other way: five APs share one LogicMonitor unit, so $3.20 each beats Datadog's $4.
What the per-resource view leaves out is everything LogicMonitor bundles. A Datadog bill grows with logs and NetFlow volume; a LogicMonitor bill does not, until you pass the package allowance, which LogicMonitor does not publish.
four estates, priced
What four real environments list at on each
Infrastructure only, list prices, per month. Datadog columns add hosts, network devices and access points at their own rates. Neither column includes logs, APM or synthetic checks.
| Estate | Hybrid Units | LogicMonitor Essentials | LogicMonitor Advanced | Datadog annual | Datadog monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Office: 30 servers, 15 network devices, 20 access points | 49 | $784 | $1,323 | $635 | $763.50 |
| Network-heavy: 20 servers, 150 network devices, 100 access points | 190 | $3,040 | $5,130 | $1,750 | $2,115 |
| Cloud fleet: 200 EC2 instances | 200 | $3,200 | $5,400 | $3,000 | $3,600 |
| Campus: 10 servers, 20 network devices, 500 access points | 130 | $2,080 | $3,510 | $2,290 | $2,750 |
On list prices Datadog's annual rate is lower in three of the four, by 23.5% for the office, 73.7% for the network-heavy estate and 6.7% for the cloud fleet. The campus flips: LogicMonitor Essentials is 9.2% lower because 500 access points are only 100 units. Against Datadog's month-to-month rates, LogicMonitor Essentials is cheaper for the cloud fleet as well.
Two adjustments move the real answer. Add logs to the Datadog side: 50 GB a month ingested and 50 million events indexed for 15 days is another $90 a month, about 60% of the office gap. And price your discount: LogicMonitor's FAQ says discounts are available through the account team, and Datadog's annual rate is already its committed-use price.
the external check line
The most expensive way to check a website is inside a platform
Both platforms can tell you whether a public URL answers, and both charge heavily for it relative to the job. On Datadog, one API test run once a minute from one location is about 43,833 runs a month, so $21.92 at the annual rate. Run it from three locations and it is $65.75. Twenty endpoints from three locations is $1,314.99 a month.
On LogicMonitor, LM Uptime is an add-on on Essentials with no published price, and it is bundled from Advanced. Moving the 49-unit office from Essentials to Advanced for it costs $11 per unit, $539 a month, the price of about 25 single-location Datadog checks.
| 20 public endpoints, checked every minute | Monthly cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Datadog Synthetic API tests, 3 locations, annual rate | $1,314.99 | Metered per run; $1,577.99 at the monthly rate |
| LogicMonitor, upgrade 49 units to Advanced for LM Uptime | $539.00 | Also buys the other Advanced modules |
| AlertPing Starter, 2 regions | $49.00 | 60-second checks; 30-second checks on Team at $59 |
That is the job we do. AlertPing checks websites, APIs, TCP ports, SSL certificates and cron heartbeats from two regions, needs both to agree before it alerts, and sends SMS, email, Slack and webhook alerts on every plan with a public status page included. Keep LogicMonitor or Datadog for what happens inside your estate. For the Datadog side of this math in detail, see Datadog Synthetics pricing; for the LogicMonitor side, our LogicMonitor pricing breakdown.
honest scorecard
Where each one actually wins
LogicMonitor wins on
- A predictable bill: one rate per unit, with logs, NetFlow and config monitoring inside it.
- Wireless-heavy estates, at $3.20 per access point against $4.
- Cloud PaaS at seven resources per unit, $2.29 each on Essentials.
- Monthly-average billing, so a resource added mid-month only counts for the days it exists.
- On-prem networks that want discovery, topology and config change tracking in the base package.
Datadog wins on
- Network devices, at $7 each against a full $16 unit.
- Server-heavy fleets on annual billing, $15 per host against $16.
- A fully published price list, including logs, APM and synthetic tests.
- Application performance monitoring and tracing, which LogicMonitor's packages do not center on.
- Paying only for the products you switch on, with no package bundle to buy into.
Where we fit
- We replace neither. No agent, no collector, no SNMP, no logs, no APM.
- We watch what customers reach from outside: websites, APIs, ports, SSL and cron heartbeats.
- A second region confirms every failure before anyone is paged.
- $49 a month for 20 monitors at 60 seconds; 30-second checks from $59.
- SMS alerts and a public status page on every plan.
buyer scenarios
Pick by your inventory, not by the demo
- A hospital, school district or campus with hundreds of access points. Price LogicMonitor first. The five-to-one AP ratio is its clearest list-price win.
- A network team with many switches and firewalls and few servers. Price Datadog Network Device Monitoring first. $7 against $16 per device is the widest gap on this page.
- A cloud team on AWS with hundreds of hosts and heavy logs. Close on hosts, so the log bill decides it. Estimate Datadog log volume before you compare.
- An MSP with many small client networks. LogicMonitor offers MSP product-by-product pricing through its account team; Datadog prices every client resource at the same list rates.
- A team that mainly needs to know the website and API are up. Neither. Both charge platform prices for an outside-in check that a dedicated uptime service does for $49 to $59 a month.
- A team already on either platform. Keep it for the inside view, and add external checks from outside your own network so an outage there still pages someone.
plainly
What AlertPing does not do
We are the third option on this page, not a replacement for either platform. If anything on this list is a requirement, buy LogicMonitor or Datadog and use us as the outside check next to it.
- No agent or collector, so no CPU, memory, disk or process metrics from inside a host.
- No SNMP, no NetFlow, no wireless controller data and no topology maps.
- No log management, tracing or APM.
- No scripted multi-step browser journeys.
- No monitoring of private addresses behind your firewall. We check what is reachable from the internet.
- No free plan. Starter is $49 a month at 60-second checks; 30-second checks start at $59.
If Datadog is on your shortlist against other APM platforms, our Datadog vs Dynatrace and Datadog vs New Relic comparisons run the same kind of arithmetic. If the other name on your list is a Windows network monitor, see PRTG vs WhatsUp Gold.
questions
LogicMonitor vs Datadog, answered
Is LogicMonitor cheaper than Datadog?
It depends on the resource mix. On list prices Datadog is cheaper for servers on annual billing ($15 against $16) and much cheaper for network devices ($7 against $16). LogicMonitor is cheaper for wireless access points ($3.20 against $4) and bundles logs and NetFlow that Datadog meters separately.
Is LogicMonitor better than Datadog?
For hybrid infrastructure and on-prem networks, LogicMonitor packages more into one predictable price: discovery, topology, config monitoring, logs and NetFlow. For application performance, tracing and cloud-native teams that want a published per-product price list, Datadog is the stronger fit. Neither is better everywhere.
How much does LogicMonitor cost?
LogicMonitor lists $16 per Hybrid Unit a month on Essentials, $27 on Advanced and $53 on Signature + Edwin AI. A unit is one device or cloud instance, seven PaaS resources or five access points. These are starting list prices based on standard minimum quantities and terms.
How much does Datadog infrastructure monitoring cost?
Infrastructure Pro is $15 per host a month billed annually and $18 month to month. Infrastructure Enterprise is $23 and $27. Network devices are $7 each on annual billing and wireless access points $4. Logs, APM and synthetic tests are billed separately on their own meters.
Does LogicMonitor or Datadog charge for logs?
Datadog does: $0.10 per GB ingested, plus $1.70 per million events indexed with 15-day retention on annual billing. LogicMonitor includes LM Logs in every package up to a capacity and retention allowance it does not publish, with more sold as an add-on.
Which is better for network monitoring, LogicMonitor or Datadog?
LogicMonitor includes topology, config change tracking and NetFlow in its base package, which suits network-led teams. Datadog's Network Device Monitoring is cheaper per device at $7 a month on annual billing, but NetFlow is metered at $0.60 per million records.
Can LogicMonitor or Datadog monitor my website uptime?
Yes, both can. Datadog bills synthetic API tests at $5 per 10,000 runs, about $21.92 a month per one-minute check from one location. LogicMonitor's LM Uptime is an add-on on Essentials and included from Advanced. A dedicated uptime service such as AlertPing covers 20 endpoints for $49 a month.
Does LogicMonitor have a free trial?
Yes. LogicMonitor offers a 15-day free trial of any platform package, and Datadog offers a free trial too. LogicMonitor has no permanent free tier; after the trial you buy a package at the per-unit rate with a minimum quantity set in the quote.
keep reading
Related comparisons
- LogicMonitor pricing, the three packages, the Hybrid Unit math and the 1,000-unit cliff.
- LogicMonitor vs New Relic, per-device against per-user billing and the 40 GB line.
- LogicMonitor competitors, six alternatives priced on one estate.
- Datadog alternative for uptime monitoring, flat pricing for the external checks.
- Datadog Synthetics pricing, per-run math for API and browser tests.
- Datadog vs Dynatrace, per-host against per-GiB billing.
- PRTG vs WhatsUp Gold, the on-prem network monitor head-to-head.
- Server monitoring from outside, ping, port and heartbeat checks without an agent.
- Uptime monitoring pricing compared across fifteen vendors.
how we page you
Two regions have to agree
A single failed probe never wakes anybody. A second region, US East or EU Central, re-checks first, so a hiccup on one route is not a 3am phone call.
what a plan covers
SMS is in the price, not in credits
Email, Slack and webhook alerts are unlimited on every plan, SMS comes with a monthly allowance, and each plan hosts status pages. No credit packs, no per-message fee, no per-monitor math.
how setup works
One URL, no agent to install
Paste the address, choose where alerts go, and the first check runs from both regions. No agent, no config file, nothing to deploy on your side.
The outside view your platform bills you extra for
Websites, APIs, ports and heartbeats confirmed from a second region, SMS and a status page on every plan, from $49 a month.