Cost No extra fee for public internet traffic, even at log volume.
A Kafka buffer that doesn't scale your bandwidth bill
Observability data is high-volume and highly compressible. ntail meters data in and out on the compressed bytes and never charges extra for public internet traffic, so a buffer that grows doesn't quietly become the biggest line on your invoice.
- Metered compressed
- No fee per destination
- No public internet fee
- Free migration
Example monthly invoice
10 MiB/s in · 20 MiB/s out · 7-day retention- Data in10 MiB/s × $25
- $250
- Data out20 MiB/s × $25
- $500
- Storage7 days of writes ≈ 6.3 TB × $20
- $126
- Public internet trafficData sent and read, any volume
- $0
Illustrative example at list price — a log/trace stream fanned out to two destinations. Data in and out are measured compressed. Model your own workload.
- $0Extra fees for public internet traffic
- GB/sSustained throughput per cluster
- 99.9%Contractual uptime SLA
- $50/moPer-cluster minimum, about 7¢/hour
Cost
The bandwidth fee is often the surprise
Logs and traces are exactly the high-in, high-out pattern that makes a per-GB bandwidth fee hurt the most.
Same workload, three providers
10 MiB/s in, 20 MiB/s out (compressed), 7-day retention — monthly, at list price.
Illustrative comparison based on published list prices for an equivalent workload, including the data-transfer charges that competing services meter separately. Your numbers will differ — try the calculator or ask us for a modelled quote against your actual bill.
-
Metered on compressed bytes
Logs and traces are usually verbose text or JSON that compresses 3–5×, and you're billed on the compressed size for both data in and data out.
-
Fan out without a per-destination fee
A SIEM, cold storage and a dashboard can all read the same stream, and each additional consumer never adds a public internet fee.
-
Retention sized to the buffer window
Size storage to how long you need replay ability, not to your long-term log retention policy — storage bills per TB actually retained.
Built for telemetry
Built for verbose, high-volume telemetry
A transport layer in front of your existing observability stack — not a replacement for it.
-
Sustained high-volume throughput
Sustained gigabytes per second per cluster, with nothing to size or reserve before an incident generates a burst of traces. Higher limits are a request away, not a re-platforming.
Scales in seconds, not windows
-
No public internet fee
Ship data to destinations outside your network with no data-transfer charge, at any volume — the fee that most inflates a log-pipeline bill.
Typically the biggest saving
-
Sits in front of your existing tools
ntail doesn't replace your logging, metrics or tracing backend — it's the durable buffer in front of it, so your existing tools stay exactly the same.
Works with the tools you already use
Reliability & performance
The numbers we sign up to
With service credits attached when we miss them.
- 99.9%Uptime SLAUnder 44 minutes a month, with service credits
- ZeroMaintenance windowsUpgrades and scaling with no downtime for you
- 11 9sData durabilityEvery write on durable, verified storage
- <60 sCapacity changesScale up for a peak, down the same evening
FAQ
Common questions about observability pipelines
Does compressed metering matter for logs specifically?
Yes. Logs and traces are usually verbose text or JSON that compresses 3–5×, and you're billed on the compressed size for both data in and data out — not the raw record size.
Can I fan out the same log stream to multiple destinations?
Yes. A SIEM, cold storage and a dashboard can all read the same stream as independent consumers, and each additional consumer never adds a public internet fee.
How do I size retention for a buffer use case?
Retention for a buffer is usually short — size it to how long you need replay ability, not to your long-term log retention policy. Storage bills per TB actually retained, so a smaller buffer window costs less.
Does this replace our logging or observability backend?
No — ntail is the durable transport layer in front of it. Your existing logging, metrics and tracing tools stay exactly the same; ntail just carries the data to them without adding a bandwidth fee.
Can I buffer logs on the free plan?
Yes. Logs compress well, and the free plan's 200 KiB/s in and 400 KiB/s out are measured after compression, so it carries a small fleet's log stream at $0 a month with no card and no time limit. When the buffer outgrows it, upgrade to the paid plan without moving anything.
Stop paying to move your own telemetry
Start on the free plan today — no card, no time limit — or send us last month's streaming invoice and we'll model the same workload on ntail, line by line, no obligation.