Price checkPer seat
Subscription Unit PlanCustomActive Service Bundle PlanCustom
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Quick Answer
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Lightstep uses custom pricing as of March 2026 with 2 plans available. Contact Lightstep directly for a personalized quote. Pricing depends on your chosen tier, contract length, and negotiated discounts.

Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.

  • Free tier: No free tier available

Lightstep offers 2 pricing tiers: Subscription Unit Plan, Active Service Bundle Plan. The Active Service Bundle Plan plan is not recommended - product being discontinued march 2026. no new customers should adopt this platform..

Compared to other apm & monitoring software, Lightstep is positioned at the budget-friendly price point.

  • 8 documented hidden costs beyond list price
Last verified: | Sources: 4 pricing pages and reviews

How much does Lightstep cost?

Lightstep uses custom pricing across 2 plans. Contact Lightstep directly for a personalized quote. Plans include Subscription Unit Plan (custom pricing), Active Service Bundle Plan (custom pricing).

Lightstep Pricing Overview

Lightstep uses custom pricing — contact their sales team for a quote. The Subscription Unit Plan plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for not recommended - product being discontinued march 2026. existing customers should migrate to alternatives.. The Active Service Bundle Plan plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for not recommended - product being discontinued march 2026. no new customers should adopt this platform..

There are at least 8 documented hidden costs beyond Lightstep's list price, including implementation, training, and add-on fees.

This pricing was last verified in January 29, 2026 from 4 independent sources.

Visit Lightstep Pricing
Lightstep (now ServiceNow Cloud Observability) was a distributed tracing and observability platform designed for modern microservices architectures. The platform specialized in high-fidelity tracing at scale, enabling teams to understand complex service dependencies and quickly diagnose performance issues across distributed systems. Built on OpenTelemetry standards, Lightstep provided powerful analytics for identifying latency issues and service degradation patterns. IMPORTANT: ServiceNow announced end-of-life for Cloud Observability, with support ending March 1, 2026, and no equivalent replacement planned on the ServiceNow platform.

How Lightstep Pricing Compares

Compare Lightstep pricing against top alternatives in APM & Monitoring.

AppDynamics $1.0-$75.0/user/mo View pricing → Dynatrace $0.001-$69/user/mo View pricing → Honeycomb $0-$130/user/mo View pricing →

All Lightstep Plans & Pricing

Plan Monthly Annual Best For
Subscription Unit Plan dataIngestion: Based on subscription unitsretention: Configurable Contact Sales Contact Sales NOT RECOMMENDED - Product being discontinued March 2026. Existing customers should migrate to alternatives.
Active Service Bundle Plan dataIngestion: Pay per GB for logs and spansats: Per active time series Contact Sales Contact Sales NOT RECOMMENDED - Product being discontinued March 2026. No new customers should adopt this platform.
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Subscription Unit Plan

  • Distributed tracing
  • Service dependency mapping
  • Trace analytics
  • Active Time Series monitoring
  • Log ingestion and analysis
  • Span data collection
  • Custom dashboards
  • Alerting and notifications
  • OpenTelemetry support
  • API access

Active Service Bundle Plan

  • Active Time Series (ATS) monitoring
  • Log data ingestion by GB
  • Span data collection by GB
  • Service health tracking
  • Performance analytics
  • Distributed tracing
  • Integration with ServiceNow platform
  • Custom dashboards
  • Alerting
  • API access
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Compare Lightstep vs Alternatives

Before committing to Lightstep, compare pricing with these 3 alternatives in the same category.

VSAppDynamics
From $1.0/user/mo

Teams focused on infrastructure monitoring without needing application-level code visibility

Compare pricing
VSDynatrace
From $0.001/user/mo

Organizations needing comprehensive full-stack observability with AI-driven insights across applications and infrastructure

Compare pricing
VSHoneycomb
Free

Testing and individual projects

Compare pricing

All Lightstep alternatives & migration guides

What Companies Actually Pay for Lightstep

Review scores
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How Lightstep Pricing Compares

Software Starting Price Top Price
Lightstep Custom Custom
AppDynamics $1/user/month $75/user/month
Dynatrace $0.001/user/month $69/user/month
Honeycomb Free $130/user/month
Instana $21.2/user/month $79.5/user/month

Browse all APM & Monitoring pricing →

8 Lightstep Hidden Costs Beyond the List Price

Beyond the listed price, Lightstep has at least 8 documented hidden costs that can significantly increase total cost of ownership.

Watch for 8 hidden costs
  • CRITICAL: Product end-of-life March 1, 2026 - no support after that date
  • Migration costs to move to alternative observability platform
  • Data export and transfer fees during migration
  • Potential contract termination fees if leaving before subscription end
  • Retraining costs for team on new platform
  • Re-instrumentation costs for new observability solution
  • Lost historical data if not properly migrated
  • Overlap costs running both platforms during migration
Tip

Ask your Lightstep sales rep about these costs upfront. Getting them in writing before signing can save you from surprise charges later.

Full hidden costs breakdown →

Lightstep Pricing FAQ

01 How much does Lightstep cost?

Pricing varies by plan. Check the official pricing page for current rates.

02 Does Lightstep have a free tier?

Check the pricing section above for free tier availability.

03 What are the main features of Lightstep?

Key features include the items listed in the pricing tiers above.

04 Is Lightstep worth the price?

Value depends on your specific needs and use case. Compare features across plans.

05 How does Lightstep compare to DataDog and New Relic on cost?

Users describe Lightstep as having a 'saner pricing model' compared to New Relic and DataDog for certain use cases. While DataDog charges per host and New Relic uses user-based pricing, Lightstep's service-based model can be more predictable. However, Lightstep is still more expensive than self-hosted open-source tracing tools.

06 Is Lightstep cheaper than enterprise APM tools?

Yes, Lightstep is positioned as significantly more affordable than enterprise APM tools like AppDynamics and Dynatrace, which can cost millions per year for large deployments. It's categorized as a mid-tier observability platform alongside DataDog and Honeycomb, rather than enterprise-tier like AppDynamics.

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