--- title: "LLM Observability Pricing: What Do These Platforms Actually Cost?" url: https://daily.dev/posts/llm-observability-pricing-what-do-these-platforms-actually-cost--s14egxdac source_url: https://heartbeat.comet.ml/llm-observability-pricing-what-do-these-platforms-actually-cost-25cf666294b3 type: article source: "HEARTBEAT" published: 2026-08-19T16:28:37.576Z updated: 2026-08-19T16:38:46.084Z tags: ["langsmith", "llm-observability"] reading_time: 9 upvotes: 1 comments: 0 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # LLM Observability Pricing: What Do These Platforms Actually Cost? **[HEARTBEAT](https://daily.dev/sources/hrb)** · 9 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A comparison of LLM observability and evaluation platform pricing, breaking down billing units (spans, traces, events, seats) across Opik, LangSmith, Langfuse, and Arize as of August 2026. Covers free tiers, paid tiers, self-hosting options, whether evaluation is bundled with tracing, and how retention windows affect real cost. Includes a checklist of questions to ask vendors before signing a contract. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Does LangSmith bill by spans or by traces? LangSmith bills on traces rather than spans. The free Developer tier includes 5,000 base traces per month with 14-day retention and one team member, while the Plus tier costs $39 per seat per month for up to 10,000 base traces, also with 14-day retention, plus pay-as-you-go overage beyond those limits. _daily.dev helps teams comparing LLM observability vendors track pricing changes like this over time._ ### What counts as a billable unit on Langfuse Cloud pricing? Langfuse bills on 'units,' which cover any tracing data point sent to the platform including the trace itself, observations (spans, events, and generations within a trace), and scores from evaluations. The Hobby tier offers 50,000 units per month free, while Core costs $29/month for 100,000 units with additional units at $8 per 100,000. _Engineers weighing observability vendors follow pricing-unit details like these on daily.dev before committing._ ### Can I self-host Opik or LangSmith without an enterprise contract? Opik can be self-hosted for free under the Apache 2.0 license with no span cap, since Comet does not meter self-hosted usage. LangSmith's self-hosted deployment, by contrast, is only available under an enterprise agreement and is not offered on its free or Plus tiers. _Teams deciding between managed and self-hosted observability tools track terms like these on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [LLM Observability Tools Compared: LangFuse vs LangSmith vs Opik](https://daily.dev/posts/llm-observability-tools-compared-langfuse-vs-langsmith-vs-opik-qdjdhjilu) · BigData Boutique blog · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [LLM Observability Tools for Reliable AI Applications](https://daily.dev/posts/llm-observability-tools-for-reliable-ai-applications-oy255bw6k) · Machine Learning Mastery · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#langsmith](https://daily.dev/tags/langsmith), [#llm-observability](https://daily.dev/tags/llm-observability) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/llm-observability-pricing-what-do-these-platforms-actually-cost--s14egxdac)