Datadog replaces its $0 Infrastructure Free card with a Basic tier priced via Contact sales
Datadog retired the self-serve $0 Infrastructure Free card (up to 5 hosts, core system metrics, 1-day retention) and replaced it with a Basic tier priced via Contact sales, aimed at noncritical workloads and mixable with Pro or Enterprise hosts in the same account.
Datadog’s pricing page · Change Detected
WHY IT MATTERS
Small teams can still run up to 5 Basic hosts free, but the $0 card is gone from the plan lineup, and pricing for Basic beyond that requires a sales conversation. At the same time, the Pro card now leads with container monitoring and OpenTelemetry support, which are not available on Basic hosts. Watch whether Datadog brings the same Contact sales gate to other product lines' free tiers.
BY THE NUMBERS
- Infrastructure Free ($0, up to 5 hosts) replaced by Basic, priced via Contact sales
- 86 days since Datadog's last change (CoScreen removed, Aug 3, 2026)
- 9 changes in the last 365 days; average gap about 79 days
- 139 free-plan changes across 121 companies tracked in the last 180 days
THEIR RATIONALE
Datadog frames Basic as coverage for "noncritical workloads" rather than a replacement for Free, and lets those hosts mix with Pro or Enterprise in the same account - positioning it as a cost-control tier for secondary infrastructure rather than an onboarding path. The timing lines up with Datadog's normal rhythm: 86 days after its last change (CoScreen's removal), close to its ~79-day average gap, so this reads as routine page maintenance rather than a reaction to anything specific.
THE SIGNAL
A tier anyone could see at $0 on the pricing cards now shows Contact sales, even though a free allotment of up to 5 Basic hosts survives in the FAQ. Of the 139 free-plan changes across 121 companies Pulse tracked in the last six months, several widened access, like Mem0 moving to Free and Custom plans with higher Free limits and Highlight adding a Free plan alongside a Pro price cut. Datadog's move is closer to Leonardo, which restricted Free users to a single model. It is also the first change to Datadog's free-plan terms since Pulse started tracking the page.
IN CONTEXT
This is Datadog's first change to its free-plan terms since Pulse began tracking the page, landing 86 days after CoScreen was pulled from the collaboration lineup, close to its usual ~79-day cadence. Some of the 139 free-plan moves across 121 companies tracked in the last six months widened access, like Mem0 moving to Free and Custom plans with higher Free limits or Highlight adding a Free plan alongside a Pro price cut. Datadog instead takes its $0 card off the lineup in favor of a Contact sales tier, closer to Leonardo restricting Free users to its Auto-only model.