Vercel's trace retention extension is one arm of a live A/B test

Vercel raised Observability's trace retention across every plan — Hobby from 1 hour to 3 days, Pro from 1 day to 14 days (a 14x increase) and Enterprise from 3 days to 14 days — according to the pricing page Pulse saved on Nov 6, 2026. The comparison-table row that carries this limit was also renamed, from Session Tracing to Trace Retention, in the same update.

Pulse links this retention lift to an active A/B test on Vercel plan limits that has run since Oct 26, 2026 (first seen alongside Firewall rule-cap reductions on 2026D299), so the extended retention may be one arm of an experiment rather than a settled packaging change. The other arm Pulse has captured is reduced Firewall rule caps.

For product leaders shipping observability or logging features, this reads as a packaging move more than a price move — but only if it sticks: Vercel widened how far back customers can see trace history without touching the sticker price on any tier. A team debugging an incident that surfaces days later would have meaningfully more history on Pro, at no extra cost.

Because Pulse tags this as one arm of a live A/B test (Firewall rule caps reduced vs trace retention extended), treat the retention numbers as provisional until the experiment settles: a prospect who screenshots today's page may see the older 1-hour / 1-day windows on another visit. Watch whether Vercel keeps the longer retention in both arms, pairs it with usage-based pricing on trace storage the way it already prices Drains Volume and Daemons, or rolls the table back once the test concludes.