Observability & SRE
Distributed Trace Storage Calculator
Enter request rate, spans per request, span size, and retention to compute total trace storage with sampling impact. Includes Datadog APM and self-hosted Jaeger/Tempo cost models.
No data is transmitted — everything runs locallyTool
About this tool
Distributed Trace Storage Calculator
The Distributed Trace Storage Calculator computes trace ingestion volume and cost from span rate and sampling strategy, covering Datadog APM and self-hosted options.
• Estimate Datadog APM costs before enabling distributed tracing on a high-traffic service
• Model the storage impact of switching from 10% to 100% trace sampling
• Calculate trace storage for a self-hosted Jaeger deployment
• Design a tail-based sampling strategy to hit a storage budget
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FAQ
What does this tool tell you?
The Distributed Trace Storage Calculator computes trace ingestion volume and cost from span rate and sampling strategy, covering Datadog APM and self-hosted options.
What affects the result most?
Total trace storage: spans_per_request × avg_span_size_bytes × requests_per_second × retention_seconds. Span count per service: typical microservice generates 3-10 spans per request (inbound + DB + outbound). Sampling impact: 10% head-based sampling reduces storage 10× but loses 90% of traces.
How should I use the result?
The calculation is deterministic — the same inputs always produce the same output — so the most useful workflow is to vary one input at a time and see which factor moves the result most. That tells you where to focus your attention before committing to a decision.