Datadog Synthetics is a serious synthetic monitoring product sitting inside one of the most capable observability platforms there is. The reason to choose it is almost never the monitoring itself — it is that a failed check lands next to your traces, logs and infrastructure metrics. The reason to think twice is the billing model, and specifically one detail about how a test run is counted.
From $5 a month · No check quotas · Set up in under a minute
Is Datadog Synthetics worth it?
If you already run Datadog, yes — correlating a synthetic failure with the trace and the host metric from the same second is genuinely valuable and no standalone tool can do it. If you do not, this is an expensive way to buy uptime checks. Budget with care: you are billed per test run, and a run means one execution from one location, so checking from three regions triples the number you are paying for.
Datadog Synthetics runs API tests and browser tests on a schedule from Datadog's global locations, or from private locations inside your own network. API tests assert on status, response body and timing; browser tests script multi-step user journeys.
Its real advantage is not the checks but the context around them. A failing synthetic test in Datadog is linked to the traces, logs, host metrics and deployments from the same moment, so the question moves from "it is down" to "it is down because of this deploy" without leaving the screen.
Pricing is per test run, and this is the part people misjudge. A test run is one execution of one check from one location. The same check running every minute from three locations produces three runs a minute, not one — so the bill scales with frequency and locations multiplied together, not with the number of checks you created.
Monitoring that arrives already correlated with everything else.
A failed check sits beside traces, logs, infrastructure metrics and deploy markers. For diagnosis rather than detection, nothing standalone competes.
Multi-step journeys, recordable rather than hand-written, which lowers the barrier compared with writing test code.
Assertions on status codes, response bodies, headers and timings, with multi-step API workflows.
Run checks from inside your own network for systems that are not publicly reachable.
A wide set of managed locations, with the caveat that each one you add multiplies your run count.
Monitors, escalation and integrations shared with the rest of Datadog, so nothing new to wire up.
Per test run, on annual commitment. List prices below; enterprise discounts are common.
| Item | List price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| API test runs | $5 per 10,000 | Annual commitment |
| Browser test runs | $12 per 1,000 | Annual commitment; roughly $15-18 on pay-as-you-go |
| A "test run" | One check, one location, one execution | Three locations means three runs per interval |
| Typical enterprise spend | $10,000-50,000/yr | For 50-200 endpoints, often inside a wider Datadog agreement |
Monitoring vendors change plan limits and prices frequently and without announcement. Every figure here carries a "verify on their site" caveat and you should take it seriously before making a decision on cost.
These products answer different questions. Datadog tells you why something broke by putting the check beside the trace, the log line and the deploy. We tell you that something broke. If diagnosis is the job, we are not in the running and no price comparison changes that.
Our case is the cost of simply knowing. A hundred monitors with us is $34 a month, fixed, whatever they check and however the month goes. Their equivalent depends on runs, frequency and how many locations you picked, and browser journeys at $12 per thousand runs add up faster than most people model.
We also treat certificates and domains as first-class monitor types with their own expiry windows, which Datadog does not. And we check from one location, where they check from many — that is their advantage, and it is also part of why their bill moves.
The honest split: an observability platform where checks are one signal among many — theirs. A fixed, small bill for knowing that a set of sites, certificates, domains and pages are still fine — ours.
Every recorded change is compared word by word and kept with a before-and-after image. This is the real output, shown with worked example data.
Price fell from $49 to $39, and an annual discount was added.
The item is available again and the basket button returned.
A new subprocessor was added in another jurisdiction.
The free plan sends to one email address. Every paid plan adds the chat and webhook channels below, with 2 to 10 destinations depending on the plan. However many alerts you receive, the price does not change — nothing here is metered or charged per alert.
There are no voice calls and no SMS. If a phone call at 3am is a hard requirement, say so before you subscribe — we would rather tell you now than refund you later.
List pricing is around $5 per 10,000 API test runs and $12 per 1,000 browser test runs on annual commitment, with pay-as-you-go browser runs closer to $15-18 per thousand. Enterprise discounts of 30-40% are common. Verify with Datadog.
One execution of one check from one location. This is the detail that surprises people: a check running every minute from three locations generates three runs per minute, so locations and frequency multiply rather than add.
Rarely. The product's advantage is correlation with the rest of the platform. Bought alone it is an expensive way to acquire uptime checks that cheaper tools handle well.
Certificate state can be asserted within tests, but certificate and domain expiry are not first-class monitor types with their own alerting windows the way they are in dedicated tools.
Yes, through private locations that run checks from inside your own network.
Reduce check frequency, reduce the number of locations per check, and be selective about browser tests. Browser runs are more than twenty times the unit cost of API runs, so that is where the money goes.
Datadog offers RUM as a separate product. Synthetics covers scripted checks; RUM covers actual visitor sessions, and they are billed separately.
They correlate failures with traces and logs, which we cannot do at all. We charge a fixed $34 for 100 monitors including certificates, domains, page content changes and heartbeats, with nothing metered.
Last updated August 2026 · Written by Amit Gupta, founder of MonitoringDaddy
Datadog is better at diagnosis. We are a fixed monthly bill for knowing something broke — from $5 a month.