Cost calculator
Estimate the analyses consumption of a Watchdog rule before turning it on
Auto-analyze rules consume from your monthly analysis quota every time they fire. The cost calculator built into the Watchdog rule editor gives you an estimate before you enable.
Where to find it
In the rule editor, after you've set action = auto_analyze, the
Estimated cost card appears. It updates live as you change
thresholds, interval, and cooldown.
What it estimates
The calculator uses three numbers:
| Input | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Expected fires per day | Inferred from a dry-run over the last 24 hours |
| Daily alert cap | The rule's cap setting |
| Cooldown | The rule's cooldown setting |
The output is expected analyses per month, capped by the daily cap × 30.
Reading the estimate
| Estimate | Action |
|---|---|
| 0 / month | Either the dry-run found no firings in 24h, or the rule is set to notify_only. Either way, no quota cost. |
| < 10% of plan quota | Comfortable. Enable. |
| 10–30% of plan quota | Reasonable. Confirm the rule is targeting your most important signal. |
| > 30% of plan quota | Probably too aggressive. Tighten thresholds, raise cooldown, or downgrade to notify_only first. |
Why estimates can be off
The dry-run baseline is the last 24 hours. If your traffic or error patterns vary by day-of-week or time-of-month, the estimate will be biased toward the recent window.
For a more conservative estimate:
Run dry-runs across multiple days
Enable the rule as notify_only for a week. Watch the activity feed
to see how often it would have fired.
Multiply by 30
Use the actual weekly count × 4.3 (weeks per month) as a more realistic monthly cost.
Then upgrade to auto-analyze
Once you trust the firing rate, switch the action.
Quota and overage
If your auto-analyze rules push you over your monthly quota:
- With overage opt-in enabled, additional analyses are charged at your plan's overage rate. See Overage.
- With overage opt-in disabled, auto-analyze is suspended once the quota is exhausted. The rule stays enabled and will start firing again at the next billing cycle reset.
You can opt in/out of overage from Organization → Billing.