Beats & Usage
Beats are Drumbeats' usage unit. Each ping costs 1 Beat plus payload bytes in 25 KB chunks. Reference for the formula, monthly examples, quota bands, and PAYG.
Beats are the Drumbeats usage unit. Every ping costs 1 Beat plus any payload bytes metered in 25 KB chunks. Usage is owner-wide — included Beats are shared across every project the billing owner controls. This page is the formula reference, monthly-pattern examples, and the quota / PAYG behaviour the billing system applies once usage exceeds the included allowance.
Pricing tiers and feature gating live on drumbeats.io/pricing; this page covers only the usage model.
The formula
Beats per ping = 1 + ceil(payload_bytes / 25,000)Beats per ping = 1 + ceil(payload_bytes / 25,000)The base ping always costs 1 Beat. Any payload body adds at least 1 more Beat because payload bytes are metered in 25 KB chunks. Pings without a body cost exactly 1 Beat.
| Payload size | Beats per ping |
|---|---|
| No payload | 1 |
| 1 KB | 2 |
| 10 KB | 2 |
| 24 KB | 2 |
| 25 KB | 2 |
| 50 KB | 3 |
| 100 KB | 5 |
What counts as a ping
Every event the Drumbeats Ping API accepts is one ping and costs 1 base Beat:
| Event | Base Beats |
|---|---|
start | 1 |
success | 1 |
failure | 1 |
log | 1 |
| Exit-code ping | 1 |
Payload bytes ride on top of the base cost; see the formula above.
Common run patterns
The total Beats per run is just the count of pings the job sends per run, plus any payload overhead.
| Pattern | Pings per run | Base Beats per run |
|---|---|---|
| Success only | 1 | 1 |
| Start + success | 2 | 2 |
| Start + success + 1 log | 3 | 3 |
| Start + failure | 2 | 2 |
| Start + 3 logs + success | 5 | 5 |
Monthly examples
The four examples below use base Beats only — payload bytes would push the totals higher.
100 monitors, daily, success only
100 monitors x 1 ping x 30 days = 3,000 Beats/month100 monitors x 1 ping x 30 days = 3,000 Beats/month100 monitors, hourly, start + success
100 monitors x 2 pings x 24 hours x 30 days = 144,000 Beats/month100 monitors x 2 pings x 24 hours x 30 days = 144,000 Beats/month100 monitors, every 5 minutes, start + success
100 monitors x 2 pings x 12/hour x 24 x 30 = 1,728,000 Beats/month100 monitors x 2 pings x 12/hour x 24 x 30 = 1,728,000 Beats/month50 verbose jobs, hourly, start + success + 2 logs
50 monitors x 4 pings x 24 x 30 = 144,000 Beats/month50 monitors x 4 pings x 24 x 30 = 144,000 Beats/monthEstimating your usage
- Count how many times each job runs per day.
- Decide which events the job will send:
start,success,failure,log, or exit-code pings. - Multiply runs × events × days in the month.
- Add payload overhead —
ceil(payload_bytes / 25000)extra Beats per ping with a body.
For repeated estimation, the pricing calculator on the marketing site does the same math interactively.
Quota behaviour
When the billing owner approaches or exceeds the included monthly Beats, Drumbeats applies graduated quota bands. Free and Pro always operate under these bands. Business operates under these bands when PAYG (pay-as-you-go) is disabled.
| Usage band | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| 0–100 % | Normal — pings and payloads recorded as usual. |
| 100–110 % | Warning — full functionality continues; dashboard banner appears. |
| 110–130 % | Degraded — pings recorded but payloads dropped. Monitors still flip and alert. |
| 130 %+ | Rejected — pings return HTTP 429 and are not recorded. |
On Business with PAYG enabled, overage continues being billed linearly until the configured spending limit. PAYG is not available on Free or Pro — those plans hard-cap at the included Beats. See Billing lifecycle for the full PAYG model.
Practical guidance
Related guides
- Pricing tiers — included Beats per plan and overage pricing.
- How Drumbeats works — the high-level model Beats price.
- Billing lifecycle — owner-wide billing, PAYG, and plan changes.
- Payloads & logs — what gets stored and where; affects the storage tier but not the Beat formula.
- Payloads (Ping API) — payload size limits per plan and POST semantics.