Sentry Cost Tuning

Overview

Strategies to optimize Sentry costs while maintaining visibility.

Understanding Sentry Pricing

Event Types

• Errors - Exception events
• Transactions - Performance traces
• Replays - Session replays
• Attachments - Files attached to events

Cost Factors

1. Total event volume
2. Data retention period
3. Team size
4. Features used

Reduce Error Volume

1. Client-Side Filtering

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,

  // Sample errors
  sampleRate: 0.5, // Send 50% of errors

  // Ignore common noisy errors
  ignoreErrors: [
    'ResizeObserver loop limit exceeded',
    'Non-Error promise rejection',
    /Loading chunk \d+ failed/,
    'Network request failed',
    'AbortError',
  ],

  // Ignore errors from specific URLs
  denyUrls: [
    /extensions\//i,
    /^chrome:\/\//i,
    /^moz-extension:\/\//i,
    /^safari-extension:\/\//i,
  ],
});

2. Server-Side Filtering (Inbound Filters)

Enable in Sentry Dashboard:

1. Project Settings > Inbound Filters
2. Enable:
   • Legacy browsers
   • Browser extensions
   • Web crawlers
   • Filtered by IP

3. Rate Limits

# Set project rate limit
curl -X PUT \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"options": {"sentry:rate-limit": 1000}}' \
  "https://sentry.io/api/0/projects/$ORG/$PROJECT/"

Reduce Transaction Volume

Aggressive Sampling

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,

  // Low sample rate in production
  tracesSampleRate: 0.01, // 1%

  // Or dynamic sampling
  tracesSampler: (ctx) => {
    // Never trace health checks
    if (ctx.transactionContext.name.includes('health')) return 0;

    // Very low rate for common endpoints
    if (ctx.transactionContext.name.includes('/api/')) return 0.001;

    return 0.01;
  },
});

Skip Unimportant Transactions

tracesSampler: (ctx) => {
  const name = ctx.transactionContext.name;

  // Skip static assets
  if (/\.(js|css|png|jpg|svg)$/.test(name)) return 0;

  // Skip bots
  const userAgent = ctx.request?.headers?.['user-agent'];
  if (userAgent?.includes('bot')) return 0;

  return 0.05;
},

Optimize What You Send

Reduce Event Size

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,

  // Limit string lengths
  maxValueLength: 250,

  // Limit breadcrumbs
  maxBreadcrumbs: 20,

  // Strip large data
  beforeSend(event) {
    // Remove large request bodies
    if (event.request?.data) {
      const size = JSON.stringify(event.request.data).length;
      if (size > 1000) {
        event.request.data = '[TRUNCATED]';
      }
    }
    return event;
  },
});

Disable Unused Features

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,

  // Disable session tracking if not needed
  autoSessionTracking: false,

  // Disable profiling if not needed
  profilesSampleRate: 0,

  // Disable replay if not needed
  replaysSessionSampleRate: 0,
  replaysOnErrorSampleRate: 0,
});

Cost Monitoring

Track Usage

# Get current usage via API
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN" \
  "https://sentry.io/api/0/organizations/$ORG/stats/v2/?field=sum(quantity)&category=error&category=transaction"

Set Alerts

In Sentry Dashboard:

1. Settings > Subscription
2. Configure spend alerts
3. Set notification thresholds

Cost-Effective Architecture

Tiered Environments

const config = {
  development: {
    sampleRate: 1.0,
    tracesSampleRate: 1.0,
    enabled: false, // Don't send dev errors
  },
  staging: {
    sampleRate: 1.0,
    tracesSampleRate: 0.5,
    enabled: true,
  },
  production: {
    sampleRate: 0.5,
    tracesSampleRate: 0.01,
    enabled: true,
  },
};

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
  ...config[process.env.NODE_ENV],
});

Per-Project Budgets

• Allocate quota per project
• Set rate limits per project
• Monitor high-volume projects

Monthly Cost Estimation

Errors: 100,000/month × $0.00025 = $25
Transactions: 1,000,000/month × $0.000025 = $25
Total: ~$50/month

After optimization (50% reduction):
Errors: 50,000/month = $12.50
Transactions: 100,000/month = $2.50
Total: ~$15/month

Resources

• Sentry Pricing
• Quota Management