Datadog cost surprises are more common than you'd think. I’ve written about how Datadog’s defaults can quietly spiral out of control, like when a GKE Autopilot user saw their Datadog bill increase 20x due to unexpected Prometheus scraping. The root cause? Overlapping defaults that not even Datadog’s support team saw coming.
These cost surprises are all too common, leaving engineering teams scrambling to diagnose issues after the damage is done.
In this article, I’ll show how our APX Datadog cost agents can not only detect a 195% spike in log costs instantly, but also surface the root cause and generate an AI-ready fix so you can resolve it in minutes, not when the next billing cycle hits.
What is APX’s Datadog cost agent?
To get started, APX just needs read-only access so it can analyze your data without modifying anything.
Many teams have experienced the unpleasant surprise of a huge Datadog bill. High-cardinality logs, metric explosion, and inefficient dashboards can add up fast. It can take weeks, even with the help of Datadog’s customer support teams, to find a resolution.
Our Datadog cost agent identifies cost-saving opportunities automatically, highlights unnecessary logs, and even opens pull requests in GitHub to optimize your setup.
Why APX is different from other AI monitoring tools
Most AI coding tools generate large, automated pull requests that are hard to review or trust. APX takes a more pragmatic approach.
By analyzing telemetry from tools like Sentry, Datadog, and Postgres, APX proactively surfaces issues and provides enriched prompts instead of auto-generated code.
Each prompt includes the exact source of the issue, a recommended fix, and context from production. Developers can copy it into tools like Cursor or Copilot, keeping control over how the solution is implemented: no black-box PRs, just actionable insights you can trust.
1. Detecting the 195% cost spike
When I first saw the 195% increase in my Datadog logs cost over the past month, I jumped into Datadog to investigate, but Watchdog Insights wasn’t helpful. The most I got was a vague note about elevated errors in an unrelated database.
So I went to my APX dashboard. The Datadog cost agent had already flagged the spike, prioritized it, and surfaced it at the top. I didn’t need to do any manual digging.
2. Diagnosing the cause with APX
The Datadog cost agent had already done the analysis. It pointed directly to the dub-dub-dub service, which was generating a huge volume of WARN-level logs of more than 200% week-over-week.
The APX report broke it down by service, log level, and timeline, so I knew exactly where to look. I didn’t have to waste hours filtering logs and guessing which service was responsible.
3. Fixing the issue with AI
I clicked “Copy for LLM” in the APX dashboard to generate a full, context-rich prompt describing the logging problem and pasted it into Cursor, my preferred AI-powered IDE. Cursor instantly analyzed my code, found the noisy logging patterns, and suggested fixes right inside my editor.
Within minutes, the log volume was under control. Instead of letting this cost spike grow into a budget nightmare, APX’s agent helped me detect, diagnose, and resolve it in a single workflow.
The result? From cost spike to resolution in minutes
This seamless handoff from telemetry insight to code fix is what makes APX different.
Observability tools often stop at telling you something’s wrong. But in high-pressure environments, teams need more than alerts. They need solutions, fast.
APX’s suite of agents goes beyond surface-level monitoring. Our Datadog cost agents automatically detect cost anomalies, pinpoint the root cause, and help you resolve issues in minutes
Whether you’re chasing down noisy services or misconfigured integrations, APX brings clarity, speed, and automation into a space still dominated by guesswork. Try APX for free with a 30-day free trial or book a live demo to see how APX can eliminate firefighting and keep your systems running at peak performance.
We work with companies of all sizes, from smaller teams to enterprise-level operations, and can tailor APX agents to your specific enterprise requirements.