Splunk Enterprise pricing clarification

[shawnfumowk]

The calculator for Splunk Enterprise is worded in a confusing way. The price is only shown as GB/day and there is talk of paying at the time of ingestion. This implies that the exact usage determines the price, but I don't think this is the case?

If the annual license for 2GB/day is listed as $1,500, is it correct to assume that you just pay $3,000 upfront? So each day has a limit of 2GB, but if you actually index 10MB a day that wouldn't affect cost at all?

[skoelpin]

You would need to talk to sales to get an accurate answer. You also need to consider support costs too

[shawnfumowk]

Sorry, but this answer really feels like a cop-out. This is a basic question about the fundamental pricing structure of your product. In fact, part of my reason for asking about the annual licence (as opposed to monthly) was that support is explicitly already included in the price, making the question simpler.

If you can't answer, then someone from sales should write the answer here so that it is publicly available.

If you're worried the pricing structure changing in the future, the answer can always be amended (done all the time on real stack overflow). If you're worried about my dollar numbers changing, I can edit my question to say $X and 2*$X. What is it exactly that makes my (nearly yes/no) question so difficult that only talking directly to sales can give an accurate answer?

Is the following the basic nature of cost in Splunk Enterprise (putting aside support)? There is a cost per/gig for a given span of time and chosen number of gigs. The price per gig is then multiplied by that chosen number of gigs and you pay up front. You are limited to ingesting no more than that chosen number of gigs per day (or risk going out of compliance with the license). If you ingest no data at all per day, you pay the same amount as if you had ingested near the limit of gigs.

Is that correct or no?

[gjanders]

Please keep in mind this is a community forum, the vast majority of members are not Splunk staff!

[shawnfumowk]

Thanks @gjanders for pointing that out. Not sure why I assumed that @skoelpin works for Splunk.

[skoelpin]

The information is publicly available and clearly shows on the Splunk site.. You can easily figure it out on your own. Also, quick disclaimer.. I do not work for Splunk, I'm a Splunk customer

The reason you're not getting hard numbers is because you gave no clarification as to much much Splunk license you currently have or how much you're anticipating to buy. If you plan on sticking with a smaller license, then you may want to consider SplunkLite or a TERM license. I have no idea about your environment and it would do a disservice to yourself and Splunk if I were to give you hard numbers without understanding your needs or intentions. Also, if you're buying a lot of Splunk and get a number reflecting a lower volume rate, then it may sway you away from buying Splunk, or if you get a $/GB number which is low assuming you buy a lot of Splunk, then it may discourage you from buying Splunk. You need to talk to a rep to get the most accurate figures

[shawnfumowk]

@skoelpin, I apologize for my tone. Not sure why I assumed that you worked for Splunk.

I do realize there are various licensing options and some can be a better fit for different situations. Also, I wasn't really looking for hard numbers per se (was just using the current numbers for 2GB as an example). Sure talking to sales is not a bad idea, but really I just wanted some clarification on how one of their license types works (specifically a new regular Splunk Enterprise license paying annually) so I could keep it in mind.

I don't think you're being fair by saying the info can easily be found. I looked at their pricing page/faq, the online calculator, the blog post faq on pricing they did. I looked at other sites (some of which had comments from people that were also confused) and other answers on this site. I seriously spent at least an hour searching around everywhere and didn't find exactly what I was looking for.

I suspect the answer by reading through the lines but just wanted some confirmation. I thought maybe someone else could have a similar question in the future, so having the answer here could save a little time for them. That's all. Maybe I'm just dense but I feel like it should laid out clearer than it is.

They go so far as to have an interactive calculator with real prices/gig listed on it, but then don't spell out how that applies in practice (that I can find).

[skoelpin]

I'm not qualified to answer this since I don't work for Splunk, only Sales can give a definite answer. Here is a pricing calculator that Splunk makes publicly available. They have 3 core products which are Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Lite, and Splunk Cloud. If you wanted to keep costs low and have low index volumes and low amount of users, then Splunk Lite will be the answer.

According to this pricing calculator, a Splunk Lite term license for 2GB ingested daily will cost $1,650 annually with support included.

https://www.splunk.com/en_us/products/pricing/calculator.html#tabs/tab3