Everything ICS sales reps need to understand, position, and sell Grafana Cloud to customers in Indonesia and across Southeast Asia
Prepared September 2026 by Grafana Labs Channel Sales
Grafana Labs is the company behind the world's most widely used open-source observability stack. We build software that helps engineering teams monitor, visualize, and understand their systems — from infrastructure to applications to business data.
Our platform is used everywhere from NASA to power grids to global banks, with over 10,000 paying customers and one of the fastest-growing observability platforms in the market.
Grafana Labs has been named a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Observability Platforms for three consecutive years (2024, 2025, 2026). In 2025 and 2026, Grafana was positioned furthest in Completeness of Vision — reflecting our leadership in innovation, open standards, and AI-driven observability.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its publications. The Magic Quadrant reflects Gartner's opinion.
Grafana Cloud launched in the AWS Asia Pacific (Jakarta) region (ap-southeast-3) in November 2024 — making it the first observability platform hosted specifically in that AWS region. Indonesian customers can store and process their data locally.
| Location | Cloud Provider | Region Code | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇮🇩 Indonesia | AWS | ap-southeast-3 | Self-Serve & AWS Marketplace |
| 🇸🇬 Singapore | AWS / GCP | ap-southeast-1 | Self-Serve, AWS & GCP Marketplace |
| 🇦🇺 Australia | AWS / GCP | ap-southeast-2 | Self-Serve, AWS & GCP Marketplace |
| 🇮🇳 India | AWS / GCP | ap-south-1 | Self-Serve, AWS & GCP Marketplace |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | AWS | ap-northeast-1 | Self-Serve & AWS Marketplace |
Grafana Cloud is a fully managed (SaaS), open, and composable observability platform. It enables teams to collect, correlate, and act on all their operational data — metrics, logs, traces, profiles, and more — from a single platform.
Powered by Grafana Labs' open-source projects — Grafana (visualization), Loki (logs), Mimir (metrics), and Tempo (traces) — it supports 180+ data sources and 100+ pre-built solutions. Customers don't have to rip and replace — Grafana connects to what they already have.
Loki (Logs) · Grafana (Visualization) · Tempo (Traces) · Mimir (Metrics) — plus k6 (load testing), Alloy (agent), Pyroscope (profiling), Faro (frontend), OnCall + IRM (incident response). All open-source foundations, managed as a unified cloud service.
The world's most popular open-source dashboard platform. 180+ data source plugins. Unified alerting across all data. AI Assistant for natural-language querying and dashboard creation.
Scalable Prometheus-compatible metrics backend. 13-month retention included on Pro tier. Adaptive Metrics automatically trims unused series to reduce cost.
Label-indexed log aggregation — cheaper than full-text indexing at scale. LogQL query language. Adaptive Logs for automatic cost optimization.
Distributed tracing backend. OTel-native. TraceQL for advanced querying. Adaptive Traces for intelligent tail-sampling. No proprietary SDK required.
Full APM for distributed systems. Automatic entity discovery, 100+ contextual dashboards, AI-guided root cause analysis. Built on OpenTelemetry.
Single Helm chart deployment. Pre-built dashboards for clusters, nodes, pods, and workloads. Consumption-priced — scaling pods down scales the bill down.
Includes Grafana OnCall and Grafana Incident. Unified alerting → routing → on-call → incident management. $20/active user (vs. $30/seat for Datadog).
Open-source load testing tool, now fully integrated into Grafana Cloud. Script once, use for load testing in CI/CD and synthetic monitoring in production.
Real User Monitoring (RUM) built on the open-source Faro SDK. Web Vitals, error tracking, session-to-trace correlation. OTel-native, no proprietary agent.
Always-on profiling for Go, Python, Java, Rust, and more. eBPF auto-instrumentation via Alloy — zero code changes. Flame graph AI for automatic interpretation.
AI that builds dashboards from screenshots, queries data in natural language, powers automated incident investigations, and interprets flame graphs. Works across ALL connected data sources.
Automatically optimizes telemetry across metrics, logs, traces, and profiles — trimming what you don't need so you only pay for what matters. Unique to Grafana.
These are the five things that make Grafana different from every other observability vendor. When you talk to a customer, find out which of these five matters most to them — then lead with that one.
Important rule: If none of these five resonate with the customer, Grafana is probably not the right fit. That is okay — it is better to walk away early than waste time on a deal that will not close.
This is the #1 reason customers choose Grafana — and they say it without us asking.
What does this mean in practice?
"Datadog does not treat customers like partners at all, and Grafana totally does."
"I'm feeling the Grafana hug — it's real."
Many companies have been burned by vendors who show up during the sale and then disappear. Grafana is different. We stay involved after the deal closes because our business model depends on customers using the product — not just buying it.
People used to say "Grafana is powerful but hard to learn." That is no longer true. Our AI — called Grafana Assistant — makes it easy for anyone to get started.
Here is what Grafana Assistant can do:
"We built a dashboard by hand over two months. Then we rebuilt the same thing with AI Assistant in minutes."
AI removes the learning curve. New users can be productive on day one. This is especially important for teams that do not have deep Grafana experience — the AI helps them build dashboards, write queries, and find problems faster.
Grafana is built on open-source technology and open standards like OpenTelemetry (OTel) and Prometheus. This means:
"Instrument once with OTel and you own that instrumentation forever — if you ever leave Grafana, your telemetry comes with you. That is not true of a proprietary agent."
"We have an aversion to vendor lock-in... we don't perceive Grafana as that type of vendor, unlike Datadog."
Many customers have been trapped by vendors before. They signed a contract, built everything on a proprietary platform, and then found it very expensive and difficult to leave. Grafana removes that risk completely. For companies that follow standards like ISO or COBIT, open standards alignment is often a hard requirement.
Some companies try to build their own observability stack by combining separate tools — one tool for metrics, another for logs, another for traces. This approach has big problems:
Grafana Cloud gives you everything in one platform: metrics, logs, traces, profiling, alerting, incident response, load testing, and frontend monitoring. All connected. All correlated. All managed by Grafana — so your team does not have to manage it.
"ClickHouse is a database you have to build a house on top of. Grafana is a fully furnished, move-in-ready house."
Customers want to solve problems, not build infrastructure. Grafana Cloud is ready to use immediately. Almost 1,000 engineers at Grafana Labs are building and improving the platform every day — that is a team your customer does not have to hire.
This is the reason that comes up in almost every competitive deal. Customers are tired of unpredictable bills from Datadog, Splunk, and New Relic.
The problem with competitors:
How Grafana is different:
"Datadog's billing model forced us to cut data that directly hurt our ability to detect and fix problems."
The Trade Desk calls Adaptive Telemetry the "Save Money button."
For any customer comparing Grafana vs. Datadog, cost is usually the biggest factor. Grafana's pricing is simple and predictable. There are no surprise charges. And Adaptive Telemetry actively reduces waste — something no other vendor can do across all four signal types (metrics, logs, traces, profiles).
Customers on Datadog, Splunk, or New Relic face cost overruns of 40–80%. Bills balloon with custom metrics, log indexing, and ephemeral K8s workloads.
Consumption-based pricing + Adaptive Telemetry across all signals. Cost calculator before you commit. No per-host fees.
Proprietary agents and data formats trap customers with one vendor. Migrating away means re-instrumenting every service — a multi-month project.
OTel-native from day one. Open-source foundations. Your instrumentation is portable. Change backends without re-instrumenting.
Teams running 3–5+ monitoring tools can't correlate signals during incidents. Context-switching between tools slows MTTR.
180+ data source integrations in a single pane. Native correlation between metrics, logs, traces, and profiles. Knowledge Graph connects entities across the stack.
Engineers spend hours manually correlating data across tools during incidents. Senior engineers become bottlenecks.
AI-powered Investigations builds hypotheses before you even open your laptop. Knowledge Graph maps system dependencies. MTTR reductions of 50–60% documented.
As infrastructure grows, observability costs grow faster. Teams start "data dieting" — cutting retention and disabling features.
Adaptive Telemetry lets you ingest MORE while paying LESS. Proven at customers managing 20M+ active series and 100TB+ logs.
Regulations in Indonesia, India, and other markets require local data storage. Many platforms only offer US/EU regions.
27 regions globally including Jakarta (AWS ap-southeast-3). BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) for maximum control. ISO compliance-ready.
| ICP Match | Approach |
|---|---|
| 4–5 criteria | High priority — personalize deeply, invest in PoV |
| 2–3 criteria | Medium priority — qualify further before investing |
| 0–1 criteria | Low priority — may not resonate; consider deprioritizing |
These companies already trust the brand. The conversation starts from credibility, not education.
Triage costs are high when critical apps break. ROI is tangible and quantifiable.
Downtime has direct, measurable revenue impact — makes the business case easy.
They don't need to be sold on observability — just on why Grafana is better.
Complexity drives cost. Grafana's TCO savings story is strongest here.
| Environment | Why Grafana Fits | Key Products |
|---|---|---|
| Kubernetes & Microservices | Consumption pricing aligns with ephemeral workloads. Single Helm chart deployment. No per-container billing penalties. | K8s Monitoring, Metrics, Logs, App O11y |
| Multi-Cloud / Hybrid | 180+ data sources. Connect AWS, Azure, GCP, on-prem in one pane. No forced migration. | Grafana, Cloud Provider O11y, Metrics |
| Datadog / Splunk Displacement | Cost savings of 40–60%. No lock-in. OTel migration path. Big tent: visualize Datadog data during transition. | Full LGTM+ stack |
| Industrial IoT & Mining | High-volume time-series data. Lightweight agent (Alloy) for bandwidth-constrained sites. Pre-built industrial dashboards. | Metrics, Logs, Alerting, Alloy |
| Financial Services & Banking | Mission-critical uptime. Compliance-ready. Sub-minute alerting. Real-time fraud/transaction monitoring. | App O11y, IRM, Metrics, Frontend O11y |
| E-Commerce & Digital | Revenue = uptime. RUM for user experience. Load testing with k6. Synthetic monitoring for checkout flows. | Frontend O11y, k6, Synthetics, App O11y |
| Telco & ISP | Massive scale metrics. Network device monitoring. SLA-driven alerting. Multi-site infrastructure. | Metrics, Logs, IRM, Alerting |
| Government & SOEs | Jakarta region for data residency. AWS Marketplace for procurement. Open standards for audit compliance. | Full stack + BYOC option |
| Tier | Price | Key Inclusions | Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free (Forever Free) | $0 | 10K metrics series, 50GB logs, 50GB traces, 50GB profiles, 3 users, 14-day retention | Community |
| Pro | From $19/mo + usage | Pay-as-you-go above Free limits. 13-month metrics retention. 30-day logs/traces. Unlimited alerts & dashboards. | 8×5 email, 99.5% SLA |
| Enterprise | From $25,000/yr commit | Volume pricing. Custom retention. BYOC option. 20+ enterprise plugins. SSO/SAML. Audit logs. | Premium, custom SLAs |
Key selling points: The Free tier is genuinely free — forever, no credit card. It's the best way to get a customer started with zero risk. Pro is pay-as-you-go with no minimums. Enterprise starts at $25K/yr for volume discounts. All tiers include Adaptive Telemetry.
| Objection | How to Respond |
|---|---|
| "Grafana is hard to set up" | This was true 3 years ago. Today, Grafana Assistant builds dashboards from screenshots in minutes. Pre-built integrations for 100+ services. McDonald's rebuilt a 2-month manual dashboard in minutes with AI. Offer guided onboarding + PoV support. |
| "Datadog is easier / more polished" | Concede this honestly — Datadog's day-one UX is genuinely good. But ask: "Is ease of day-one setup worth 40–80% cost overruns? And with Grafana's AI Assistant, the gap is closing fast." Pair every deal with an enablement plan. |
| "We already have Datadog / Splunk" | Grafana is "big tent" — it can visualize Datadog data natively via the Datadog data source plugin. Start by running both in parallel during a migration. No rip-and-replace required. |
| "Is Grafana enterprise-ready?" | 10,000+ paying customers. Gartner MQ Leader 3 years running. Trusted by NASA, Dell, PayPal, Shopify, JP Morgan. This is not a startup — it's the market leader in observability. |
| "We need data in Indonesia" | Grafana Cloud has a dedicated Jakarta region (AWS ap-southeast-3) — the first observability platform in that region. Data stays in-country. Available via AWS Marketplace. |
| "Open source = no support" | Grafana Cloud is fully managed SaaS with 99.5% SLA (Pro) and premium support with custom SLAs (Enterprise). ~1,000 engineers building and maintaining the platform. Open source is the foundation, not the support model. |
| "We can build this ourselves" | You can — but should you? "ClickHouse is a database you have to build a house on top of. Grafana is a fully furnished, move-in-ready house." The real cost of DIY is engineering time that should go to product, not infrastructure. |
| Resource | Link |
|---|---|
| Grafana Cloud — Main Page | grafana.com/products/cloud |
| Grafana Cloud — Pricing | grafana.com/pricing |
| Gartner Magic Quadrant Report (ungated) | grafana.com/analyst-reports/gartner-mq |
| Regional Availability (all 27 regions) | grafana.com/docs/regional-availability |
| Jakarta Region Announcement | grafana.com/blog/grafana-cloud-indonesia |
| Grafana vs Datadog Comparison | grafana.com/compare/grafana-vs-datadog |
| Customer Case Studies | grafana.com/success |
| AWS Marketplace Listing | AWS Marketplace — Grafana Labs |
| Partner Portal | partners.grafana.com |
| Free Tier Sign-Up | grafana.com/sign-up |