RUM vs Error Monitoring Cost 2026
Error monitoring tools (Sentry, Bugsnag, Rollbar, Raygun Errors) capture JavaScript exceptions and crashes. RUM tools that include error capture sit in the same procurement conversation but use different pricing meters.
What error monitoring captures
Error monitoring tools, Sentry being the dominant player, plus Bugsnag, Rollbar, Raygun, Honeybadger, capture uncaught exceptions, promise rejections, console errors, network failures, and crash reports. They're paid per event (per error captured) rather than per session.
The product is built around the developer workflow: source-map upload, stack-trace symbolisation, release-aware grouping (errors from version 1.4.2 grouped together), context capture (browser, OS, user, custom tags), and integration with issue trackers (GitHub, Jira, Linear) and chat (Slack, Teams, PagerDuty).
RUM vendors that include error monitoring
- Datadog RUM — captures errors as one of many event types per session.
- New Relic Browser — full JavaScript error capture with stack traces.
- Sentry — error-monitoring-first; performance and replay were added later.
- Raygun — bundles performance + errors at every tier.
- LogRocket — errors captured alongside replay.
- Atatus — errors included in browser monitoring tier.
RUM vendors that do NOT include error monitoring
- SpeedCurve — performance-only.
- Cloudflare Web Analytics — Core Web Vitals only.
- Catchpoint — performance + synthetic, no JavaScript error capture.
- Grafana Faro — captures errors but workflow tooling is bring-your-own.
Cost comparison
A typical workload: 1 million sessions/month, ~3% of sessions producing at least one error (so ~30,000 error events/month).
| Tool | Pricing meter | Monthly cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sentry standalone errors | Per event | $26-$200 | Team tier covers most |
| Bugsnag standalone | Per event | $59-$249 | Lite/Standard/Enterprise tiers |
| Rollbar standalone | Per event | $31-$179 | Essentials/Advanced |
| RUM with errors bundled | Per session | Already paid for | Datadog, Sentry, Raygun, etc. |
| RUM without errors | Per session | $90+ + $26-249 add-on | SpeedCurve + Sentry/Bugsnag |
When to add a separate error monitor
- Your RUM tool doesn't include errors (SpeedCurve, Cloudflare, Catchpoint).
- You need stronger error-workflow tooling than your RUM tool provides (Sentry's integrations are deeper than Datadog RUM's).
- You have backend (server-side) error monitoring needs that benefit from a single tool spanning front-end and back-end (Sentry, Bugsnag, Rollbar all do this).
When NOT to add a separate error monitor
- Your RUM tool already captures errors (most do).
- You have a small team that doesn't need the workflow polish.
- Error volume is low enough that errors-in-RUM is operationally sufficient.