Threat Detection and Response (TDR) is no longer optional in 2025, it’s an essential part of protecting any organisation’s operations. For businesses navigating increasingly complex digital environments, TDR provides the visibility and agility needed to detect, investigate, and contain threats before they disrupt services. Recent incidents in the UK retail sector have shown how quickly such threats can escalate when left unchecked.
At its core, TDR delivers value in two critical ways:
- Technically, it supports early identification and containment of malicious activity across your organisation’s attack surface.
- Commercially, it helps reduce business risk by lowering the likelihood of downtime, regulatory penalties, and reputational harm.
Yet behind every effective TDR capability lies a fundamental, often overlooked component: log ingestion.
Why Log Ingestion Costs Are Rising
Modern Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Extended Detection and Response (XDR) platforms depend on processing large volumes of log data. This data (collected from endpoints, cloud services, network devices, and user activity) drives correlation, detection, and investigation. However, the financial impact of ingesting and storing this data can be significant.
Key Cost Drivers Include:
- Data Volume: Most platforms bill per gigabyte ingested, meaning costs naturally increase as your environment grows.
- Retention Requirements: Regulations often require logs to be stored for extended periods, increasing storage expenses.
- Processing Complexity: Real-time analytics, enrichment, and correlation all require compute resources.
Hidden Costs in Cloud-Based SIEM/XDR Platforms
While cloud-native SIEM and XDR solutions offer flexibility and scalability, their consumption-based pricing can make the total cost of ownership less transparent. Some of the most common hidden costs are:
- Unexpected Data Spikes: Incidents or misconfigurations can cause sudden surges in log volume, resulting in unplanned charges.
- Long-Term Retention Fees: After the initial retention window—typically between 30 and 90 days—storage costs often rise quickly.
- Premium Capabilities: Features such as machine learning, advanced parsing, or third-party integrations may carry additional fees.
Our recent webinar, Optimising Log Ingestion Costs, highlights how parsing inefficiencies and a lack of filtering can inflate ingestion volumes unnecessarily — a key contributor to hidden costs.
Strategic Approaches to Cost Optimisation
To balance effective detection with financial sustainability, organisations can adopt a more deliberate approach to log ingestion.
1. Focus on High-Value Data
Not all logs provide the same level of insight. Prioritise collecting logs that:
- Originate from systems most likely to be targeted, such as identity providers, firewalls, and cloud workloads.
- Offer high signal-to-noise ratios.
- Support detection use cases relevant to your risk profile.
2. Filter Before You Ingest
Applying pre-ingestion filtering and custom parsing rules can reduce data volumes without compromising visibility. For example:
- Remove redundant or excessively verbose logs.
- Normalise data closer to the source.
- Extract only the fields relevant to detection and response.
3. Align Retention with Requirements
Rather than defaulting to indefinite storage:
- Map retention policies to compliance obligations.
- Use tiered storage for older data.
- Consider cost-efficient storage options such as Azure Data Explorer or Amazon S3.
Understanding Cloud-Native Pricing Models
Most cloud-native platforms follow a pay-as-you-go model. Being familiar with the main pricing components helps avoid surprises:
| Pricing Component | Description |
| Ingestion Charges | Billed per gigabyte ingested; rates vary by provider |
| Retention Costs | Initial free period (often up to 90 days); fees after that |
| Commitment Tiers | Discounts available for committing to minimum volumes |
| Overage Penalties | Higher rates applied when usage exceeds agreed thresholds |
Having clarity around these mechanics makes it easier to forecast costs and plan budgets.
Final Thoughts: From Cost Centre to Strategic Enabler
Log ingestion doesn’t have to be viewed solely as a cost centre. It is a critical enabler of proactive defence. By taking a thoughtful, risk-aligned approach, security leaders can ensure log data supports both protection and predictability.
By filtering intelligently, focusing on high-value data, and understanding how pricing works, you can make sure your investments in TDR deliver measurable outcomes – without unexpected costs.
At e2e-assure, we discuss Log Ingestion as a key part of our offering. Other blogs in the series include;
