# Always\-on tracing for production and preview traffic **Published:** August 21, 2026 | **Authors:** Darpan Kakadia, Luka Hartwig, Luc Leray, z0oks, wits | **Contributors:** Amelia Charles --- With always-on tracing, you can now debug your real user requests without reproducing them. Always-on tracing continuously collects traces from your production and preview traffic. Unlike [session tracing](https://vercel.com/docs/tracing/session-tracing), which only captures requests from your own browser, it samples your live traffic. You control what's collected with sampling rules. Each rule sets a trace rate for an environment (All, Production, or Preview), optionally scoped to a path prefix like `/checkout`. Nothing is collected until you add a rule, so you pay only for what you choose to trace. ![Configuring sampling rules for a project.](//images.ctfassets.net/e5382hct74si/7iL9TQPotI39W02ICK9mpz/9b68e1ba87c770308631e37976e75cee/CleanShot_2026-07-22_at_11.08.59_2x.png) *Configuring sampling rules for a project.* Infrastructure and outbound fetch spans are captured automatically. To add framework and custom spans, instrument your app with `@vercel/otel`. To view a trace, open the Logs or run `vercel traces get `. Always-on tracing is is now in beta and available to teams on all plans. Tracing is priced at $0.50 per 1M span units. Traces follow your runtime log retention: 1 hour on Hobby, 1 day on Pro and 3 days on Enterprise. Get started by adding a rule in [Settings → Tracing](https://vercel.com/d?to=%2F%5Bteam%5D%2F%5Bproject%5D%2Fsettings%2Ftracing) or from the settings icon in [Logs](https://vercel.com/d?to=%2F%5Bteam%5D%2F%7E%2Flogs). Learn more in the [documentation](https://vercel.com/docs/tracing/always-on-tracing). --- 📚 **More updates:** [View all changelog entries](/changelog/sitemap.md) | [Blog](/blog/sitemap.md)