Managing Domo Credits: Best Practices for Smarter Governance

At Domo, we believe in providing products that let you innovate without limits. That’s why we designed our flexible, credit-based pricing model to give you access to all our features for an unlimited number of users. Instead of paying per seat, your contract comes with credits that you can use for any part of our technology.  

Managing your Domo costs well starts with understanding how your Domo credits are used. This guide provides practical tips and best practices to help you monitor, manage, and optimize your credit usage for maximum ROI.

Learn the basics in Domo’s Knowledge Base

Before digging into optimization, it’s important to understand the fundamentals. Think of Domo credits as the currency that fuels everything you do with our products. Every usage activity, maybe a DataSet refresh or a scheduled report automation, translates into credits, giving you full control over how and where value is created.  

For a complete overview of what credits are and how they’re consumed, our Knowledge Base is your best resource. We recommend starting with the Consumption and Credits Reference Guide for a detailed explanation of the credit system. Knowing how they work together is the first step toward better Domo usage tracking.

How to actively monitor your credit usage

Proactive monitoring is the foundation of good governance. Domo gives you two powerful, built-in tools for a transparent view of your credit consumption.

Your command center: The Credit Utilization interface

Your primary tool for Domo credit monitoring is the Credit Utilization interface, located in the Admin Settings. Note that you’ll need the grant “View Credit Reports” to access the interface; for Admin users, it’s automatically enabled.

The interface is broken down into four key tabs:

• Used Credits: A summary of your used credits over time.   ‍
• Credit Balance: A real-time view of your estimated balance. ‍
• Subscription: An overview of your contract and credit allocation. ‍
• Rate Card: A list of credit rates for different Domo features.

For a deeper dive: The Credit Usage DomoStats Report

For granular analysis, the Credit Usage DomoStats Report provides raw, detailed data on consumption. You can connect this data directly to Domo to build custom dashboards and alerts that identify exactly what is driving usage, including:

• DataSet usage
• Card and dashboard usage
• User behavior

These details can help you optimize Domo performance from the ground up. For example, maybe you find a 6-billion-row DataSet that is rarely used but refreshes hourly. That’s a major credit train, and DomoStats will show you this.  

Top 11 best practices for optimizing credit consumption

Data and ETL best practices

Monitoring your credit usage is a great start, but true optimization happens when you implement best practices across your data and ETL processes. These strategies ensure your Domo environment runs efficiently, saving credits and maximizing the value you get from your data.

1. Right-size your refresh cadences

One of the quickest ways to optimize credit usage is by intelligently managing how often your data refreshes. Before setting your data to update every 15 minutes, ask yourself: Does your business truly need this data to be that fresh? For many DataSets, shifting to hourly, daily, or even less frequent updates can reduce credit consumption without affecting key business decisions. It’s all about aligning your refresh schedules with your actual business needs.

2. Optimize your data transformations

The way you transform data can impact your credit usage. For complex or heavy logic, consider pushing these transformations upstream to your ETL processes or directly to your data warehouse. This can offload processing from Domo, making your DataFlows more efficient.  

Also, look for opportunities to consolidate multiple similar DataFlows into a shared, curated DataSet. This reduces redundant processing and helps you use your data more effectively across your organization.

3. Eliminate data redundancy

Having multiple copies of large DataSets spread across different teams is a common practice, but it can be credit-intensive. Instead, embrace strategies like Row-Level Security (RLS) or DataSet Views, and establish “golden” shared DataSets. This allows various teams to access the same authoritative data securely and efficiently, preventing unnecessary duplication and the associated credit costs.

4. Embrace incremental updates

Moving away from full reloads for large DataSets and instead adopting partitioning and incremental load strategies can dramatically reduce credit consumption. By only processing new or changed rows, you minimize the computational load and associated credits, leading to a much more efficient data pipeline.

Content lifecycle and dashboard governance best practices

Beyond data processing, effective management of your content is crucial for optimizing your credit consumption. A well-defined content lifecycle ensures that only valuable, active content consumes your precious resources.

5. Set up lifecycle stages

Implement clear lifecycle stages for all your Domo content:

• Experimental: This is your creator sandbox, where new ideas are built and tested. Content here is typically uncertified and may not be optimized for production. ‍
• In Review: Content moves here for a regular, perhaps quarterly, review cycle to assess its value and performance. ‍
• Certified: This is your approved, monitored, and optimized content, ready for broad consumption and trusted by the business. ‍
• Archived: Content that’s no longer needed or actively used should be archived. This removes its credit impact, keeping your resources focused on active, valuable assets.

6. Have fewer, deeper dashboards

Resist the urge to create numerous overlapping dashboard pages. Instead, aim for fewer, deeper dashboards that feature summary views with intelligent drill paths. Each page in Domo drives queries, so consolidating 20 overlapping pages into a handful of well-designed dashboards can lead to credit savings.

7. Design for efficiency

When creating cards and dashboards, be mindful of where calculations occur. Use card-level calculations sparingly; central ETL processes are typically far more efficient for data transformations. Design with performance and credit efficiency in mind from the outset.

8. Develop templates and standards

Empower your creators by providing certified templates and standardized processes. This not only speeds up content creation but also ensures that new dashboards and reports are built efficiently and in accordance with your governance best practices.

9. Host quarterly content reviews

Regularly auditing your Domo content is essential. Identify what’s certified, what’s become stale, and what should be archived. This prevents accumulating “zombie” content—assets that consume credits without providing current value, keeping your Domo environment lean and effective.

Operational guardrails and preventative best practices

Because prevention is cheaper than cleanup, we suggest building controls before problems compound. By establishing strong operational guardrails, you can proactively manage credit consumption and maintain a high-performing Domo environment.

10. Set up role and permission controls

Implement granular role and permission controls to manage who can perform credit-intensive actions. Limit the ability to create large DataSets and heavy connectors to trained, experienced users. Similarly, control who has the authority to schedule high-frequency refreshes. Clearly separating creator and consumer roles helps ensure that powerful capabilities are used responsibly.

11. Clarify approval patterns

Establish clear approval patterns for significant data operations. Require review for enterprise-scale DataSets, especially those exceeding certain size or frequency thresholds. Consider gating DataSets above specific row counts or refresh frequencies to ensure they meet performance and credit-efficiency standards.  

Also, try mandating reviews for notebooks or workflows that will run on large data volumes before they are scheduled for execution.

Make the most of your Domo investment

Managing your Domo credits is about visibility and proactive optimization. By using the tools Domo provides and following these best practices, you can stay in full control of your investment and focus on what matters most: using data to move your business forward.

To learn more about our flexible pricing, read what customers say about our credit-based model.