diff --git a/rust/capture/src/limiters/redis.rs b/rust/capture/src/limiters/redis.rs
index c34d93ca1c37c..132f09df77513 100644
--- a/rust/capture/src/limiters/redis.rs
+++ b/rust/capture/src/limiters/redis.rs
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ use crate::redis::Client;
 use thiserror::Error;
 use time::{Duration, OffsetDateTime};
 use tokio::sync::RwLock;
+use tracing::instrument;
 
 // todo: fetch from env
 const QUOTA_LIMITER_CACHE_KEY: &str = "@posthog/quota-limits/";
@@ -89,6 +90,7 @@ impl RedisLimiter {
         })
     }
 
+    #[instrument(skip_all)]
     async fn fetch_limited(
         client: &Arc<dyn Client + Send + Sync>,
         key_prefix: &str,
@@ -101,6 +103,7 @@ impl RedisLimiter {
             .await
     }
 
+    #[instrument(skip_all, fields(key = key))]
     pub async fn is_limited(&self, key: &str, resource: QuotaResource) -> bool {
         // hold the read lock to clone it, very briefly. clone is ok because it's very small 🤏
         // rwlock can have many readers, but one writer. the writer will wait in a queue with all
@@ -123,6 +126,9 @@ impl RedisLimiter {
             let mut updated = self.updated.write().await;
             *updated = OffsetDateTime::now_utc();
 
+            let span = tracing::debug_span!("updating billing cache from redis");
+            let _span = span.enter();
+
             // a few requests might end up in here concurrently, but I don't think a few extra will
             // be a big problem. If it is, we can rework the concurrency a bit.
             // On prod atm we call this around 15 times per second at peak times, and it usually
diff --git a/rust/capture/src/sinks/kafka.rs b/rust/capture/src/sinks/kafka.rs
index 6930a39b9d2fc..2e008a900ccd6 100644
--- a/rust/capture/src/sinks/kafka.rs
+++ b/rust/capture/src/sinks/kafka.rs
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ use rdkafka::util::Timeout;
 use rdkafka::ClientConfig;
 use tokio::task::JoinSet;
 use tracing::log::{debug, error, info};
+use tracing::{info_span, instrument, Instrument};
 
 use crate::api::{CaptureError, DataType, ProcessedEvent};
 use crate::config::KafkaConfig;
@@ -279,12 +280,16 @@ impl KafkaSink {
 
 #[async_trait]
 impl Event for KafkaSink {
+    #[instrument(skip_all)]
     async fn send(&self, event: ProcessedEvent) -> Result<(), CaptureError> {
         let ack = self.kafka_send(event).await?;
         histogram!("capture_event_batch_size").record(1.0);
-        Self::process_ack(ack).await
+        Self::process_ack(ack)
+            .instrument(info_span!("ack_wait_one"))
+            .await
     }
 
+    #[instrument(skip_all)]
     async fn send_batch(&self, events: Vec<ProcessedEvent>) -> Result<(), CaptureError> {
         let mut set = JoinSet::new();
         let batch_size = events.len();
@@ -314,6 +319,7 @@ impl Event for KafkaSink {
             }
             Ok(())
         }
+        .instrument(info_span!("ack_wait_many"))
         .await?;
 
         histogram!("capture_event_batch_size").record(batch_size as f64);
diff --git a/rust/capture/src/sinks/print.rs b/rust/capture/src/sinks/print.rs
index 02b784248725b..7845a3d039b56 100644
--- a/rust/capture/src/sinks/print.rs
+++ b/rust/capture/src/sinks/print.rs
@@ -16,6 +16,9 @@ impl Event for PrintSink {
         Ok(())
     }
     async fn send_batch(&self, events: Vec<ProcessedEvent>) -> Result<(), CaptureError> {
+        let span = tracing::span!(tracing::Level::INFO, "batch of events");
+        let _enter = span.enter();
+
         histogram!("capture_event_batch_size").record(events.len() as f64);
         counter!("capture_events_ingested_total").increment(events.len() as u64);
         for event in events {
diff --git a/rust/capture/src/v0_endpoint.rs b/rust/capture/src/v0_endpoint.rs
index 7f5f949114fb4..03b550cd9cdaf 100644
--- a/rust/capture/src/v0_endpoint.rs
+++ b/rust/capture/src/v0_endpoint.rs
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ use base64::Engine;
 use metrics::counter;
 use serde_json::json;
 use serde_json::Value;
+use tracing::instrument;
 
 use crate::limiters::redis::QuotaResource;
 use crate::prometheus::report_dropped_events;
@@ -132,6 +133,20 @@ async fn handle_common(
     Ok((context, events))
 }
 
+#[instrument(
+    skip_all,
+    fields(
+        path,
+        token,
+        batch_size,
+        user_agent,
+        content_encoding,
+        content_type,
+        version,
+        compression,
+        historical_migration
+    )
+)]
 #[debug_handler]
 pub async fn event(
     state: State<router::State>,
@@ -188,6 +203,20 @@ pub async fn event(
     }
 }
 
+#[instrument(
+    skip_all,
+    fields(
+        path,
+        token,
+        batch_size,
+        user_agent,
+        content_encoding,
+        content_type,
+        version,
+        compression,
+        historical_migration
+    )
+)]
 #[debug_handler]
 pub async fn recording(
     state: State<router::State>,
@@ -251,6 +280,7 @@ pub async fn options() -> Result<Json<CaptureResponse>, CaptureError> {
     }))
 }
 
+#[instrument(skip_all)]
 pub fn process_single_event(
     event: &RawEvent,
     context: &ProcessingContext,
@@ -285,6 +315,7 @@ pub fn process_single_event(
     })
 }
 
+#[instrument(skip_all, fields(events = events.len()))]
 pub async fn process_events<'a>(
     sink: Arc<dyn sinks::Event + Send + Sync>,
     events: &'a [RawEvent],
@@ -304,10 +335,11 @@ pub async fn process_events<'a>(
     }
 }
 
-pub async fn process_replay_events(
+#[instrument(skip_all, fields(events = events.len()))]
+pub async fn process_replay_events<'a>(
     sink: Arc<dyn sinks::Event + Send + Sync>,
     mut events: Vec<RawEvent>,
-    context: &ProcessingContext,
+    context: &'a ProcessingContext,
 ) -> Result<(), CaptureError> {
     // Grab metadata about the whole batch from the first event before
     // we drop all the events as we rip out the snapshot data
diff --git a/rust/capture/src/v0_request.rs b/rust/capture/src/v0_request.rs
index 8211f9d880d84..d25a1280b7538 100644
--- a/rust/capture/src/v0_request.rs
+++ b/rust/capture/src/v0_request.rs
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ use serde::{Deserialize, Deserializer, Serialize};
 use serde_json::Value;
 use time::format_description::well_known::Iso8601;
 use time::OffsetDateTime;
+use tracing::instrument;
 use uuid::Uuid;
 
 use crate::api::CaptureError;
@@ -123,6 +124,7 @@ impl RawRequest {
     /// fail due to it being missing when the body is compressed.
     /// Instead of trusting the parameter, we peek at the payload's first three bytes to
     /// detect gzip, fallback to uncompressed utf8 otherwise.
+    #[instrument(skip_all)]
     pub fn from_bytes(bytes: Bytes, limit: usize) -> Result<RawRequest, CaptureError> {
         tracing::debug!(len = bytes.len(), "decoding new event");
 
@@ -214,6 +216,7 @@ impl RawRequest {
     }
 }
 
+#[instrument(skip_all, fields(events = events.len()))]
 pub fn extract_token(events: &[RawEvent]) -> Result<String, CaptureError> {
     let distinct_tokens: HashSet<Option<String>> = HashSet::from_iter(
         events