diff --git a/cmd/autothrottle/main.go b/cmd/autothrottle/main.go
index 7399e807..bd5e28e2 100644
--- a/cmd/autothrottle/main.go
+++ b/cmd/autothrottle/main.go
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ var (
 		AppKey           string
 		NetworkTXQuery   string
 		BrokerIDTag      string
+		InstanceTypeTag  string
 		MetricsWindow    int
 		ZKAddr           string
 		ZKPrefix         string
@@ -51,6 +52,7 @@ func init() {
 	flag.StringVar(&Config.AppKey, "app-key", "", "Datadog app key")
 	flag.StringVar(&Config.NetworkTXQuery, "net-tx-query", "avg:system.net.bytes_sent{service:kafka} by {host}", "Datadog query for broker outbound bandwidth by host")
 	flag.StringVar(&Config.BrokerIDTag, "broker-id-tag", "broker_id", "Datadog host tag for broker ID")
+	flag.StringVar(&Config.InstanceTypeTag, "instance-type-tag", "instance-type", "Datadog instance-type tag for broker")
 	flag.IntVar(&Config.MetricsWindow, "metrics-window", 120, "Time span of metrics required (seconds)")
 	flag.StringVar(&Config.ZKAddr, "zk-addr", "localhost:2181", "ZooKeeper connect string (for broker metadata or rebuild-topic lookups)")
 	flag.StringVar(&Config.ZKPrefix, "zk-prefix", "", "ZooKeeper namespace prefix")
@@ -106,11 +108,12 @@ func main() {
 
 	// Init a Kafka metrics fetcher.
 	km, err := datadog.NewHandler(&datadog.Config{
-		APIKey:         Config.APIKey,
-		AppKey:         Config.AppKey,
-		NetworkTXQuery: Config.NetworkTXQuery,
-		BrokerIDTag:    Config.BrokerIDTag,
-		MetricsWindow:  Config.MetricsWindow,
+		APIKey:          Config.APIKey,
+		AppKey:          Config.AppKey,
+		NetworkTXQuery:  Config.NetworkTXQuery,
+		BrokerIDTag:     Config.BrokerIDTag,
+		InstanceTypeTag: Config.InstanceTypeTag,
+		MetricsWindow:   Config.MetricsWindow,
 	})
 	if err != nil {
 		log.Fatal(err)
diff --git a/kafkametrics/datadog/datadog.go b/kafkametrics/datadog/datadog.go
index 95ed21d8..002c0b57 100644
--- a/kafkametrics/datadog/datadog.go
+++ b/kafkametrics/datadog/datadog.go
@@ -27,6 +27,9 @@ type Config struct {
 	// BrokerIDTag is the host tag name
 	// for Kafka broker IDs.
 	BrokerIDTag string
+	// InstanceTypeTag is the instance type tag name
+	// for Kafka broker Instance.
+	InstanceTypeTag string
 	// MetricsWindow specifies the window size of
 	// timeseries data to evaluate in seconds.
 	// All values for the window are averaged.
@@ -34,13 +37,14 @@ type Config struct {
 }
 
 type ddHandler struct {
-	c             *dd.Client
-	netTXQuery    string
-	brokerIDTag   string
-	metricsWindow int
-	tagCache      map[string][]string
-	keysRegex     *regexp.Regexp
-	redactionSub  []byte
+	c               *dd.Client
+	netTXQuery      string
+	brokerIDTag     string
+	instanceTypeTag string
+	metricsWindow   int
+	tagCache        map[string][]string
+	keysRegex       *regexp.Regexp
+	redactionSub    []byte
 }
 
 // NewHandler takes a *Config and
@@ -57,12 +61,13 @@ func NewHandler(c *Config) (kafkametrics.Handler, error) {
 	keysRegex := regexp.MustCompile(fmt.Sprintf("%s|%s", c.APIKey, c.AppKey))
 
 	h := &ddHandler{
-		netTXQuery:    createNetTXQuery(c),
-		metricsWindow: c.MetricsWindow,
-		brokerIDTag:   c.BrokerIDTag,
-		tagCache:      make(map[string][]string),
-		keysRegex:     keysRegex,
-		redactionSub:  []byte("xxx"),
+		netTXQuery:      createNetTXQuery(c),
+		metricsWindow:   c.MetricsWindow,
+		brokerIDTag:     c.BrokerIDTag,
+		instanceTypeTag: c.InstanceTypeTag,
+		tagCache:        make(map[string][]string),
+		keysRegex:       keysRegex,
+		redactionSub:    []byte("xxx"),
 	}
 
 	client := dd.NewClient(c.APIKey, c.AppKey)
diff --git a/kafkametrics/datadog/datadog_test.go b/kafkametrics/datadog/datadog_test.go
index d5e1637d..bf0921b4 100644
--- a/kafkametrics/datadog/datadog_test.go
+++ b/kafkametrics/datadog/datadog_test.go
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ func TestPopulateFromTagMap(t *testing.T) {
 
 	// Test with complete input.
 	tagMap := mockTagMap()
-	err := populateFromTagMap(b, map[string][]string{}, tagMap, "broker_id")
+	err := populateFromTagMap(b, map[string][]string{}, tagMap, "broker_id", "instance-type")
 	if err != nil {
 		t.Errorf("Unexpected error: %s\n", err)
 	}
@@ -119,7 +119,7 @@ func TestPopulateFromTagMap(t *testing.T) {
 
 	// Test with incomplete input.
 	tagMap[rndBroker] = tagMap[rndBroker][1:]
-	err = populateFromTagMap(b, map[string][]string{}, tagMap, "broker_id")
+	err = populateFromTagMap(b, map[string][]string{}, tagMap, "broker_id", "instance-type")
 	if err == nil {
 		t.Errorf("Expected error, got nil")
 	}
diff --git a/kafkametrics/datadog/helpers.go b/kafkametrics/datadog/helpers.go
index b3e1edc5..64159d15 100644
--- a/kafkametrics/datadog/helpers.go
+++ b/kafkametrics/datadog/helpers.go
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ func (h *ddHandler) brokerMetricsFromList(l []*kafkametrics.Broker) (kafkametric
 	}
 
 	brokers := kafkametrics.BrokerMetrics{}
-	errs = populateFromTagMap(brokers, h.tagCache, tags, h.brokerIDTag)
+	errs = populateFromTagMap(brokers, h.tagCache, tags, h.brokerIDTag, h.instanceTypeTag)
 	if errs != nil {
 		errs = append(errors, errs...)
 	}
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ func (h *ddHandler) getHostTagMap(l []*kafkametrics.Broker) (map[*kafkametrics.B
 // to []string unparsed host tag key:value pairs, and a broker ID tag key
 // populates the kafkametrics.BrokerMetrics with tags of interest.
 // An error describing any missing tags is returned.
-func populateFromTagMap(bm kafkametrics.BrokerMetrics, c map[string][]string, t map[*kafkametrics.Broker][]string, btag string) []error {
+func populateFromTagMap(bm kafkametrics.BrokerMetrics, c map[string][]string, t map[*kafkametrics.Broker][]string, btag string, itag string) []error {
 	var missingTags bytes.Buffer
 
 	for b, ht := range t {
@@ -133,7 +133,7 @@ func populateFromTagMap(bm kafkametrics.BrokerMetrics, c map[string][]string, t
 		}
 
 		// Get instance type.
-		it = valFromTags(ht, "instance-type")
+		it = valFromTags(ht, itag)
 		if it != "" {
 			// Cache this broker's tags. In case additional tags are populated
 			// in the future, we should only cache brokers that have
@@ -153,6 +153,7 @@ func populateFromTagMap(bm kafkametrics.BrokerMetrics, c map[string][]string, t
 		b.ID = id
 		b.InstanceType = it
 		bm[id] = b
+
 	}
 
 	if missingTags.String() != "" {