SolarNetwork Foundation offers a usage-based pricing model for the SolarNetwork platform which is based on how much you utilise the platform. For example you pay for the amount of data collected into and queried out of the platform.
To understand the SolarNetwork platform costs, the following terms are used:
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Account | A means to access SolarNetwork services based on registering a unique email address. |
| Node | A device that collects data for an account. Any number of nodes may be associated with an account. Each node is assigned a unique identifier by SolarNetwork. |
| Source | A unique identifier for a stream of data captured by a node. Often a source denotes a hardware device that a node is collecting data from. Sources are given short textual identifiers by node administrators, and can be organized using slashes into meaningful hierarchies. For example /home/weather might be used for a weather station source. |
| Datum | A timestamped sample of data specific to a source and uploaded to SolarNetwork. |
| Property | A uniquely named measurement captured in a datum. Each datum can have any number of properties within it. For example temperature: 20℃ and wind speed: 20 km/hr might be captured in a datum from a weather station source. |
Once you sign up for a SolarNetwork subscription, you will be billed monthly based on your platform usage across all nodes in your account in several categories of use. The core usage categories are:
Each category has a tiered pricing structure, where the rate decreases as the usage volume increases. Subscriptions are billed per month per account so tiers are applied on the sum total of all nodes in each account. Use the Simulate usage costs button below to view all usage categories and their associated price schedules.
The following sections detail the pricing tiers for the core usage categories.
This price is calculated from the number of properties posted into SolarNetwork over the billing period.
| Tier Start | Tier Rate | Tier Maximum | Tier Maximum Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| > 0 | $5.75 / million | 500,000 | $ 2.88 |
| > 500,000 | $3.45 / million | 9,500,000 | $ 32.78 |
| > 10,000,000 | $0.92 / million | 490,000,000 | $ 450.80 |
| > 500,000,000 | $0.23 / million | - | - |
This price is calculated from the number of datum returned from any SolarNetwork API query that returns datum over the billing period. For API calls that return paged results (e.g. results 1 - 100 of 10,000, then results 101 - 200, and so on) only the number of datum returned in each page response count towards the total. If a query requests aggregate values, only the number of aggregate datum returned count towards the total. For example, requesting hourly aggregated datum given 1,000 raw datum that span 24 hours would return 24 datum that count towards the total.
| Tier Start | Tier Rate | Tier Maximum | Tier Maximum Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| > 0 | $1.15 / 10 million | 10,000,000 | $ 1.15 |
| > 1,000,000 | $0.46 / 10 million | 990,000,000 | $ 45.54 |
| > 100,000,000 | $0.05 / 10 million | 99,000,000,000 | $ 495.00 |
| > 10,000,000,000 | $0.02 / 10 million | - | - |
This price is calculated from the total number of datum stored in SolarNetwork on each day over the billing period. As nodes post datum, this value grows. SolarNetwork also stores rolled-up aggregate datum derived from the raw datum—at hourly, daily, and monthly aggregate levels. Each of these aggregate datum are counted in this total as well.
| Tier Start | Tier Rate | Tier Maximum | Tier Maximum Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| > 0 | $5.75 / 100 million | 10,000,000 | $ 0.58 |
| > 10,000,000 | $1.15 / 100 million | 990,000,000 | $ 11.39 |
| > 1,000,000,000 | $0.35 / 100 million | 99,000,000,000 | $ 341.55 |
| > 100,000,000,000 | $0.23 / 100 million | - | - |
The following sections illustrate how the SolarNetwork platform costs are calculated.
A node collects temperature and wind speed properties from a single weather station source once per minute. Over one 30-day month that would equate to:
1 source × 2 properties × 60 minutes × 24 hours × 30 days = 86,400 properties
| Tier | Calculation | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 86,400 × $5.75 ÷ 1,000,000 | $0.50 |
| Total | $0.50 |
The following example builds off the Properties Posted example above, in which 1 datum is posted every minute. A script requests the following datum:
| Query | Result Count | Schedule |
|---|---|---|
| all datum for the past month, aggregated daily | 30 | every hour |
| all datum for the past 2 hours | 120 | 6 times per hour |
| all datum for the past 24 hours, aggregated hourly | 24 | every hour |
| most recently available datum | 1 | every minute |
Over the course of a 30 day month that would equate to:
(30 daily + (120 datum × 6) + 24 hourly + 60 most recent) × 24 hours × 30 days = 600,480 datum
| Tier | Calculation | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 600,480 × $1.15 ÷ 10,000,000 | $0.07 |
| Total | $0.07 |
The following example builds off the Properties Posted example above, in which 1 datum is posted every minute. A node has been running for a year and has 525,600 raw, 8,760 hourly aggregate, 365 daily aggregate, and 12 monthly aggregate datum stored in SolarNetwork, for a total of 534,737. Each day the number of new datum stored would equate to:
((60 datum per minute + 1 hourly aggregate datum) × 24 hours) + 1 daily aggregate datum = 1,465 datum
Over the course of the next 30 day month the datum storage cost would equate to:
for d = 1..30: d = dprev + 534,737 + (d × 1,465) = 16,723,335 datum
| Tier | Calculation | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10,000,000 × $5.75 ÷ 100,000,000 | $0.58 |
| 2 | 6,723,335 × $1.15 ÷ 100,000,000 | $0.08 |
| Total | $0.66 |
The overall monthly platform cost for properties posted, datum queried, and datum stored for the previous examples would be:
| Subscription | Cost |
|---|---|
| Properties Posted | $0.50 |
| Datum Queried | $0.07 |
| Datum Days Stored | $0.66 |
| Total | $1.23 |
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