name: AcoustID FinOps
description: Financial operations guidance for managing costs when using the AcoustID audio fingerprinting API. Free for non-commercial use; commercial use billed monthly through AcoustID OÜ.
url: https://acoustid.biz/
currency: EUR
billingModel: monthly-postpaid
notes: >
  AcoustID uses a postpaid monthly billing model for commercial plans — you are billed at the end of
  each month for the prior month's actual usage. Non-commercial and open source use remains
  completely free with a 3 requests/second rate limit.

costDrivers:
  - name: Search Volume
    description: Primary cost driver for commercial plans. Each audio fingerprint lookup counts as one search against the monthly included quota.
    unit: searches per month
    tiers:
      - label: Small
        included: 1000000
        price: 50
        currency: EUR
      - label: Medium
        included: 15000000
        price: 100
        currency: EUR
      - label: Large
        included: 150000000
        price: 500
        currency: EUR

optimization:
  - strategy: Use free tier for development and testing
    description: Non-commercial and open source projects can use the free tier indefinitely. Use a test API key during development (note it expires after a few days).

  - strategy: Enable GZip compression on POST requests
    description: Compressing fingerprint data in POST bodies reduces bandwidth and may improve throughput for high-volume submission workflows.

  - strategy: Batch metadata requests
    description: Request only the metadata fields you need (recordings, artists, releases, MBIDs) by specifying the `meta` parameter to reduce response payload sizes.

  - strategy: Cache lookup results
    description: AcoustIDs are stable identifiers. Cache lookup results locally to avoid re-querying the same fingerprint multiple times.

  - strategy: Monitor monthly search volume
    description: Track your monthly search count to avoid unexpectedly upgrading to a higher plan tier. Contact info@acoustid.biz for custom plans if standard tiers do not fit usage patterns.

  - strategy: Start with the free trial
    description: All commercial plans include a free trial covering the first 10,000 searches before billing begins.

billing:
  cycle: monthly
  timing: billed at end of month for prior month usage
  cancellation: cancel anytime, no refunds issued
  trialSearches: 10000
  contact: info@acoustid.biz

overage:
  notes: >
    If usage exceeds the included searches for the selected plan tier, consider upgrading to the
    next tier. Contact AcoustID OÜ at info@acoustid.biz to discuss custom arrangements if none
    of the standard tiers are cost-effective.