name: ilert FinOps Framework
description: FinOps cost optimization and cloud financial management guidance for
  ilert incident management platform spend. Covers cost allocation, optimization
  levers, and unit economics for teams managing ilert subscription costs.
url: https://www.ilert.com/pricing
specificationVersion: '1.0'
framework: FinOps Framework
version: '1.0'
costModel:
  type: SaaS Subscription
  billingDimensions:
    - name: Active Users
      description: Any user who can receive alerts or is included in an escalation
        policy is billed as a user. Primary cost driver for the platform.
      unit: per user per month
      notes: Carefully audit user lists quarterly to remove inactive or departed
        team members to reduce user count.
    - name: Plan Tier
      description: The selected plan (Free, Pro, Scale, Enterprise) determines per-user
        price and feature access.
      tiers:
        - Free (up to 5 users, EUR 0)
        - Pro (EUR 24/user/month, minimum 3 users)
        - Scale (EUR 49/user/month, minimum 3 users)
        - Enterprise (custom pricing)
    - name: Billing Cycle
      description: Annual billing provides a 20% discount compared to monthly billing.
        Commitment to annual saves significant cost for stable teams.
      discount: 20% on annual vs monthly
    - name: Add-On Services
      description: Optional add-ons including Call Routing (per user), Heartbeat
        Monitor packs (20/100/1000), and Status Page subscriber tiers add to base
        subscription cost.
costAllocation:
  strategies:
    - name: Team-Based Cost Allocation
      description: On Scale and Enterprise plans, use team-based organization features
        to map ilert users to engineering teams or cost centers for chargeback or
        showback.
      applicablePlans:
        - Scale
        - Enterprise
    - name: Department Tagging
      description: Map on-call schedule participants to organizational cost centers.
        Track which teams drive the highest user count and allocate subscription
        costs proportionally.
    - name: Integration Attribution
      description: ilert includes unlimited integrations at no additional charge
        across all plans. Attribute base subscription cost to teams based on number
        of alert sources owned or escalation policies managed.
optimization:
  levers:
    - name: Right-Size User Count
      description: Audit active users quarterly. Users who no longer participate
        in on-call rotations or escalation policies should be deactivated to reduce
        billable user count.
      impact: High
      effort: Low
    - name: Annual Billing Discount
      description: Switch from monthly to annual billing to capture a 20% discount.
        Best applied once team size is stable and the platform is validated for production
        use.
      impact: High (20% savings)
      effort: Low
    - name: Plan Right-Sizing
      description: Evaluate whether Scale plan features (event intelligence, ITSM
        integrations, AI grouping) are actively used. Downgrading to Pro where features
        are unused can reduce per-user cost from EUR 49 to EUR 24.
      impact: High (up to 51% per-user savings)
      effort: Medium
    - name: Optimize Add-On Usage
      description: Review heartbeat monitor packs and call routing add-ons. Remove
        unused heartbeat monitors and ensure call routing is assigned only to users
        who handle phone escalations.
      impact: Medium
      effort: Low
    - name: Leverage Free Tier for Non-Production
      description: Use the Free tier (up to 5 users) for staging, QA, or sandbox
        environments to avoid paying for non-production incident management.
      impact: Medium
      effort: Low
    - name: Consolidate Status Page Subscribers
      description: Status page subscriber counts drive add-on costs. Audit subscriber
        lists and remove stale or unused subscriber entries to minimize tier costs.
      impact: Low to Medium
      effort: Low
unitEconomics:
  metrics:
    - name: Cost per Alert
      description: Track total monthly ilert spend divided by total alerts generated
        to understand cost-per-alert and identify high-noise alert sources that inflate
        cost.
      formula: total_monthly_spend / total_alerts_per_month
    - name: Cost per Incident
      description: Total monthly ilert spend divided by the number of incidents resolved
        provides the cost of the incident management capability per incident.
      formula: total_monthly_spend / incidents_resolved_per_month
    - name: Cost per On-Call Engineer
      description: Monthly subscription cost per active on-call participant helps
        compare ilert spend against alternative solutions or justify headcount in
        on-call rotations.
      formula: total_monthly_spend / active_oncall_users
    - name: Notification Cost Efficiency
      description: On Free plan, track SMS/voice notification consumption against
        the 100/month cap. Exceeding this signals readiness to upgrade to Pro for
        unlimited notifications.
      threshold:
        free_plan_sms_voice_monthly: 100
governance:
  recommendations:
    - Designate an owner (SRE lead or FinOps practitioner) to review ilert spend
      monthly.
    - Set budget alerts at 80% and 100% of expected ilert spend in your cloud cost
      management or finance tooling.
    - Conduct quarterly user audits to right-size active user count before renewal.
    - Evaluate plan tier fit at each annual renewal against actual feature usage
      data.
    - Include ilert subscription costs in engineering team cost allocation reports
      for full SRE/DevOps total cost of ownership visibility.