name: OpenZeppelin FinOps
description: >
  Financial operations guidance for OpenZeppelin products. Defender (the hosted
  platform) is sunsetting on July 1, 2026; new sign-ups were closed on June 30, 2025.
  Existing customers should budget for migration to the open-source OpenZeppelin Relayer
  and OpenZeppelin Monitor, which are self-hosted and carry infrastructure costs rather
  than subscription fees. The open-source Contracts library and Contracts Wizard are
  free to use with no associated API costs.
url: https://docs.openzeppelin.com/defender
updated: "2026-06-13"
models:
  - name: Defender Subscription (Legacy)
    type: subscription
    status: sunset
    sunsetDate: "2026-07-01"
    description: >
      OpenZeppelin Defender used a tiered subscription model (Builder/free,
      Professional/paid, Enterprise/custom). All subscriptions are winding down
      following the Defender sunset announcement. No new subscriptions are available
      as of June 30, 2025.
    tiers:
      - name: Builder
        monthlyUSD: 0
        notes: Free tier for testnet development with limited quotas.
      - name: Professional
        monthlyUSD: null
        contactSales: true
        notes: >
          Metered billing with a base subscription fee plus charges for usage
          above plan thresholds. Exact pricing available from OpenZeppelin sales.
      - name: Enterprise
        monthlyUSD: null
        contactSales: true
        notes: >
          Custom pricing negotiated directly with OpenZeppelin based on volume,
          features, and support requirements.
  - name: Open Source Self-Hosted
    type: infrastructure-cost
    status: active
    description: >
      OpenZeppelin Relayer and OpenZeppelin Monitor are open-source and free
      to use. Operators bear their own infrastructure costs for compute, storage,
      networking, and any managed services (Redis, AWS SQS, AWS KMS for signing).
      Cost scales with transaction volume, number of relayers, and monitoring scope.
    costDrivers:
      - name: Compute
        description: >
          Rust-based services with moderate CPU/memory requirements. A single
          instance handles up to 100 concurrent requests by default. Scale
          horizontally using distributed mode (DISTRIBUTED_MODE=true).
      - name: Queue Backend
        description: >
          Choose Redis (self-hosted or managed) or AWS SQS for message queuing.
          Redis adds ~$50-200/month on managed services (e.g., AWS ElastiCache)
          for typical workloads. AWS SQS pricing is per million requests.
        options:
          - name: Redis
            estimatedMonthlyUSD: "50-200"
            notes: Managed Redis on AWS ElastiCache or similar.
          - name: AWS SQS
            estimatedMonthlyUSD: "variable"
            notes: $0.40 per million requests after free tier.
      - name: Signing Infrastructure
        description: >
          For production deployments, transaction signing keys should be managed
          by a Hardware Security Module (HSM) or cloud KMS service. AWS KMS
          costs approximately $1/month per key plus $0.03 per 10,000 API calls.
        estimatedMonthlyUSD: "1-50"
        notes: >
          Defender previously managed signing via AWS KMS on the user's behalf.
          Self-hosted operators must manage their own signing security.
      - name: RPC Provider
        description: >
          The Relayer requires access to blockchain RPC endpoints for each
          supported network. Operators may use public RPC endpoints (free) or
          commercial providers (Alchemy, Infura, QuickNode) for production
          reliability. Weighted load balancing across multiple RPCs is supported.
        options:
          - name: Public RPC
            estimatedMonthlyUSD: "0"
            notes: Limited reliability; not recommended for production.
          - name: Commercial RPC (e.g., Alchemy, Infura)
            estimatedMonthlyUSD: "49-500+"
            notes: Growth plans start around $49/month; scales with compute units.
  - name: OpenZeppelin Contracts
    type: free-open-source
    status: active
    description: >
      OpenZeppelin Contracts is an open-source Solidity library distributed via
      npm. There is no API cost or subscription fee. Gas costs for deploying
      contracts using OpenZeppelin libraries are borne by the deploying account
      on the relevant blockchain network.
    monthlyCostUSD: 0
    notes: >
      Audit costs for custom contracts built on top of OpenZeppelin Contracts
      are separate and depend on scope. OpenZeppelin offers paid audit services.
recommendations:
  - title: Plan Migration from Defender Before Sunset
    description: >
      Defender shuts down July 1, 2026. Begin migrating relayer and monitoring
      workloads to open-source alternatives immediately. Budget for infrastructure
      setup costs, developer time for migration, and ongoing operational expenses.
  - title: Consolidate RPC Provider Spend
    description: >
      When self-hosting the Relayer, use the weighted RPC load balancing feature
      to spread load across free and paid endpoints, reducing RPC provider costs
      while maintaining reliability.
  - title: Right-Size Compute
    description: >
      The default RELAYER_CONCURRENCY_LIMIT of 100 may be higher than needed
      for low-volume applications. Tune concurrency and rate limits to match
      actual workload to optimize compute costs.
  - title: Use Distributed Mode Only When Needed
    description: >
      Enabling DISTRIBUTED_MODE adds complexity and Redis/SQS costs. Single-instance
      deployments are sufficient for most use cases under 50 transactions/minute.