specification: API Commons FinOps
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/FinOps
provider: Saildrone
providerId: saildrone
created: '2026-05-24'
modified: '2026-05-24'
focusVersion: '1.2'
reconciled: false
tags:
  - Maritime
  - Defense
  - Ocean Data
  - USV
description: >
  Saildrone's commercial surface is Mission-as-a-Service (MaaS) — vehicle leases,
  per-mission contracts, sensor payload upcharges, and government cost-plus
  arrangements with NOAA, NASA, US Navy, and EUMETSAT. There is no published
  consumption-priced API. This FinOps document maps Saildrone's *negotiated*
  billing surface onto FOCUS-style fields so downstream FinOps tooling can model
  Saildrone spend alongside cloud and SaaS spend, even though invoices are
  contract-based, not API-metered.
sources:
  - https://www.saildrone.com/service-model/fully-managed
  - https://www.saildrone.com/about
  - https://www.saildrone.com/data-delivery/api
billing:
  model: contract
  cadence: per-mission
  currency: USD
  invoiceCadence: milestone
  paymentTerms: net-30-or-government-standard
focusMapping:
  - ServiceCategory: Maritime Autonomous Systems
    ServiceName: Saildrone Mission-as-a-Service
    SkuId: saildrone-maas
    ChargeCategory: Usage
    ChargeSubcategory: Vehicle-day
    PricingUnit: vehicle-day
    BillingPeriodStart: mission_start_date
    BillingPeriodEnd: mission_end_date
    CommitmentDiscountType: contract
  - ServiceCategory: Maritime Autonomous Systems
    ServiceName: Saildrone Sensor Payload Upcharge
    SkuId: saildrone-payload
    ChargeCategory: Usage
    ChargeSubcategory: Payload-day
    PricingUnit: payload-day
    BillingPeriodStart: mission_start_date
    BillingPeriodEnd: mission_end_date
    CommitmentDiscountType: contract
  - ServiceCategory: Maritime Autonomous Systems
    ServiceName: Saildrone Mission Portal Seats
    SkuId: saildrone-portal-seat
    ChargeCategory: Usage
    ChargeSubcategory: User-month
    PricingUnit: seat-month
    BillingPeriodStart: contract_start_date
    BillingPeriodEnd: contract_end_date
    CommitmentDiscountType: contract
  - ServiceCategory: Maritime Autonomous Systems
    ServiceName: Saildrone Public Mission API
    SkuId: saildrone-mission-api
    ChargeCategory: Bundled
    ChargeSubcategory: API access bundled with mission contract
    PricingUnit: bundled
    BillingPeriodStart: contract_start_date
    BillingPeriodEnd: contract_end_date
    CommitmentDiscountType: contract
costAllocation:
  - dimension: mission
    description: Allocate cost to a specific drone deployment / mission ID.
  - dimension: platform
    description: Allocate cost by USV class — Explorer, Voyager, Surveyor, Spectre.
  - dimension: customer-program
    description: Allocate cost by customer program (e.g. NOAA TPOS, US Navy Task Force 59, NASA SWOT cal/val).
optimizationLevers:
  - lever: mission-duration
    description: Shorter missions reduce total vehicle-day cost.
  - lever: payload-bundling
    description: Reusing existing sensor payloads across missions amortizes integration cost.
  - lever: shared-mission
    description: Multi-stakeholder missions (e.g. NOAA + academic) split per-vehicle-day cost across funders.
notes: >
  No public per-API-call pricing exists; FinOps tooling that ingests this file
  should treat the Mission API as a bundled, zero-marginal-cost surface and roll
  the underlying vehicle-day spend up to the mission level.