name: Sardine FinOps
description: >-
  Financial operations guidance for managing Sardine API costs. Sardine uses a
  monthly commit model with consumption-based drawdown across multiple product
  APIs. Cost optimization requires tracking per-verification and
  per-transaction consumption across Device, Customer, Crypto, Issuing, and
  Transaction Monitoring API categories.
url: https://www.sardine.ai/contact
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
costDrivers:
  - name: Device API Calls
    description: >-
      Charges per device fingerprint and behavior biometrics session. Costs
      scale with the number of user sessions instrumented for fraud signals.
    unit: per session
    category: Device Intelligence
  - name: Customer Risk Assessments
    description: >-
      Charges per customer risk scoring request, including KYC identity
      verification and KYB business verification calls. Volume-based tiers
      apply.
    unit: per verification
    category: Identity and Compliance
  - name: Transaction Monitoring Events
    description: >-
      Charges per transaction screened for AML compliance, sanctions
      screening, and customer risk rating. Volume discounts available at
      enterprise scale.
    unit: per transaction
    category: AML Compliance
  - name: Crypto On-Ramp/Off-Ramp Transactions
    description: >-
      Transaction-based fees for fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat conversion
      fraud prevention. Fee varies by payment rail and currency pair.
    unit: per transaction
    category: Crypto
  - name: Card Issuing Fraud Checks
    description: >-
      Charges per card authorization or transaction screened through the
      Issuing API for real-time fraud detection.
    unit: per authorization
    category: Card Issuing
  - name: Chargeback Guarantee Program
    description: >-
      Optional program providing liability protection on card transactions.
      Fee structure based on covered transaction volume and chargeback
      exposure.
    unit: per covered transaction
    category: Risk Transfer
  - name: ACH Indemnification
    description: >-
      Optional program covering fraud liabilities on ACH debits. Fee based on
      covered ACH transaction volume.
    unit: per covered ACH debit
    category: Risk Transfer
  - name: FX Conversion Fee
    description: >-
      Nominal fee applied to cross-currency transactions processed through the
      payments platform.
    unit: per FX transaction
    category: Payments
optimization:
  recommendations:
    - description: >-
        Negotiate a monthly minimum commit aligned to expected baseline volume
        to secure volume discount rates, then monitor actual consumption against
        the commit monthly to avoid overages.
    - description: >-
        Use Sardine's sandbox environment for all development and QA testing to
        avoid incurring production consumption charges during integration.
    - description: >-
        Scope device instrumentation to high-risk user journeys (account
        creation, login, payment initiation) rather than all sessions to reduce
        Device API call volume.
    - description: >-
        Batch KYC/KYB verifications where compliance timelines allow, taking
        advantage of volume tier pricing rather than triggering individual
        low-volume calls.
    - description: >-
        Evaluate the Chargeback Guarantee Program and ACH Indemnification ROI
        against internal fraud loss rates to determine if risk transfer costs
        are offset by reduced fraud losses.
    - description: >-
        Monitor the Sardine dashboard for per-product consumption reports and
        set internal alerts when monthly spend approaches the commit threshold.
billing:
  model: monthly-commit-with-consumption-drawdown
  invoicing: monthly
  notes: >-
    Sardine does not publish public rate cards. All pricing is established
    through a custom sales process. Request a detailed pricing proposal from
    Sardine sales at https://www.sardine.ai/contact to establish committed
    volume tiers and per-unit rates for each product module.