name: UNICEF Data API FinOps
description: >
  UNICEF Data APIs are provided free of charge as global public goods under the
  UN mandate to advance children's rights worldwide. There are no direct API
  consumption costs, subscription fees, or usage-based charges for the SDMX
  Data Warehouse API, Reference Data Manager API, or GeoSight API. FinOps
  considerations are limited to infrastructure and operational costs incurred
  by the consuming organization when building integrations.
cost_model:
  direct_api_costs: $0
  pricing_tiers: None
  metered_billing: false
  free_tier: true
  enterprise_pricing: false
  authentication_cost: $0
consumer_finops_considerations:
  - name: Infrastructure Cost
    description: >
      Cloud or on-premise compute costs for applications that call UNICEF APIs.
      No pass-through charges from UNICEF. Hosting costs for web applications
      or data pipelines that consume UNICEF data are borne entirely by the
      consumer.
  - name: Data Storage
    description: >
      UNICEF's SDMX Data Warehouse contains 748+ indicators across all UN member
      states, and bulk downloads can be substantial. Consumers should account
      for storage costs when caching or persisting indicator data locally.
      Storing a full snapshot of GLOBAL_DATAFLOW across all countries and years
      can reach hundreds of megabytes in CSV format.
  - name: Bandwidth and Egress
    description: >
      SDMX responses for broad multi-country, multi-indicator queries can be
      large. Use dimension filtering (country codes, specific indicators) and
      the CSV format parameter to minimize payload size and reduce network
      egress costs on consumer infrastructure.
  - name: Developer Time
    description: >
      SDMX is a specialized standard; engineers unfamiliar with SDMX query
      syntax, dataflow structures, and DSD dimension hierarchies will require
      ramp-up time. Factor in developer time for query construction, response
      parsing, and data normalization as the primary cost driver.
  - name: Data Pipeline Maintenance
    description: >
      UNICEF updates indicator data periodically as new survey rounds (MICS,
      DHS) and administrative data become available. Consumers must budget
      engineering time for pipeline maintenance to refresh cached data and
      handle schema changes in DSD definitions.
budget_guidance: >
  Because UNICEF Data APIs carry no direct fee, total cost of ownership is
  driven primarily by internal engineering, data storage, and infrastructure.
  Organizations integrating UNICEF data for research or reporting should plan
  for one-time integration engineering costs and ongoing pipeline maintenance.
  High-volume institutional users should contact data@unicef.org to discuss
  data partnership arrangements that may include bulk data transfers as an
  alternative to repeated API calls.