specification: FinOps Framework
specificationVersion: '1.0'
schema: https://www.finops.org/framework/
provider: WakaTime
providerId: wakatime
created: '2026-05-30'
modified: '2026-05-30'
reconciled: true
tags:
  - FinOps
  - FOCUS
  - Developer Productivity
  - Time Tracking
  - SaaS
  - Per-Seat
description: >-
  FOCUS-aligned FinOps for WakaTime — a per-seat developer-productivity SaaS billed monthly or
  annually with no per-API-call metering. Costs accrue on a Subscription model: individual plans
  (Basic, Premium) are billed per-user; team plans (Team, Business) are billed per active
  developer seat.
sources:
  - https://wakatime.com/pricing
  - https://wakatime.com/developers
  - https://wakatime.com/settings/account
  - https://focus.finops.org/focus-specification/v1-3/

alignedWith:
  framework: FinOps Foundation Framework
  frameworkUrl: https://www.finops.org/framework/
  dataSpec: FOCUS
  dataSpecVersion: '1.3'
  dataSpecUrl: https://focus.finops.org/focus-specification/v1-3/

publisherName: WakaTime LLC
serviceCategory: Developer Tools

billingModel:
  pricingCategory: Subscription
  billingFrequency: Monthly
  billingFrequencyAlternative: Annual
  billingCurrency: USD
  chargeCategories:
    - Usage
    - Purchase
    - Tax
    - Adjustment
    - Refund
    - Credit

focusColumns:
  ServiceName: WakaTime
  ServiceCategory: Developer Tools
  ServiceSubcategory: Time Tracking and Coding Analytics
  ProviderName: WakaTime
  PublisherName: WakaTime LLC
  InvoiceIssuerName: WakaTime LLC
  BillingCurrency: USD
  ChargeCategory: Usage
  ChargeClass: Standard
  PricingCategory: Subscription
  CommitmentDiscountCategory: None
  RegionId: global
  RegionName: Global
  SkuId: '{plan-id} (free | basic | premium | team | business)'
  SkuPriceId: '{plan-id}-{cadence} (monthly | annual)'

meters:
  - name: seat_month_individual
    label: Individual seat-month
    unit: seat-month
    aggregation: sum
    dimensions: [plan, cadence]
    description: >-
      One seat-month of Basic ($9/mo) or Premium ($14/mo) for individuals, or the annual
      equivalents at $8.25/mo and $12.83/mo. Free plan emits zero billable usage but should
      still be modeled for entitlement tracking.

  - name: seat_month_team
    label: Team seat-month
    unit: seat-month
    aggregation: sum
    dimensions: [plan, cadence, organization_id]
    description: >-
      Per-developer seat-month for Team ($21/mo) and Business ($24/mo) plans. Aggregated per
      organization for chargeback / showback.

  - name: programming_goals_active
    label: Active programming goals
    unit: goal-month
    aggregation: max
    dimensions: [user_id]
    description: >-
      Soft entitlement meter — the count of active goals per user-month. Crosses a hard cap on
      Free (1) and Basic (3); unlimited on Premium and above.

  - name: dashboard_history_weeks
    label: Dashboard history retention
    unit: weeks-retained
    aggregation: max
    dimensions: [user_id, plan]
    description: >-
      Entitlement meter — number of weeks of dashboard history accessible to the user. 1 on
      Free, 2 on Basic, unlimited on Premium / Team / Business.

  - name: private_leaderboard_seats
    label: Private leaderboard seats
    unit: seat
    aggregation: max
    dimensions: [leaderboard_id, plan]
    description: >-
      Count of seats on the user's largest private leaderboard. Capped at 5 (Basic),
      50 (Premium), 100 (Team), 1000 (Business).

  - name: data_dumps
    label: Data exports
    unit: dump
    aggregation: count
    dimensions: [user_id, type]
    description: >-
      Number of data exports (heartbeats or daily) generated. Premium and above only.

  - name: api_requests
    label: API requests
    unit: request
    aggregation: count
    dimensions: [user_id, endpoint]
    description: >-
      Observability meter — not directly billed but useful for capacity planning against the
      shared 10-rps-over-5-min rate limit.

principles:

  - name: Visibility
    description: >-
      Use the WakaTime web dashboard, the /users/current/stats endpoints, and full data dumps
      (heartbeats or daily, requested via POST /users/current/data_dumps) to see what each
      seat is consuming. Premium and above can generate code-stat invoices.

  - name: Allocation
    description: >-
      For team and business plans, attribute seat-months by organization_id and (optionally)
      by org dashboards. Use private leaderboards to group cost by team. Tag external
      activity via External Durations to attribute non-IDE work back to the same seat.

  - name: Optimization
    description: >-
      Switch annual to capture the ~8% discount (Basic $9 → $8.25/mo, Premium $14 → $12.83/mo,
      Team $21 → $19.25/mo, Business $24 → $22/mo). Deactivate seats for developers who have
      gone 60+ days without a heartbeat — the public profile metric `last_heartbeat_at`
      surfaces idle seats. Consider self-hosting via Wakapi for cost-sensitive workloads
      where WakaTime's premium features are not needed.

  - name: Accountability
    description: >-
      Engineering managers / RevOps own developer-productivity tooling spend. Establish a
      quarterly review: pull org seat counts via /users/current/orgs and reconcile against
      the active-developer roster; cancel or downgrade seats inactive >30 days.