specification: FinOps Framework
specificationVersion: '1.0'
schema: https://www.finops.org/framework/

provider: WeatherAPI.com
providerId: weatherapi
created: '2026-05-28'
modified: '2026-05-28'
reconciled: true

tags:
  - FinOps
  - FOCUS
  - Weather
  - Geolocation
  - Subscription

description: >-
  FOCUS-aligned FinOps for WeatherAPI.com: a tiered monthly subscription billed in USD with
  call-volume quotas, plus an enterprise custom-pricing tier. Spend is fixed-per-month at each
  tier; the FinOps signal is mostly call-volume velocity against the monthly quota rather than
  per-call billing.

sources:
  - https://www.weatherapi.com/pricing.aspx
  - https://www.weatherapi.com/docs/
  - 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: WeatherAPI.com Limited
serviceCategory: Weather Data & Geolocation

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

focusColumns:
  ServiceName: WeatherAPI.com
  ServiceCategory: Weather Data & Geolocation
  ServiceSubcategory: Weather Forecast and Real-time Data API
  ProviderName: WeatherAPI.com
  PublisherName: WeatherAPI.com Limited
  InvoiceIssuerName: WeatherAPI.com Limited
  BillingCurrency: USD
  ChargeCategory: Purchase
  PricingCategory: Subscription
  CommitmentDiscountCategory: None
  RegionId: global

meters:

  - name: monthly_subscription
    unit: month
    aggregation: sum
    dimensions:
      - plan_tier
      - billing_cycle
  - name: api_calls
    unit: request
    aggregation: sum
    dimensions:
      - api_key
      - endpoint
      - tag
      - plan_tier
  - name: quota_consumed_percent
    unit: percent
    aggregation: max
    dimensions:
      - api_key
      - plan_tier
  - name: forecast_days_requested
    unit: day
    aggregation: sum
    dimensions:
      - endpoint
      - api_key
  - name: bulk_requests
    unit: request
    aggregation: sum
    dimensions:
      - api_key
  - name: marine_requests
    unit: request
    aggregation: sum
    dimensions:
      - api_key
  - name: history_requests
    unit: request
    aggregation: sum
    dimensions:
      - api_key
      - days_back

principles:
  - name: Visibility
    description: WeatherAPI.com exposes a usage dashboard in the customer portal that reports current-month call counts per key, with daily and per-endpoint breakdowns. Programmatic usage retrieval is available to Business and Enterprise customers; everyone else uses the dashboard.
  - name: Allocation
    description: Tag spend by issuing one API key per application or environment (dev / staging / production). The single account can host multiple keys, and each key's call count is reported separately, making allocation straightforward without a usage-export API.
  - name: Optimization
    description: |
      - Cache 10-minute current-weather responses at the edge — refresh rate is documented as 10–15 minutes.
      - Use Bulk Requests (Pro+) to amortise per-call overhead across up to 50 locations.
      - Use `current_fields` to project only the fields you need (reduces bandwidth, not call count).
      - For dashboards, prefer one /forecast.json call with `days=7` over seven separate /current.json calls.
      - Move to annual billing for ~10% savings versus monthly.
  - name: Accountability
    description: API key ownership maps 1:1 to an application; the WeatherAPI portal lets the account owner set monthly call-volume thresholds and disable keys that approach the quota. Single point of accountability is the account owner; per-key budget alerts should be wired into the customer's internal monitoring.