Provider price data

From data/providers/README.md in the repository, rendered 2026-10-12.

Machine-readable price and capability profiles for storage providers. They feed the cost estimates and the provider comparison, so they must be accurate and traceable.

Rules

1. No price without a source and a date. Every numeric value carries source_url (an https:// URL of the official page or machine-readable price list) and last_verified (ISO date, YYYY-MM-DD, the day a person or tool actually read the value there). The schema rejects a number without both.
2. Unknown means null plus a note. If a value cannot be verified from an official source, set "value": null and explain in note why. Never fill a gap from memory, from a third-party listing or from an estimate. A null is a statement that the value is unknown, not that it is zero.
3. Use official sources first: the provider's own pricing page, price-list API or documentation. State the exact item (page section, usage type, SKU) in note so the next person can re-check it.
4. Warn when older than 90 days. scripts/data/validate-providers.sh prints a warning for every last_verified older than 90 days. Re-verify before relying on the number, then update the value and the date together.
5. Say what a profile covers. Prices are only valid for the regions listed in applies_to_regions. Do not extend a price to other regions without verifying them.
6. One currency per profile, in currency, as the provider lists it. Do not convert. State whether tax is included in prices_include_tax (null if unknown).
7. Absence is not zero. If a price list simply has no line for a fee, record null with a note (or 0 only when the source says the item is free or included).
8. Do not copy prices elsewhere. Planning documents link to these files instead of repeating numbers.

Units

• Storage: price per GB-month, as the provider bills it. storage_price_per_gb_month is a list of volume bands (from_gb, up_to_gb; the last band has up_to_gb: null). Providers with a flat plan use pricing_model: "fixed_plan" and plans.
• Requests: price per 1000 requests. If the provider lists a price per 10,000 requests, divide and say so in note.
• Egress: price per GB after the free allowance (free_allowance_gb_per_month), by volume band.
• Retrieval: price per GB for cold classes, with the typical delay as quoted by the provider (typical_delay).
• minimum_storage_duration_days, minimum_billable_object_size_kb, per_object_overhead_kb: as published; early deletion is normally billed pro rata for the remaining days.
• Other fields: protocols (s3, sftp, webdav, rclone and a few more), regions (code, city, ISO country), object_lock (immutability support).

Validating

scripts/data/validate-providers.sh                 # all profiles
scripts/data/validate-providers.sh data/providers/aws-s3.json
scripts/data/validate-providers.sh --max-age-days 30 --fail-on-stale

The script uses the first validator it finds: check-jsonschema, ajv (with ajv-formats) or Python 3 with the jsonschema package, and prints install instructions if none is available. Exit codes: 0 valid, 1 invalid (or stale with --fail-on-stale), 2 usage error or no validator.

Adding or updating a provider

1. Copy the closest existing profile and adjust it.
2. Read each value from an official source on the day you record it; write the source and date next to it.
3. Run the validator. Fix errors; read the age warnings.
4. In the pull request, list what you could not verify.

Known gaps

• hetzner-storage-box.json: the monthly plan prices are null. The official product page renders prices with client-side scripts and no official static source could be read. Fill them in from the product page and verify before using this profile in estimates.
• Request prices for archive classes (LIST in particular), per-request retrieval fees and the cold-class delay for bulk retrievals are modelled only where verified; see the notes in each profile.