Fees
Ekayana is funded by annual membership and service fees rather than per-unit sales. Registering a did:bio never carries a per-identifier charge, and public resolution and open metadata stay free for everyone.
What the fees pay for
Fees sustain the infrastructure described in Services and Use Cases: the did:bio registry on Solana, IPFS pinning, BioAgents, and the knowledge graph. Ekayana is a non-profit, so they are set to cover cost rather than to generate margin.
An organization pays one flat membership fee, and, if it uses the infrastructure, one annual service fee. Volume is handled in tiers, so researchers can mint identifiers without anyone watching a meter. Datasets bridged from Dataverse or Zenodo keep their DOIs; a did:bio adds capability on top and never acts as a toll.
Every figure below is listed in full. There is no quote only tier hiding a larger number.
Annual membership fee
One flat fee per member organization, covering governance participation, member only APIs, citation and usage reports, trainings, and the GDPR compliance package. See membership types for what each category includes.
| Member type | Who it is for | Annual fee |
|---|---|---|
| Institutional Member | A single organization using Ekayana infrastructure directly: universities, repositories, libraries, archives, companies. | $2,000 |
| Consortium Lead | A lead organization coordinating a shared membership for a group, such as a national network or a shared platform. | $2,000 |
| Consortium Organization | A participant in a consortium. Pays no membership fee of its own; cost sharing is set by the consortium. | $0 |
| Supporting Member | Funds the mission and participates in governance, but does not use infrastructure services. | $2,000 |
Annual service fee
Charged only to members that use infrastructure services, never to Supporting Members. Non-profit fees are scaled to socioeconomic context; for-profit fees follow annual revenue.
Non-profit organizations
$200-$700
per year, by socioeconomic context
Under the Global Access Program, organizations in low and middle income economies receive adjusted fees, so that identifier infrastructure is not gated by geography. The community team confirms an exact figure during the membership inquiry.
For-profit organizations, by annual revenue
| Annual revenue | Service fee |
|---|---|
| $0-500K | $1,000 |
| $500K-2M | $2,500 |
| $2M-50M | $5,000 |
| $50M-1B | $7,500 |
| Over $1B | $10,000 |
Registration volume
The service fee covers up to 100,000 did:bio registrations a year. Beyond that, a flat annual surcharge applies by tier, so costs stay predictable at any scale. See Register DIDs for how registration works.
Your service fee covers up to 100,000 registrations a year
Each registration includes the DID document, Solana registry anchoring, the metadata record, and resolver availability. On-chain rent and transaction costs are absorbed in the tier.
| Annual did:bio volume | Annual surcharge |
|---|---|
| 100,001-250,000 | $3,500 |
| 250,001-1,000,000 | $8,500 |
| 1M-2M | $13,000 |
| 2M-5M | $18,500 |
| 5M-10M | $25,500 |
| 10M-20M | $32,500 |
Storage add-ons
This part is specific to Ekayana. A DOI registry stores metadata about your data; Ekayana also pins the data itself on IPFS, content addressed and replicated. Datasets bridged from Dataverse or Zenodo keep their DOIs while gaining tamper evident storage. See Integrate Workflows for how the bridges work.
| Storage | Terms |
|---|---|
| Included with the service fee | 100 GB pinned IPFS, replicated three times |
| Additional storage | $150 per TB per year |
| Private IPFS cluster | Quoted per institution |
| On-premise deployment | Quoted per institution |
Billing policy
Annual and predictable, designed to fit institutional budgeting cycles.
- Annual invoicing
- Fees are invoiced once a year. A first year is pro rated from the month you join.
- Payment within 30 days
- Invoices fall due 30 days after issue.
- 90 day grace period
- Accounts become inactive once payment is 90 days overdue. Public resolution of existing did:bio identifiers is never interrupted.
- Voluntary contributions
- Organizations that want to fund shared infrastructure and the Global Access Program beyond their own fee are welcome to.
What would my organization pay?
Three scenarios, computed from the tables above. For a figure specific to your organization, start a membership inquiry.
Small non-profit repository
Institutional Member, non-profit
| Annual membership fee | $2,000 |
|---|---|
| Annual service fee, non-profit | $200-$700 |
| 12,000 registrations, within the included 100,000 | $0 |
| 40 GB pinned, within the included 100 GB | $0 |
| Total | $2,200-$2,700 / year |
The exact service fee depends on socioeconomic context, with Global Access Program adjustments.
University consortium
Consortium Lead with 8 organizations
| Consortium Lead membership fee | $2,000 |
|---|---|
| Membership fee for 8 consortium organizations | $0 |
| Service fee, non-profit, times 8 organizations | $1,600-$5,600 |
| Total | $3,600-$7,600 / year |
Split evenly that is roughly $450-$950 per organization, though cost sharing is decided by the consortium itself.
For-profit biotech
Institutional Member, $10M annual revenue
| Annual membership fee | $2,000 |
|---|---|
| Service fee, $2M-50M revenue band | $5,000 |
| 180,000 registrations, 100,001-250,000 tier | $3,500 |
| 2 TB storage beyond the included 100 GB | $300 |
| Total | $10,800 / year |
That works out near six cents per identifier at this volume, and the figure falls as volume rises within a tier.
Every organization is different
The community team will walk you through the schedule, Global Access Program adjustments, and consortium options before you commit to anything.