Billing Anouncement: Dots Fees
Ubidots' dots in / dots out fees are based on the cost associated with ingesting, storing, and extracting your data for visualization and analytics. Even though we've always advertised dots out cost at $0.1 per million, the reality is only dots out via API were being charged, waiving the cost of the dots out required by your synthetic variables.
Why did we waive this fee so far?
When we first introduced advanced synthetics, we noticed some expressions required an extraordinary amount of data to be computed, causing some synthetic variables to cost over $100 per month, and total overages skyrocketing to thousands per month.
To ensure only the right costs are charged, we had to get back to the drawing board and optimize the engine through an elaborate combination of data caching, logic, and good-old math. As a result, our newest engine has reduced data extraction to 1/10th of the original requirement.
What does this mean for you?
After much work, we have encountered a natural barrier in how much more data extraction can be avoided. After all, if one needs a rolling average of a variable over a month, we'll need to extract one month's data to compute it.
With this in mind, you can be certain that your account's data extraction has been optimized as much as possible, and any data extraction overages will be the right cost to compute your variable.
Furthermore, we are cutting the cost by half (from $0.1 to $0.05 per million dots), and including 3x of the original capacity across all plans:
- Before: A pooled amount of data extraction capacity for API, synthetics, and web portal (i.e., 50 million in our Industrial plan).
- Now: Each data extraction type is metered separately, translating into 3x capacity (i.e., 50+50+50 = 150 million in our Industrial plan).
We understand this might slightly increase your invoice, but our primary goal is to ensure that all our users, including you, have the best experience using Ubidots. Leaving the door open for unlimited data extraction compromises the stability of the service.
NOTE: The new included capacity translated into 95% of clients being covered by default, resulting in $0 overages.
When will this change take effect?
This is a gradual change, starting to be reflected in March 1 2024 invoices.
Next steps
If your data extraction is above 1 billion dots per month, you will get a personalized message from our Customer Success team. Otherwise, you'll see the new line item automatically in your next invoice.
Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions or if there's any other way we can support you.