Services and Fees
| Service Description | Fee | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Sustaining Member Annual Fee | $20,000/yr | Includes 10TB of content preserved in the Core-Service storage |
| Additional Content Preserved in our Core-Service for Sustaining Members | $420/yr | Fee for each 1TB of additional core-service content (this fee is assessed per gigabyte of content at $0.41016 per year in the billing cycle for extra content, which is April 1 to March 31). |
| Most expensive preservation storage used is applied first to each member’s 10 TB allowance. | NOTE | If an APTrust member chooses to use part or all of its included-in-member-dues allocation of 10TB of content in non-core-service preservation storage, APTrust will apply the 10TB allowance first to any core-service storage used, then to the next most expensive storage used and so on until the allowance is fully allocated. This process provides the greatest savings to the member, and it applies to all of the less-expensive preservation storage options listed below. |
| Glacier-Only Storage | $60/yr | Fee for each 1TB of content, with choice of AWS data center, encryption at rest by default (part of Glacier service). Includes registration/tracking of content in Pharos system but does not include periodic independent fixity checking (relies on Glacier’s own internal checks and automated repair, not recorded in Pharos records).This fee is assessed per gigabyte of content beyond the 10 terabyte allowance at $0.05859 per year in the billing cycle for extra content, which is April 1 to March 31. |
| Glacier Deep-Archive Fee | $20/yr | The rate applies to each 1TB of content and includes choice of AWS data center, encryption at rest by default and registration/tracking of content in the Pharos system, but does not include periodic independent fixity checking (relies on Glacier’s own internal checks and automated repair, not recorded in Pharos records). In addition:Items will be stored only in the selected region AWS Data CenterOhioOregonVirginiaItems will be encrypted at rest and decrypted during restorationRestoring items typically takes at least 12 hoursThis fee is assessed per gigabyte of content beyond the 10 terabyte allowance at $0.01953 per year in the billing cycle for extra content, which is April 1 to March 31. |
NOTE: APTrust measures preservation storage using the binary calculation method (1 terabyte equals 1024 gigabytes, and so on). Preservation storage rates are reported in the “Fee” Column by terabyte to provide common whole-dollar comparisons, but storage is tracked by gigabyte (and charged in fractions of dollars).
Definitions
Sustaining Member: An APTrust Sustaining Member is an institution of higher education or other entity so designated by the APTrust Governing Board that pays an annual Sustaining-Member fee, receives an allocation of preservation storage space at no additional charge, and plays an active role in the development of the APTrust. Allocations of blocks of storage in excess of the initial allocation are available for an additional cost. The fee schedule below provides details about costs, but Sustaining Members receive at the outset an allocation of 10 terabytes at no additional charge and will be able to acquire additional storage in 1 gigabyte blocks at the current fee noted below.
Other membership types: The APTrust Governing Board may from time to time establish other means by which APTrust’s services can be acquired by entities other than the consortium’s Sustaining Members, and those means will be defined in this document at that time.
APTrust Core Service: APTrust core service uses a robust, redundant cloud-based design to safely store data files deposited to it by Depositors and to be able to return identical data files to the Depositor when requested, with high-assurance proof provided by widely accepted verification methods that the files are indeed identical. In its core service, APTrust does NOT perform specific file-changing “preservation actions” on the files during or after ingest. This includes actions such as file format migration, file normalization, creation of descriptive metadata and rights management. Services other than APTrust’s core service may be available through APTrust now or in the future. In its core service, the APTrust does not provide access to deposited data files to any party other than the depositor and APTrust staff. Additional details of the Core Service are available in the Core Preservation Policy.
The Core Service’s compute and storage environment is Amazon Web Services (AWS), especially its S3 and Glacier storage environments. AWS services are available to APTrust through the University of Virginia’s access to the relevant Internet2 Net+ contract (information about that is available here, and AWS’s information about the security of its cloud services is here).
Additional APTrust Services: Services beyond the Core Service of the APTrust are proposed by APTrust members to the APTrust Program Director, evaluated for consistency with APTrust financial planning, and then submitted with an associated fee structure for approval by a majority vote of the APTrust Governing Board. Such services include APTrust’s Glacier-Only Storage and are described in the Service and Fee Table below.
Fee Setting process: Fees for all services are proposed by the APTrust Executive Director, commented upon by advisory/work groups, and approved by a majority vote of the APTrust Governing Board. Whenever possible, changes in fees are made with sufficient notice to allow members and subscribers to incorporate them into their regular annual cycles of financial planning. This document is maintained by the APTrust Executive Director with all current services and fees.
Last updated November 2020. Reformatted in February 2024.