How much does device fingerprinting cost?

Device fingerprinting pricing usually comes down to one of four models: a flat subscription, tiered plans with a request allowance, a prepaid balance you spend as you go, or a quote after a sales call. The number that matters in every case is your cost per identification, because that is what you will pay as your product grows.

This guide explains how each model works, where each one hurts, and how Fingerly’s pay as you go pricing is put together, so you can estimate a bill before you write a line of code.

#What pricing models does device fingerprinting use?

Most device intelligence and fingerprint API pricing falls into the same few shapes. Knowing the shape tells you what kind of surprise to look for.

• Subscription: a monthly fee for a fixed allowance of identifications. Predictable, but you pay for the allowance whether or not you use it, and going over it is usually billed at a higher rate.
• Tiered plans: a ladder of plans with growing allowances and features. Easy to compare on paper, but features such as longer history or webhooks can sit behind the upper plans, so the plan you need may not be the plan you can afford.
• Pay as you go: no plan at all. You hold a balance or receive a bill for exactly what you used, per request. A quiet month costs little and a busy month costs more.
• Custom quotes: a negotiated annual contract. Reasonable at very large volume, but a poor fit when you are still finding out how many checks you need.

None of these is wrong. A subscription suits a team with flat, well understood traffic. Pay per request device fingerprinting suits teams whose traffic moves: a startup before launch, a seasonal retailer, a product that runs a promotion once a quarter.

#Why does per-request pricing suit fraud prevention?

Because fraud prevention traffic is spiky and the value of each check is easy to count. You identify a device at the moments that matter, such as signing up, logging in or paying, and each check either prevents a loss or confirms a good customer. Paying per identification keeps the cost tied to those moments rather than to a plan you outgrow or never fill.

It also removes a bad incentive. With a fixed allowance, teams start skipping checks to stay inside the plan, which is exactly the moment an attacker arrives. When the price is a small, known amount per request, you can check every signup and every claim and see the cost in one line.

#How does Fingerly’s pay as you go pricing work?

Fingerly is prepaid pay as you go device intelligence. You add credit, and each production identification is paid from it. There are no plans, no minimums, no seat charges and no monthly fee. An identification costs $0.0025, and the price per request falls as your month’s volume grows.

The volume bands are graduated, which means each band prices only the identifications that fall inside it. Volume is counted per calendar month in UTC and resets on the first.

• The first 250,000 identifications in a month: $0.0025 each.
• From 250,000 to 1,000,000: $0.0020 each, 20% off.
• Over 1,000,000: $0.0015 each, 40% off.

The discount applies itself. There is nothing to enable, negotiate or sign, and crossing a boundary never makes a bill smaller than it was before.

#What does a month actually cost?

Work it out with the bands. Because they are graduated, the cost per identification is an average that drifts down as volume rises.

• 100,000 identifications in a month: all in the first band, $250.
• 300,000 identifications: 250,000 at $0.0025 and 50,000 at $0.0020, which is $725.
• 1,500,000 identifications: $625 for the first band, $1,500 for the second and $750 for the 500,000 over a million, which is $2,875, an average near $0.0019 each.

The pricing page has a calculator that does the same sum, so you can try your own volume. The estimate and the invoice use the same integer arithmetic, so they agree.

#What is free?

Only identifiable production checks are charged. Free device fingerprinting for testing and for everything that is not a charged identification is part of the model, not a trial that expires.

• Every request made with a development or staging key, so you can build and test the whole flow before paying.
• Production requests that could not be identified. You do not pay for a check that identified no one.
• Retries of the same request, answered as duplicates.
• Requests Fingerly refuses, and deferred reports.
• Reading events with a secret key, and webhooks.

Every new account also starts with $1 of free signup credit, enough for 400 identifications. It is granted once per email address and no card is needed to spend it.

#How do credit, top-ups and auto top-up work?

You top up by card from $5 to $5,000, and credit is added as soon as the payment is confirmed. Purchased credit and signup credit never expire. Billing details, receipts and past invoices are managed from the billing settings in the dashboard.

Auto top-up adds a fixed amount by card when the balance drops below a threshold you set, so traffic does not stop for lack of credit. It needs a card on file, runs up to three times in any 24 hours, and pauses after three declined payments in a row. If a balance does run out, production identify requests are refused with a 402 until you add funds, and a webhook tells your systems. Development and staging keys keep working.

Larger organisations can ask support about monthly invoiced billing instead of buying credit first. Usage is priced the same way, volume discount included.

#How do you estimate your own cost per identification?

Count the moments you would check, multiply by your monthly traffic, and price the total with the bands. A quick method:

• List the actions worth protecting: signup, login, trial start, coupon redemption, referral claim, checkout, payout.
• Estimate monthly volume for each from your analytics. You rarely need to check every page view.
• Add the volumes up to get identifications per month.
• Price that total with the graduated bands. For example, 20,000 signups and 150,000 logins checked in a month is 170,000 identifications, or $425.
• Start on a development key to see real volumes at no cost, then switch the key to production.
• Turn on auto top-up with a threshold comfortably above a day’s spend, and watch the usage page for the first month.