Modeling on your own, or a team of you. Either way: no hardware, no maintenance contracts, and no surprises on the bill.
Individual
The complete modeling platform for one modeler. Compute is bought separately in packs of compute hours, drawn by the computing your analyses use, and the hours you buy never expire.
One person, one workspace. Adding colleagues, shared projects and teams are Enterprise; they are not an add-on you can buy here.
See what is includedEnterprise
For consultancies and organizations: several modelers working together, your own terms, and a person to call. We size compute to how you actually work rather than selling you a bigger tier.
Tell us what you need and we will come back to you. Nothing is charged and no account is created by asking.
One platform subscription. Compute bought in prepaid packs: hours that never expire. Storage: 25 GB included, more added in 500 GB or 1 TB.
Step 1 · The platform
The complete modeling platform for one modeler. Compute is bought separately in packs of compute hours, drawn by the computing your analyses use, and the hours you buy never expire.
Compute hours are not included; add a compute pack below, or start without one and buy hours when you are ready to run.
Step 2 · Compute: buy hours once, use them whenever
Every analysis draws compute hours, prepaid units of service, from your balance. Buy a pack, and the hours land on your balance. Bigger packs cost less per hour. How hours are drawn is set out below.
Compute hours are a one-time purchase and never expire. They are not a monthly allowance: nothing is forfeited at the end of a month, there is nothing to roll over, and unused hours stay on your balance for as long as your account is open. Buy more at any time; packs stack.
Compute hours are prepaid units of service. You buy them in advance, they sit in your account's balance, and each analysis draws compute hours from that balance according to the computing resources used to carry it out. The price of a compute hour is fixed by your package; the cost of the computing behind it is not, because it depends on which machines are available when the analysis runs, their market price at that moment, and how much data the analysis moves and stores. Compute hours let you buy computing at a steady price while those costs vary underneath.
How many compute hours an analysis draws:
| Resource | Compute hours drawn |
|---|---|
| Processing | One compute hour for each processor-hour of machine time used to carry out the analysis, including the time the machines take to start and to finish, and the capacity held beside the analysis's work on each machine |
| Data and network | The transfer of results, the network addresses the machines use, the files written to storage and data moved between machine zones, each converted into compute hours at a fixed rate |
| Run fee | 0.25 compute hour for each run, as listed in section 3 |
When several analyses use the same machine, its time is divided among them. While their work runs side by side, each analysis draws the machine's processors in proportion to the processors its work reserved. The time the machine stands idle between pieces of work, and the time it takes to shut down after the last piece, is divided among every analysis whose work ran on it before that time, in proportion to how long its work ran there. The time a machine takes to start belongs to the analyses that asked for it, and a machine that started for an analysis and received no work belongs to that analysis.
Because the machines available change from moment to moment, two similar analyses can draw somewhat different numbers of compute hours. The estimate shown before Run is pressed is set on the conservative side, so the hours drawn are normally at or below it. Nothing is billed in dollars after a package is bought.
The run's record shows the compute hours it drew, and each part of them. What AWS billed for the same run is compared with it every day.
| Action | Draws |
|---|---|
| A model run of any analysis (AERMOD, AERSCREEN, CALPUFF, a HAP or risk assessment, a Level 3 plume visibility analysis) | A run fee of 0.25 compute hour, plus the hours the run used. Terrain computed as part of the run is part of the run. |
| A background influence check | The hours it used, with no run fee. |
| An intermittent operation analysis that is run and saved | A run fee of 0.25 compute hour, plus the hours the analysis used, however large the run: on its own machine, the machine's processors times its time; on the website's server, the processor time it used. The expected design value shown while the schedule is edited, and checking a saved analysis again, draw nothing. An analysis that fails draws nothing. |
| A run the person cancels | The run fee, plus the hours used before the cancel. |
| A run the system fails | Nothing. |
| The AERMAP-only option (terrain files without a model run) | Free for the first 10 terrain computations an account makes in a day. A run that reuses terrain already stored for the site never counts and never draws. Above 10 in a day, the run draws its hours plus the run fee. The page says which applies before the press. |
| The weather step (AERMET, AERSURFACE, weather library builds) | Nothing. |
| The first run that needs a new elevation tile | That run's hours include saving the tile to the shared library; later runs on the same tile do not. |
| Storage | 25 GB of result files is included; more is added in 500 GB at $15 a month or 1 TB at $30 a month, as many as needed, at $30 per TB-month. Every file a run makes and every file uploaded counts. When the storage is full, a new run or upload waits until storage is added or files are deleted; a run under way always finishes. |
Each run shows an estimate of the hours it will draw before Run is pressed, and the hours it drew when it ends. A run already under way is never stopped by billing: the balance is checked before a run starts, never during it.
Step 3 · Storage: 25 GB included; more in 500 GB at $15 or 1 TB at $30 a month
The first 25 GB is included with the platform. More is added from the Usage page in 500 GB at $15 a month or 1 TB at $30 a month, as many as you need, at $30 per TB-month. Every file a run makes and every file you upload counts, and each file shows its size. A standard run stores about 10 to 20 MB; the largest cumulative runs about 1 GB. When the storage is full, a new run or upload waits until storage is added or files are deleted; a run already under way always finishes, and every file stays downloadable. If you cancel you get a 90-day read-only window to export before deletion.
Your selection
$199 / month platform
compute hours are bought from your account once you have subscribed (1,000 hours for $240) · 25 GB of storage included
Cancel the subscription anytime. Compute hours you have already bought are yours; they stay on your balance and never expire. Your usage page shows the balance, every run’s hours, and the storage used and held.
Questions or requests? Email support@plumesmart.com.
Working with colleagues?