Just for sharing with the community, I’d like to share the conversation had via email. Perhaps it helps someone else. Italics responses are from Grega (thank you)
We are currently integrating the Planet Scope subscription generation into our application, and wanted to confirm a few things:
What is the best practice for managing these subscriptions to Planet Scope? We would like all our subscriptions to contain historical data from Planet Scope. Does it make sense that every subscription created to default the time range to a “start date” to the earliest possible ingestion of Planet Scope data i.e. some date in 2017?
We would recommend that all your subscriptions have same start date, so that you will not have trouble remembering specific cases. Which date you choose will not impact your costs, so you can set any, i.e. 2017-01-01. Choose the one that makes sense. For “TO” date it would probably make sense that you set it to 2023-10-26, when your current PlanetScope subscription expires. At that date you should consider, for each parcel separately, to extend it for another year or not.
Should the subscriptions created/confirmed be deleted at any point due to:
Concern over the subscription counting in the “next year” against our quota?
Concern over BYOC data storage limits?
We do currently not charge for BYOC data storage. We might do that in the future, but costs will be very low, compared to costs of data itself. And if we decide to do so, we will provide sufficient advance notice, leaving you plenty of time to decide how to optimise the storage.
At the moment it does not seem possible to “delete” a created subscription. The response we get is “405 Method Not Allowed”. Is this endpoint not intended for us?
Might it be that subscription is RUNNING? If so, you have to cancel it first. More info here: API Reference
Are subscriptions that are “created” and NOT “confirmed” still counted against the quota? Or do they count against the quota ONLY upon creation and when in status running?
Subscriptions count at quota when they are first confirmed. If you decide to cancel it later, the specific area will still count under quota within specific year. Subscriptions that are created and not confirmed, do not yet count under quota.
I’m in need of clarity around the expiry of planet subscriptions and the renewal of such, and which billing cycle it would fall into.
Specifically referring to Grega mentioning in the previous msg:
For “TO” date it would probably make sense that you set it to 2023-10-26, when your current PlanetScope subscription expires. At that date you should consider, for each parcel separately, to extend it for another year or not
Is the -10-26 (e.g. 2023-10-26) our PlanetScope subscription expiration “date” set for all Planet BYOC subscriptions going forward, or does this date change after every new purchase of more credits/quota for PlanetScope data? If we code a conditional check to extend the subscription for another year, can we use this date as a static constant, or is there perhaps an endpoint that would reveal this date so we can programmatically check if the renewal/extension is required?
The current PlanetScope subscription quota expires 2023-10-26, is my understanding correct that if we created a parcel subscription for 2023-10-25 (i.e 1 day before expiry), and that continued for another 12 months, then the quota consumed would be for the current PlanetScope subscription, as well as the next annual PlanetScope subscription?
Perhaps first a general note - if you purchase 100 hectares of PlanetScope Tier 3 quota on 2022-10-28, it means that you have access to full archive and fresh data for areas totalling (in total sum) 100 hectares for a period of one year (2022-10-28 - 2023-10-27), regardless of when specifically you trigger Subscriptions or Order API.
Some examples, under assumption you’ve purchased 100 ha on 2022-10-28
if you subscribe to 100 polygons each 1 ha large on 2022-10-28, you will be able to get data for this for the upcoming year, until 2023-10-27
if you do the above on 2023-10-26, you will be able to get the data only for one day, uneil 2023-10-27
If you make a subscription for 100 polygons on 2022-10-28, then cancel subscription for half of them a day later, you have still consumed full quota and you need to purchase a top-up if you want/need data for additional polygons
I hope the above clarifies your doubts.
To answer the question:
Yes, 2023-10-26 is (contractual) expiration for all Planet subscriptions going forward in your case. You can use it as a constant. We don’t have an API at this point.
Thank you @gmilcinski. That makes sense, and then one last question, under assumption we’ve purchased 100 ha on 2022-10-28:
If I then purchase an additional 100 hectares of PlanetScope Tier 3 quota on 2023-04-28 (6 months before (contractual expiration), but within the current contract), then the quota expiration of 200ha would still be 2023-10-27? i.e. all quota purchased during “that year” expires at the same time.
Your understang is correct, but do take into account the “co-term” rule, i.e. that if you top-up the quota in 6 months, you will only pay for proportional part, i.e. 50%. The exception being if you make a top-up in the last 3 months of the subscription. In that case you will have to subscribe to the remaining period and one additional year.