PlanetScope - new pricing model - Hectares under management

News
1

Starting 2021, Planet decided to change the pricing model for sale of PlanetScope data. They have realised that the data is mostly used for agriculture and decided to introduce “Hectares under management” model, which, in short, means paying a yearly subscription for a specific area of interest in exchange for the access to all available data, both the archive and fresh data.

How it works:

  • user subscribers for a quota of hectares
  • whenever the user orders data for a new AOI, quota is subtracted for that AOI
  • for consecutive orders for the same AOI, both for archive and fresh data, quota remains unchanged.
  • minimum individual order is 1 hectare
  • minimum quota purchase is 100 hectares

On a separate, yet related note, the limitations for use of PlanetScope data in agriculture in some areas are no longer in place. Companies can therefore exploit these data worldwide.

Q: What happens with the quota, that I have purchased but not yet consumed?
Nothing changes related to that. You can consume it in line with the past rules, until the period (one year after purchase) expires.

Q: Do I need to change my data order workflow?
No. The API to order the imagery stays exactly the same. The APIs to access the ordered data as well.

Q: Are there some discounts available?
We were told to pass these kind of questions to Planet and they will look into it, trying to accommodate the need. Therefore, if you have e.g. more than 10.000 hectares to work on or some other specifics, let us know.

Q: Is it no longer possible to purchase discrete imagery, e.g. one some specific acquisitions over AOI?
At the moment not. We were told that this option should be re-introduced in some form the coming month or two, also tied to the subscription model, but not AOI-based. That being said, the “hectares under management” is meant to be used for agriculture.

We understand that this is a significant change and some of you might find it inconvenient. We apologise for that, but commercial data pricing is in the hands of data providers.
In case you have some additional questions about this, do let us know and we will communicate them with the data provider.

2

What should be the minimum width of the AOI that I can order?

3

Not sure I understand your question. Minimum area of individual order is 1 hectare. In theory this can be composed of 3333 pixels x 1 pixel polygon, pixel being 3 meters.

4

The PlanetScope Hectares under Management pricing model has been finalized. Visit the following page for more details!

5

For the purposes of this service, what does “access” mean?

Will I be able to download the images locally for recall (like in the SH API) or does it require data transfer each time I want to access imagery?

6

Hm, not sure which “access” specifically you are referring to. There are two steps:

  • order the data to be ingested from Planet to Sentinel Hub (see documentation)
  • use SH API to do whatever you are used to

With “Hectares under management” you can order all observations within a specific polygon, i.e. parcel, and only consume the area of the parcel once. In practice, you get access to full archive of PlanetScope data within a specific hectare.