Understanding the costs for algorithms is easy after learning the two basic concepts of Royalties & Execution Time.
The Algorithmia.com platform works off of a credit-based system where $1 USD = 10,000 credits. Being a member of the Algorithmia community has no costs and is free forever. Each month, every developer receives 5,000 complimentary credits that they can use any of the algorithms available in the marketplace. Those credits will go a long way!
We have some more information below to help you see how far your credits will go.
Core Concepts
The two basic concepts to understand for how credits are charged for each algorithm are:
- Royalties
- Execution Time
Royalties
Each algorithm developer decides on whether they want to charge a royalty for each call to their algorithm. We collect those royalties on behalf of those developers to help make sure we create an ecosystem of amazing algorithms made available to other developers like you.
Many algorithm developers choose not to charge a royalty and are indicated on each algorithm page. There is a Pricing section on every algorithm page that helps you understand the particular costs for each algorithm. I've included an example below of a topic extraction algorithm implemented using LDA.
Execution Time
The second concept of algorithm costs is execution time. Each second of execution time costs 1 credit. In the pricing calculator for each algorithm, you'll find an average duration of each call on the platform over time. You can then determine how much a set of calls would be for your application through the Cost Calculator.
Dependent Algorithms in Pipelines
The Algorithmia platform supports composing multiple algorithms into pipelines and then allows you to add custom logic into that pipeline. If you are calling an algorithm that calls other algorithms as part of it's processing, you will also be charged for the costs of those dependent algorithms.
Private Algorithms
Several software teams are creating their own algorithms and hosting them on Algorithmia.com to share with other's from their organization. You can keep your algorithms private to your team and call them from your application. Our recommendation is to not set a royalty for your algorithm and then you will only be charged credits for the execution time of your calls!