NatureServe Software, Information, and Support Services Fee
NatureServe provides information and support services to all network member programs. These services include: maintaining species taxonomy and ecosystem classification; assessment and maintenance of global conservation status ranks; development and maintenance of network standards – including: conservation status ranking, species and habitat climate change vulnerability assessment, element occurrences, species habitat modeling, and range mapping; ecology mapping products such as the National Vegetation Classification / International Vegetation Classification mapping; network leadership and coordination; NatureServe Explorer & Explorer Pro websites and APIs. Biotics software as a service provides member programs with a common platform that supports the consistent application of shared network data standards. Using Biotics also provides the benefit of automating the ongoing data exchange process, which drastically reduces the cost and effort for NatureServe and member programs.
Proposed Fee Structure for FY 2025 – FY 2026
As first communicated on US and Canada section calls in March, NatureServe is announcing a new Software, Information, and Support Services fee structure to take effect July 2024. The table below details pricing for all member fee categories for the next two fiscal years, FY 2025 and 2026. We will update member programs with a schedule for fee increases for FY 2027 and subsequent years by June 2025, after we know updated costs for hosting Biotics on AWS.
As with Membership Dues, NatureServe offers different levels of pricing and benefits for Software, Information, and Support Services and expects that all network member programs will contribute for basic information and support services plus Biotics software according to their usage level.
Member Fee Categories* | FY 2024 | FY 2025 | FY 2026 | FY 2027 |
Software, Information, and Support Services | ||||
Basic Information & Support Services** | $5,000 | $7,000 | $8,000 | TBD |
Information & Support plus Standard Biotics | $16,000 | $18,000 | $20,000 | TBD |
Information & Support plus High Usage Biotics*** | N/A | $20,000 | $25,000 | TBD |
Membership Dues | ||||
Basic Dues | $2,000 | $2,000 | $2,100 | $2,100 |
Leadership Dues | $3,000 | $3,000 | $3,150 | $3,150 |
Sustaining Dues | $5,000 | $5,000 | $5,250 | $5,250 |
* Membership Dues and Software, Information, and Support Services fees can be combined or invoiced separately as needed.
**This category is available to non-Biotics programs and includes Biotics Tracker software to ensure cost effective data exchanges between NatureServe and all programs.
***High Usage Biotics is a higher priced tier of software service available for programs with larger storage and/or 24x7 service availability requirements.