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SPACE42 · SMART SOLUTIONS
How Cartos is priced for government — five pillars, a tier-by-tier price ladder, customer ROI, a competitive cost comparison, and the department use-cases behind each tier.
00 · Executive summary
Cartos is priced to get work done, not just to look — a sovereign platform with the modules you switch on and credits for heavy analysis, sized to your jurisdiction from local to national. One line replaces a stack of GIS licences, an imagery subscription, a 3D tool and a BI tool — at roughly 55–60% lower all-in cost, with sovereignty, owned imagery and the AI analyst included.
01 · Pricing architecture
The pillars already on the website, now with price anchors and a clear job for each. The value metric is sovereign platform + modules switched on + credits for heavy GeoAI — seats are a secondary lever.
| Pillar | What it is | Price anchor | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Cartos Sandbox — 1 AOI, sample data, capped credits, 1–3 users, watermarked exports | $0 | Land a champion before procurement; demo the whole loop |
| Proof-of-Value pilot | Fixed-fee 60–90 day deployment on the customer's own AOI + 1 module, defined deliverable | $25k–$75k | Government-friendly first purchase; fully creditable to year 1 |
| Use / Credit | Consumption for heavy GeoAI: change detection, 3D reconstruction, splat scenes, report runs | ~$1/credit · packs $5k / $25k / $100k | Covers variable Phase-II compute; hard caps + alerts |
| Modular | Per-vertical add-ons on a shared sovereign instance (Emergency, Maritime, Smart City, Analyst Layer…) | $40k–$120k / module / yr | Buy what you need; the expansion engine |
| Subscription | Recurring sovereign platform instance + base seats + baseline credits, tiered by buyer | $60k → $3M+ / yr | The predictable budget line procurement signs |
| Cost-Plus | Bespoke national sovereign deployments — dedicated infra, custom modules, data ingest, SLAs | delivered cost + 15–25% | National base-map / Map-Africa-scale programs; outcome deals |
Agent-native design means fewer seats do more, so seats are a secondary lever, not the meter.
| Seat | Can do | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Viewer | Read the common operating picture, dashboards, reports | Bundled (incl.) |
| Analyst | Run analysis, drive the agent, build layers & reports | $2,000 / yr |
| Power / Admin | Configure modules, manage data scope, snapshot defaults | $5,000 / yr |
02 · Government tiers
The buying hierarchy mapped to its commercial model and annual price band — configured per deployment.
| Tier & buyer | Primary model | Annual price band | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supporting department Add-on under a parent agency instance | Seats + Modules | $15k–$80k | $40k |
| Local / Municipal City, municipality, single department | Subscription · Department tier | $60k–$300k | $150k |
| State / Emirate State agency, emirate authority | Subscription · Agency tier + Modular + Credits | $250k–$1.5M | $600k |
| Regional Multi-state / emirate group / continental program | ELA or Cost-Plus | $500k–$5.0M | $2.0M |
| Federal / National National government, ministry, defense | Cost-Plus + ELA | $1.0M–$20M | $5.0M |
Price bands are planning anchors, configured per deployment. Supporting departments join a sovereign instance that is already running, so adding them is incremental.
03 · Customer ROI
For the customer, Cartos is a consolidation play with a productivity kicker — and it pays back inside the first year at every tier.
Customer ROI rests on four drivers: licence consolidation (GIS + imagery + 3D + BI become one line), labour productivity (the agent replaces analyst hours; no training to onboard), avoided integration / professional-services, and faster, better decisions (counted conservatively).
| Tier | Legacy 3-yr | Cartos 3-yr | Direct saving | + Productivity | Payback | Value : Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local / Municipal | $1.2M | $540k | $660k (−55%) | $300k | ~7 mo | 2.8:1 |
| State / Emirate | $4.7M | $2.1M | $2.5M (−55%) | $600k | ~8 mo | 2.5:1 |
| Regional | $15M | $6.6M | $8.4M (−56%) | $1.8M | ~9 mo | 2.5:1 |
| Federal / National | $40M | $15M | $25M (−62%) | $5.0M | ~11 mo | 3.0:1 |
"Legacy 3-yr" is the all-in stack Cartos displaces (GIS licences + imagery subscriptions + a BI tool + partial analyst FTE + 3D / integration services). Every tier lands near a ~55–60% all-in cost reduction with payback inside the first year.
04 · Competitive cost
Three-year total cost of ownership for a comparable mid-size deployment, with the capabilities each platform includes.
| Platform | 3-yr TCO | Sovereign | Imagery incl. | Agent | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palantir Foundry/Gotham | $9.0M | ✓ | — | ✓ | Powerful but heavy services; very high entry |
| Esri ArcGIS Enterprise | $3.3M | — | — | — | Gov standard; imagery & 3D billed separately; per-seat |
| Hexagon (Luciad / M.App) | $2.9M | — | — | — | Strong viz; integration-heavy |
| Cartos | $2.1M | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | All-in: sovereign + owned imagery + agent included |
| CARTO (SaaS) | $900k | — | — | — | Cheaper sticker — but cloud-only, no sovereignty/imagery/agent |
Figures are illustrative estimates from public pricing ranges for a comparable State/Agency deployment and exclude customer labour. CARTO's lower sticker omits sovereignty, owned imagery and the agent — the capabilities government buyers are paying Cartos for. Re-verify vendor specifics before quoting externally.
05 · Departments & use cases
The functions that buy — and the modules, personas and use cases that land them. This is the expansion surface inside any agency.
| Government function | Cartos module(s) | Primary personas | Core use case | Fits tier | Headline ROI driver |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emergency Mgmt & 911/999 | Emergency Services | Ops-Center Commander · Dispatch Supervisor | Live incident common operating picture, dispatch, response-time analytics | Local–State | Consolidate CAD + BI; cut response time |
| Police / Law Enforcement | Situational Awareness · Smart City | Crime Analyst · Watch Commander | Hotspot & camera fusion, pattern-of-life, 3D event reconstruction | Local–Federal | Analyst hours saved; faster casework |
| Transportation & Public Works | Smart City / Mobility | Traffic Ops Manager · City Engineer | Network & mobility monitoring, asset condition, congestion corridors | Local–State | Asset-lifecycle savings; congestion mgmt |
| Urban Planning & Municipality | Smart City + Analyst Layer | City Planner · GIS Director | 3D city models, change detection (illegal builds), permitting base map | Local–State | Catch unpermitted change; faster planning |
| Ports & Maritime Authority | Maritime · Maritime Domain Awareness | Port Ops Director · MDA Analyst | Vessel tracking, port incidents, wide-area domain awareness | State–Federal | Throughput & safety; sovereignty |
| Environment, Water & Agriculture | Analyst Layer (change / environmental) | Environmental Analyst · Ag Officer | Vegetation & coastal change, crop & water monitoring from owned imagery | State–National | Program outcomes; subsidy targeting |
| Defense, Intelligence & Border | Situational Awareness (sovereign) | Intelligence Analyst · Border Ops | Sovereign 3D COP, change detection over AOIs, field ground-truth | Regional–Federal | Sovereignty mandate; mission tempo |
| Civil Defense & Disaster Mgmt | Analyst Layer + Cartos Field | EOC Director · Field Coordinator | Pre/post-event change, damage assessment, field capture | State–Federal | Faster damage assessment & aid |
06 · Personas
Today's pain
With Cartos
Today's pain
With Cartos
Today's pain
With Cartos
Today's pain
With Cartos
07 · Worked deal examples
From line-item pricing to the customer's reduction and payback — municipal, agency, and national.
| Platform subscription — Department tier | $110k |
| Smart City module | $45k |
| Analyst Layer module (change detection, 3D) | incl. pilot scope → $0 yr1 |
| Credit pool (baseline) | $25k |
| Analyst seats × 6 | $12k |
| Year-1 price | $180k |
Replaces: Esri Enterprise $120k + imagery $80k + BI $25k + 1 FTE offset $100k + 3D/PS $50k
| Platform subscription — Agency tier | $360k |
| Emergency Services + Maritime + Smart City modules | $210k |
| Credit pool | $100k |
| Analyst/Power seats × 30 | $70k |
| Year-1 price | $740k |
Replaces: Esri ELA $500k + imagery $300k + 2 FTE offset $200k + BI/3D $150k
| Sovereign deployment build (cost-plus, cost + 20%) | $3.0M |
| Recurring platform + modules (ELA) | $1.6M / yr |
| National imagery ingest + custom modules | in build scope |
| Training, SLAs, support | incl. |
| Year-1 price | $5.0M |
Replaces: Build-from-scratch + Esri national ELA + imagery contracts + integrators
08 · Assumptions & what to validate
Bands are for orientation; every deployment is scoped individually.
The bands above are for orientation. Tell us your jurisdiction, the modules you need and your area of interest, and we’ll scope a tailored quote.