At Isometric, we care a lot about pricing. When Eamon, our Founder and CEO, set the founding principles of our company, one was to reduce the conflicts of interest inherent in the old business model of the carbon markets. We tackle this by working directly for buyers, not suppliers. Our verification fee is agreed in advance and is paid independently of how many credits issued: we cannot charge more by overcrediting.
Another founding principle was transparency. So after two years of testing this new model in the market I wanted to share what we’ve learned and how our pricing works today.
Never overcharging—or undercharging
We have always provided our buyers with the same price schedule. Isometric’s name comes from the ancient Greek for “equal measure”. That’s directly applicable to the world of measurement, reporting, and verification. But it is also in our DNA to believe that two different buyers should pay the same total fee for any order of equivalent size and complexity. So we have resisted the temptation of bespoke pricing that could lead to inconsistent outcomes. We want to support the creation of a market for carbon removals where a diverse range of buyers can participate on an equal footing.
Now we are publishing our pricing, it will be easier to maintain this principle. This is not our “pre-negotiation price schedule”. It is our price schedule. We will learn more about our costs over time so if we ever need to change the schedule, we will update it here first. If that means prices increase, we won’t impose that on a buyer who has already signed a deal. But if they go down, we will ensure any future savings are passed on automatically by linking prices in our Order Forms to this page. Think of this as a self-imposed “most favoured nation” (MFN) clause.
I want to be open—there will be some deal sizes where we are more expensive than other registries. Firstly, because our financial model is different—for example, we pay for VVBs and this cost is included in our fee. Secondly, because our product is different—our protocols are more scientifically rigorous, our registry more tech-enabled, our customer service more responsive.
We are confident that our pricing is a fair reflection of our costs. We are committed to supporting the industry through significant up-front investments in science and technology. For example, we have developed several first-of-a-kind protocols—ranging all the way from marine to mining—that are a prerequisite to suppliers in those pathways getting off the ground. For these investments to be sustainable we need to know that our fees will cover them over the years that follow. We should never overcharge customers, but we should never undercharge either. Both aspects are critical to achieve our mission of helping CDR to scale, responsibly and fast.
Show me the money
Here are our prices. As suppliers scale up, Isometric’s cost per tonne verified goes down, so we pass on these savings. Some pathways are more complex to verify, so the starting price is higher. At scale these cost differentials erode, so the price points converge.
Credits ordered—not issued
We calculate our fee based on the size of the buyer’s order. We looked at various ways to do this but this always seemed fairest. The alternative is to charge a 100-ton buyer the same as a 100,000-ton buyer. That would mean grossly overcharging one, and undercharging the other.
Once the fee is calculated, our contracts are clear. This is a fixed fee. That means the amount we invoice is independent of whether we issue fewer credits than the project developer expected. There are exceptions to this where we can offer refunds without creating conflicts of interest—such as where a project developer goes bust. But the principle of our remuneration being independent from the number of credits being issued is a feature, not a bug.
A new norm
Our approach is different—charging buyers directly for verification services, and decoupling the total fee from the crediting outcomes. I am really thankful to all the buyers I’ve discussed this with over the past two years, both for their patience and openness to doing things differently. Our experience working with CDR buyers, including Microsoft, Google, and Stripe, gives us confidence that this model can support the CDR industry in scaling responsibly. We want this to become a new market norm.
In summary, our pricing is designed in line with these key principles:
- Aligned incentives: we strip out bad incentives—we don’t get paid more to overcredit
- Transparency: all buyers get these prices—so you don't have to worry about haggling
- Fairness: as the industry scales, so do too our costs—so we pass these savings on
If you’re interested to learn more, see our pricing page here. You can get in touch with us here.
