Why file size doesn't set the price
Storage size says very little about value. A drive full of duplicate PDFs and a smaller set of linked records are two different assets, even if the drive is ten times the size. What makes the smaller set worth more is the links: each ticket tied to the change that closed it, each invoice to its approval and payment, each estimate to its photos, calls and final invoice.
Buyers count things that map to real work: how many jobs, tickets, matters or closes, how many years, how complete each record is, and how many have photos, recordings or linked documents attached. That's why our intake asks for counts and dates, not gigabytes.
What raises the value
Nobody can hand you a formula, but these are the things that shape it.
- Long, continuous history. Ten years in the same system with no gap shows how your business behaves through busy seasons, slow ones and price swings. A record that starts last spring can't.
- Records that show decisions and outcomes. A quote, the revision and the approval or the loss. A claim, the supplement and the adjuster's answer. A ticket, the fix and whether it held. Outcomes are what let a model learn what worked.
- Specialized work. Month-end closes, contract redlines, freight exceptions, insurance submissions, roofing claims and solar permitting are hard to find outside the companies that do the work.
- Linked evidence. A ticket tied to the commit that fixed it, a call tied to the booking it produced, an estimate tied to the final cost, a photo tied to the job it documents.
- Clean rights. You own the records, your contracts allow the use, your recordings were made with proper consent, and clients have consented wherever professional rules require it.
- An ongoing feed. Some buyers want the record to keep growing, which a one-time export can't offer.
- Exclusivity. A buyer who gets the record to themselves has a reason to pay more. See exclusive vs. non-exclusive licenses.
What holds it down
- Short history. One or two years shows a moment, not a pattern.
- Data you don't own. Measurement reports, supplier price lists, a client's books, code written for a client, an architect's drawings and MLS listings often belong to someone else or come with licenses that don't let you pass them on. We'd leave them out and license your own records and the fields you derived from them.
- Personal information that can't be removed. If a record only makes sense with a customer's identity attached, it isn't something we can license. Identifiers have to come out before delivery.
- Material that's already public. Permits on file with the city, public court filings, open-source code, your website, your published reviews. Buyers can get these without you.
- Gaps and scatter. Records split across three systems with years missing in between are worth less than one complete run.
Most of these change what goes into the license rather than ending the conversation. The rights side is covered in is it legal to sell company data.
Why competition matters for price
Ask one buyer what your record is worth and you get the number that works for them. You have nothing to compare it to, and they know it.
Buyers also value different parts of the same record. A voice AI company cares most about calls. An insurtech company cares about claim files and outcomes. A legal AI company wants redlines, a coding-tools company wants code linked to tickets, and a data lab and an AI lab each look for something else. When they all see the same anonymized summary at the same time, they price against each other, and each one shows you what it values by what it offers.
A marketplace listing waits for a buyer to find it and usually leaves you to set the ask. We take the summary to buyers and ask them to name theirs.
Why we don't quote a number first
After your intake we can tell you what looks strong and what looks thin. We won't tell you what it will fetch. That would be a guess dressed up as an estimate, and an early number tends to anchor everyone, you included.
Pricing happens when qualified buyers, under NDA, review the anonymized summary and put offers in writing. Until then, the honest answer is that the price isn't set. We are paid a small commission out of a deal that closes. If nothing closes, you owe nothing.
What the market has shown
The four licenses closed by buyers in our network that we show on the case studies page fall in the $110K–$450K range. All four were exclusive licenses to the company's operating record: one perpetual, two for 24 months and one for 18 months.
Those figures describe the market. They are not deals we brokered, and they are not a forecast of what your record will bring. Every record is priced on its own.
Follow-up questions
This is general information about how data licensing works. It is not legal advice, and we are not your lawyer. Have your own counsel review any license before you sign.