What should Selma cost?
No price has ever been committed. This page lays out the cost base, the ideas floated so far, what each audience is used to paying, and a calculator to test options together.
No price has ever been committed. This page lays out the cost base, the ideas floated so far, what each audience is used to paying, and a calculator to test options together.
What the cost base leaves out is everything already invested to get Selma here: the product, the Human at the Helm suite, the commissioning method, the pilots. A price has to cover delivery and support and still reward that work.
A$60K licence and A$25K setup appeared in an early financial model. Since ruled out as invented placeholders.
Illustrated as a 25-seat community organisation paying A$50K in year one and A$30K a year after. The investor pack later tiered setup at A$20K–40K.
Upfront setup plus per-seat monthly, depending on the organisation.
The licence buys the weekly newsletter and data packs: new grants for the sector, new public research, to load into Selma.
For creative agencies, against an enterprise Shutterstock alternative at about A$30K a year.
| A$30K + A$10K/yr | A$20K + A$100/user/month | |
|---|---|---|
| 25-staff charity | Year one A$40K, 35% of its tech budget | Year one A$50K, 43% |
| 150-staff charity | Year one A$40K, 5.8%. ~A$11 per user a month over 3 years. | Year one A$200K, 29% of its tech budget |
| 25-person law or accounting firm | A$60K over 3 years vs ~A$28K for Copilot | A$110K over 3 years, ~4 times Copilot |
| Government, 100 users | Well under Copilot's ~A$54K a year after year one | A$140K year one, above Copilot |
| Enterprise department (30 users) | May look too cheap to be taken seriously | A$56K year one, within range |
Our calculations. The per-user idea fails in every audience except small enterprise teams. The flat idea fits mid-size NFPs and government well, and is heavy for small charities and small firms.
Per-seat pricing invites a line-by-line comparison with Copilot and penalises large casual workforces. Flat per site, with unlimited users, turns Selma's fixed cost into a selling point.
Capex for one-off grants and development equipment lines; opex for overhead lines and subscriptions. The same product can be sold both ways.
Kogan priced a TV at exactly the stimulus payment. Queensland's Gambling Community Benefit Fund caps equipment grants at A$35,000, almost exactly a "A$30K unit" plus GST.
In development, selling the box near cost signals good faith and value for money. In enterprise, a box that looks cheap looks like a hobby. Either way, the service is what's priced.
The first paid pioneer sets the market's reference point. A published list price with a founding-partner rate avoids a cliff from free to full.
Subscription AI must be expensed, so capital budgets and matched capex grants have had nothing AI to buy. An owned unit plus commissioning can be capitalised. Keep the upfront as a capital bundle and the licence as opex. More on Commercials Day.
Monthly data corpus and skills updates, quarterly model upgrades and obligation packs, annual re-measurement and hardware swap give the annual fee substance (proposed cadence). Without them it reads as rent on a box the client owns.
Pick a starting point or move the sliders. It shows what the buyer pays, what EthicAI keeps, and how the price compares with cloud seats for the same number of people.
| Shape | How it works | Fits |
|---|---|---|
| Grant-ready package | Unit, commissioning and 12 months support under a grant cap (e.g. A$35K inc GST), with an applicant pack | NFPs, ACCHOs |
| Size-tiered subscription | Annual fee by organisation size, hardware leased and refreshed | NFPs, government, SMEs |
| Per-programme licence | Written into one funded programme's budget, expanded programme by programme | NFPs, INGOs |
| Sponsor or funder cohort | A foundation, department or corporate funds 5–20 installs | NFPs, ACCHOs, Pacific |
| Shared hub | A peak body or regional hub hosts units for many small members | Small NFPs, Pacific hub and spoke |
| Pilot fee | Fixed-price 90-day commissioning under procurement thresholds | Government, enterprise |
| Department cell and fleet | Commissioning plus annual per-unit fee; central management for fleets | Enterprise |
| Programme package | Scoping, pilot, sites, capacity building, support, all costed into a donor programme | Development |
| Batch analysis job | A one-off fixed fee to run Selma over a backlog (historic files, audit prep), then remove or convert | NFPs, government, enterprise |
| Founding partner rate | Published list price, locked discount for pioneers in return for case studies | Current pilots |
| Channel margin | 25–40% to MSPs, integrators or contractors who install and support | SMEs, enterprise, Pacific |