API subscription costs and number of users.

Getting Started Newbie Questions
#1

Can someone explain how developers deal with API subscription costs, and what kind of formula to use based on cost and number of users.

For example:

  • I write an app that checks and displays the current outside temperature for my users every 15 minutes.
  • OpenWeatherMap charges “$40USD / month for 600 calls per minute (no more than)”.

According to the example, one user could hit the weather server 4 times in one hour. If 600 calls x 60 minutes = 36000 calls, theoretically I can have 9000 users before having to pay for the next tier.

Or, does this subscription level only support 600 users, because if user 601 tries to check the weather, after the other 600 (at noon, on Sunday) then it would fail?

Is this correct? Or, am I missing some other more important metric?

Thank you in advance.

#2

Sounds like you just want help with that specific api and not something in general. You should ask them how they handle it as it is up to each api developer