::pricing transparency · how every price is set
Fair by design.
The lab's products are priced by country. A buyer in Mumbai does not pay the same number as a buyer in London, and a buyer in Mogadishu does not pay at all. The full mechanism is below — public, citable, identical for every product.
::why
The 44-million-worker frame applies to the whole planet.
The lab's thesis is that AI literacy is a literacy question, not a luxury one. A flat global price would price out the buyers who most need the leverage — workers in lower-income economies whose AI on-ramp is the difference between staying employed and not. The same product, the same source code, the same updates, priced as a function of where the buyer lives.
This is not a charity carve-out. The base price is set to a number high-income buyers will pay willingly for the value they receive. Buyers in lower-income tiers get the same product at a price that makes sense in their economy. The high-income margin cross-subsidizes the low-income access. The math works at the population level, not the per-buyer level.
::how · step 1 · World Bank income tiers
Every country gets one of four tiers.
Tier mapping is the World Bank's annual income classification (FY 2026 · based on 2024 GNI per capita · data source). Updated every July when the World Bank revises.
| Tier | Income classification | GNI/capita | Default multiplier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | High-income | > $13,935 | 100% of base |
| Tier 2 | Upper-middle-income | $4,496 – $13,935 | 40% of base |
| Tier 3 | Lower-middle-income | $1,136 – $4,495 | 10% of base |
| Tier 4 | Low-income | ≤ $1,135 | 2% of base |
::system recognizes 200 countries by ISO code · unknown countries default to Tier 1 base price
::how · step 2 · named country doctrines
Two named clauses. Both public, both reasoned.
The lab does not use opaque per-country overrides. Where specific countries get different pricing than their World Bank tier would produce, the decision lives as a NAMED DOCTRINE with a published reason. Two are currently active:
::doctrine 01 · USA Advantage Clause
US buyers pay 10% of the Tier 1 anchor.
Scope: US · Multiplier: 0.1 (10%) · A US buyer pays $9.90 on a $99 product.
Reasoning: Mission alignment with the 44M displaced-worker frame. US is the lab's home market and stated focus. The clause accepts ~$90/buyer margin in exchange for an order-of-magnitude more US adoption.
::published in · /legal/pricing · /dynamic-world-pricing · /manifesto (clause 04 covenant compatible)
::doctrine 02 · Strategic Tier Lift
Specific countries lifted above their World Bank tier.
Active lifts: China (CN) · → Tier 1. A buyer in a lifted country pays the price of the tier they were lifted into, not the World Bank classification tier.
Reasoning: State-backed adversarial markets pay the high-income anchor regardless of GNI per capita classification. The fairness mechanism is calibrated for individual buyers in lower-income economies, not for buyers operating inside a state-backed economic posture with substantial capital access. Lift is explicit, named, public, reviewable.
::published in · /legal/pricing · /dynamic-world-pricing
::source · lib/pricing/doctrines.ts · adding a clause requires the same file + a /changelog entry
::how · step 3 · per-product base price
Each product carries a Tier-1 anchor.
The Tier-1 anchor is the price a high-income buyer pays. Lower tiers pay the anchor times the tier multiplier from step 1. The named doctrines from step 2 override the default for the specific countries they cover.
| Product | Tier-1 anchor | Pricing path |
|---|---|---|
| ORANGEBOX | $99 | pure tier-driven + named doctrines |
| B00KMAKR | $99 | pure tier-driven + named doctrines |
::how · step 4 · the Stripe minimum floor (free for the floor)
Below 50 cents, it's a gift.
Stripe (the payment processor) has a minimum charge of $0.50 USD on most cards. The lab's policy is that if the fairness mechanism ever produces a price below that floor, the buyer gets the product FREE — not rounded up. Under current default multipliers (1.0x / 0.4x / 0.1x / 0.02x) and a $99 base, no country falls below $0.50, so the doctrine sits as a published safeguard. It activates the moment a future product's multiplier curve or a lower base price produces a sub-floor result. The intent is unchanged: fairness, not extraction at the margin.
::how · step 5 · country detection
IP geolocation, no fingerprinting.
Country is detected via your IP address (Vercel's edge geolocation, no third-party service). Nothing about you personally is stored. The IP is only used to produce a country code, which is then used to look up the tier and price. The IP itself is not logged by the pricing system.
VPN users will see the price for the country their VPN egresses through. That is intentional — the system does not attempt VPN detection. If a high-income buyer wants to use a VPN to pay the Tier-4 price, they can. The lab's posture is that the fairness mechanism is for the population who genuinely lives in lower-income countries; modest abuse by edge-case VPN users is acceptable cost.
At checkout, Stripe also verifies the card's country of issue. If the card country differs substantially from the IP country, Stripe's own fraud detection may decline the charge. That is Stripe's call, not the lab's.
::audit · check your own price
Curl the API yourself.
The pricing endpoint is public. Hit it from any terminal:
# default — detected from your IP curl https://atomeons.com/api/price/orangebox # explicit country (testing) curl https://atomeons.com/api/price/orangebox?cc=GB # tier default · $99 curl https://atomeons.com/api/price/orangebox?cc=US # USA Advantage Clause · $9.90 curl https://atomeons.com/api/price/orangebox?cc=CN # Strategic Tier Lift · $99 curl https://atomeons.com/api/price/orangebox?cc=IN # tier default · $9.90 curl https://atomeons.com/api/price/orangebox?cc=SO # tier default · $1.98
The JSON response includes the resolved price, the effective tier (after any Strategic Tier Lift), the multiplier applied, the source of the decision (tier_default · usa_advantage_clause · strategic_tier_lift · free_below_min), and the base list price. Two boolean flags say plainly whether a named clause applied: usaAdvantage and tierLifted. If you ever think the price is wrong, the receipts are right there.
::§4A · no-saas covenant compatibility
The lab's License §4A no-saas covenant binds the lab to never move any one-time-priced product to a subscription model. Per-country pricing is allowed (and intended) under §4A — the covenant is about pricing MODEL (one-time vs. recurring), not pricing AMOUNT (USD vs. INR vs. KES). A high-income buyer at $99 and a low-income buyer at $1.98 are both paying once, forever, for the same product, with the same source code, with the same update path. That's §4A.