How much does Archivum archiving cost?

How to read the estimator

Each line shows the formula used and an indicative amount in euros excl. VAT per year. For volumes (site weight, archive weight, mailbox weight), we always use the upper bound of the bracket you select — it is the most prudent convention for an early estimate.

The annual HT total is then multiplied by the retention duration you choose (in years). French metropolitan VAT at 20% is added to obtain a TTC amount. All these values remain indicative — the actual price is set in the quote, after the free initial scoping.

What the grid includes

The rates on the left cover conservation, operational maintenance, periodic integrity checks, access monitoring, the consultation register, and end-of-period arbitration notifications. They also cover routine operations: consultations by a grantee, partial retrievals on request, modification of access grants by addendum.

• Encrypted storage on sovereign French infrastructure (Scaleway, French data centres).
• Automatic renewal of TLS certificates, domain names and associated DNS records.
• A logged consultation register, accessible to successors under the agreed voting rule.
• Automatic notification three months before each deadline to enable end-of-period arbitration.

What is not included

Some exceptional operations may be billed separately, set in the contract upfront to avoid surprises:

• Unplanned mass retrieval — full extraction of a stratum on encrypted physical delivery, e.g. on request from a liquidator or a court.
• External expertise — intervention by a bailiff, notary or judicial expert to record a consultation, destruction or transfer.
• Executed transfer of rights — effective transfer of the domain, published content or archives to Archivum at end-of-period arbitration, with a notarised deed if needed.
• Migration from a proprietary system — extraction by API or reverse-engineering when the original platform offers no usable native export.

How invoicing works

The signed contract sets the annual HT rate and the projected total HT amount over the retention duration. Invoicing is either one-off at signature (cash payment with discount) or annual (fixed-date debit), at the depositor's choice. A payment schedule is possible for entities in liquidation.

Court liquidations get specific treatment: pricing is negotiated with the court-appointed administrator, billing aligns with available cash in the procedure, and a token deposit (€1) may be used to allow contractual commitment before funds are released.

From the simulator to the quote

1. You simulate here your approximate perimeter. The estimator gives you an indicative range in a few minutes.
2. You book the scoping call — free of charge. One hour by video to validate your status, your exact perimeter, your specific constraints. See the scoping step.
3. You receive a written memo within two to five working days, with two or three priced scenarios in EUR HT/year and a realistic migration calendar.
4. You decide internally, with no pressure. If you proceed, we draft the contract. If not, you keep the memo, we keep your contact details, end of story.

Why five parameters and not one

Many storage providers bill per gigabyte, full stop. It is the simplest mechanic to model, but it does not reflect the reality of a post-cessation archiving case. Keeping a heavily visited website demands different resources than keeping an accounting database. Taking over a mailbox in inbound-only mode mobilises different infrastructure than storing cold files. Framing several successors with collegial voting consumes operational time that a gigabyte counter does not bill.

Hence five sections: each corresponds to a distinct service line, with its own infrastructure costs and its own operational load. You may need only some of them: a freelancer winding up will need archives and email, but not necessarily a site to keep. A dissolving association will need a site, mailboxes and archives, with no big customer volume. The grid adapts.

What the estimator does not measure

Three elements fall outside the automatic calculation because they depend too much on your specific context to fit a grid:

• The legal complexity of the case. An SAS amicably winding up with a single shareholder is not the same as a four-successor estate with a qualified-majority voting rule. The second case requires more scoping and drafting time — priced in the quote, not in the estimator.
• Procedure urgency. A ten-working-day scoping for an ongoing court liquidation is more demanding than a case planned over three months. Calendar compression is negotiated case by case.
• Foreseeable external requests. If you already know an administration or litigation will trigger mass consultations during conservation, that is provisioned — not in the estimator, in the quote.