The Best Choice in Subscription Plans & Pricing

This is a practical breakdown of Datalastic pricing and features to help maritime companies choose the best maritime API plan for vessel and port tracking.

Datalastic offers tracking and maritime datasets through API access and credit-based or unlimited usage subscriptions. This guide explains what the plans cost, how credit consumption works, what the optional add-ons include, and how to match a plan to your actual fleet size and data needs.

Table of Contents

1. Subscription plans and annual discounts
2. Differences in data access between core plans
3. Credit system explained in human terms
4. Understanding add-ons: what they are and why they matter
5. Plan suggestions for small, medium, and large fleets
6. When to upgrade to unlimited usage
7. Final tips and support contact

The Best Choice in Subscription Plans & Pricing

Datalastic provides multiple monthly and annual subscription options. All plans begin with a 14-day trial followed by an automatic full-price renewal. Our annual subscriptions include a 10% discount on the base price compared to monthly billing when choosing a yearly payment upfront.

Each plan offers API endpoints covering AIS ship tracking, ports, vessel finder, and historical movement.

Differences in Maritime Data: Starter, Experimenter & Developer Pro

All core plans include key vessel and port endpoints. The only difference between those plans is the number of credits, while you have the same data access.

• Starter works well for companies that need standard AIS tracking, access to port databases, and historical movement, but also want affordable credit usage every month. 20000 credits per month is enough to track a small fleet.
• Experimenter is built for teams processing larger fleets or running dashboards, alerts, or repeated checks at a higher frequency. This plan offers 80,000 credits every 30 days, providing 4x more room than Starter.
• Developer Pro+ removes monthly restrictions. Instead of predefined credits, usage becomes unlimited, making it suitable for companies or products that consume data constantly or in large volumes.

In practical terms, real-time AIS tracking does not change in quality between plans. What changes is how often and how much you can call, store, analyze, and integrate.

Understanding Credits (and how many vessels you can track)

Credits are counted per request made to Datalastic’s database. If you request 1 vessel data from endpoints such as /vessel or /vessel_pro, the system deducts 1 credit from your allowance.

If your internal system checks 100 vessels every hour, 30 days, the calculation looks like this:

100 × 24 × 30 = 72,000 requests per month

That means 72,000 API calls will be made to the database in a 30-day period. Under this usage pattern:

• The starter would fall short, as the allowance is 20,000 credits.
• Experimenter covers it well, with 80,000 credits.
• Developer Pro+ covers it fully with no limitations or counting involved.

Datalastic is designed to allow customers to track very large numbers of vessels, build maps, produce analytics and feed BI dashboards. If you want to review detailed API usage information at any point, the data usage tracker is publicly documented, you can always check and proactively monitor your API usage at any time.

Monthly Plans: With Add-Ons vs Without Add-Ons

Every Datalastic subscription includes the core features, with or without add-ons**.

Ship Tracking API provides live AIS vessel positions so you can monitor ships, fleets, and marine traffic in real time, including ETA, port of departure, port of arrival, ATD, and more.

Port API gives structured data on ports around the world, including names and official codes for easy identification.

Historical Vessel Tracking Data lets you pull past ship movements for analysis or reporting.

Location Tracking API allows area-based queries so you can filter or track vessels around coordinates or a radius.

Vessel Finder is a practical search tool to look up ships by name, IMO or MMSI.

Port Terminals delivers data on terminal facilities inside ports.

Ship Specs Info includes key vessel particulars like dimensions, build year, type, and tonnage.

**Add-ons are optional maritime datasets that complement the basic AIS vessel tracking API. They are focused on business and operational data that helps companies move beyond vessel location, port info, or historical data, and actually understand who owns the vessels, when they dock, what condition they are in, or whether they have been involved in incidents or inspections.

Maritime Add-Ons Features: What is the Difference in Pricing plans with Add-Ons?

When companies talk about the best maritime API plan, they’re usually thinking beyond just live ship positions. They want the data that helps them understand operations, risk, ownership, routes, and technical details.

• Maritime Companies Report & API gives you clear, structured information about the major maritime companies in the market. Get a reliable company profile and business details in a clean API format.
• Vessel Ownership Report & API tells you who actually owns or manages a vessel at any given point. This includes ship owners, commercial operators, and technical managers.
• Inspections & Detention Report & API shows whether a vessel has gone through inspections by maritime authorities and if it has ever been detained, flagged for non-compliance or restricted.
• Dry Dock Dates Report & API gives you a history or schedule of maintenance dockings. Fleet operators often use this to plan logistics, cross-check availability or estimate when a vessel was last out of service for repairs or upgrades.
• Ship Demolitions Data API includes records of vessels that have been scrapped, recycled, or officially marked for demolition, including sale prices and more.
• Ship Casualties Data API covers serious maritime incidents, collisions, sinkings, fires, or major structural damage.
• Vessel Engine Data API gives you the type of engine installed, the power setup, configuration details, and the design specs.
• Classification Societies Report & API tells you which classification body certified or surveyed the ship, along with key survey or class details.
• Route Tracking API lets you access actual sea and ocean routes.
• SAT-E Tracking API uses predictive modeling to estimate vessel location when it’s outside of terrestrial AIS reach, similar to satellite-based insights, but built through smart data algorithms.

How to Choose The Best Maritime API Plan for Your Fleet Size

If you are still unsure which plan you may need, you can use this as a generic guide. Of course, factual credit consumption may vary based on the endpoints you request and the frequency.

Small Fleets (≤10 vessels)

Best fit: Starter or Starter + Add-Ons (if you need inspection, casualties, demolition, or ownership records, etc).

The 20,000 monthly allowance gives enough flexibility for exploratory queries, occasional historical movement checks, port lookups, or internal dashboards that refresh a few times per day.

Medium Fleets (10 – 200 vessels)

Best fit: Experimenter or Experimenter + Add-Ons.

This range represents the most common group of API users in Europe. If your team refreshes vessel positions or specs multiple times per hour or stores historical data for BI, 80,000 credits provides enough safety margin. If you also want incident monitoring or predictive modeling, choose the add-on bundle.

Large Fleets (200+ vessels + full monitoring)

Best fit: Developer Pro+ or Developer Pro++ Add-Ons.

Once fleet size passes a few hundred vessels, companies often stop counting requests altogether. Many integrate APIs into 24/7 dashboards, automated risk systems, or commercial products. Unlimited usage ensures your internal or client-facing system never reaches a ceiling. Add-ons are recommended when you monitor inspections, casualties, demolitions, engine details, or AI predicted routing.

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