What AIP:Aero costs to run
AIP:Aero is free, shows no ads and needs no account. It is not a business. It does not pay me anything, and it is not meant to. It does cost money every month, and this is what that is.
Monthly running costs
| Item | Per month |
|---|---|
| Google Places API (fly-in restaurants, museums) | ~€50 |
| OpenRouter (AI features) | ~€50 |
| Open-Meteo API (weather, meteograms) | €29 |
| Netcup root server (build runners) | €21 |
| Cloudflare Workers | ~€5 |
| Domains (€57 per year) | ~€5 |
| Total | ~€160 |
That is around €1,900 a year. Supporters currently cover a part of it. I pay the rest myself, and I will keep doing that either way.
Adding a country costs extra
The first crawl of a new country - its airfields, charts and nearby places - runs well above the monthly rate and then settles. That one-off is usually what decides whether the next country happens this month or in three months.
What this does not pay for
Nobody is paid from this. There is no salary, no profit and no investor. My own time is unpaid and stays that way.
The money above is only the part with an invoice attached. Finding and checking AIP sources country by country, reading terms of use, licensing correspondence, verifying that charts are actually current: that is the larger half of the work and it costs evenings rather than euros.
If donations ever exceed the running costs, the surplus goes into more countries, better data sources and a reserve for the weather data licence.
Keep AIP:Aero running
Every contribution covers a slice of the costs above - and the next country.
Figures as of October 2026. Reviewed quarterly. Questions? Get in touch.