Partners · Pilot economics

How the 2027 pilot is paid for

If you're going to put your name next to this in front of growers, you should know where the money comes from and what happens when it runs short. Two phases, what each one costs to run, who funds it, and the risks we're tracking in the open.

Available now in early access; 2027 pilot participants receive guided onboarding.

Farms pay nothing during the pilot

Available now in early access; 2027 pilot participants receive guided onboarding. No trial clock, no card on file, no commission on pilot contracts.

Partners contribute time, not money

Extension agents, commodity boards, and associations help with recruitment and agronomic review. We do not ask partner organizations for funding.

The grower owns the records

Every farm can export or delete its data at any point, during or after the pilot. Funding sources do not buy access to farm-level records.

Phase by phase

Each phase earns the next. Phase 2 has nothing to work with until a farm has Phase 1 records behind it.

Phase 1

Bankable numbers

1.5–2 years per farm

Get each enrolled farm to a record set a lender, landlord, or buyer will accept: fields mapped, soil tests interpreted, inputs and irrigation logged, yields tied back to the block that grew them.

What the work is

  • ·Field mapping and zone setup with the grower
  • ·Soil-test intake and interpretation against extension thresholds
  • ·Season-by-season input, irrigation, labor, and yield capture
  • ·Cost-per-acre and margin-per-block reporting the farm can hand to a lender

What drives the cost

  • ·Onboarding time per farm (the largest single line — it is people, not software)
  • ·Grower success check-ins through the season
  • ·Data sources: USDA NASS/AMS, NOAA, and licensed imagery
  • ·Hosting, storage, and support

Who funds it

BAU operating capital
Platform build, hosting, and the grower success team.
Grants (agriculture, veteran-owned, and rural development programs)
Onboarding labor and extension collaboration — tracked publicly on our grant page.
Extension and association partners
Recruitment, meeting space, and agronomic review — in kind, not cash.

What the farm pays: Nothing. Free during early access, through the pilot.

Phase 2

Connecting with buyers

6 months–1 year, once Phase 1 records exist

Turn those records into pre-season commitments: verified demand by crop, grade, and delivery window matched to farms that can document they hit it before.

What the work is

  • ·Buyer intake — crop, volume, grade, window, location
  • ·Matching demand against the farm's own recorded history
  • ·Record verification so a buyer can trust the claim without an audit trip
  • ·Contract and fulfillment tracking through the season

What drives the cost

  • ·Buyer-side business development (relationship work, not ad spend)
  • ·Verification review time
  • ·Marketplace and contract tooling

Who funds it

BAU operating capital and seed investment
Buyer network development and marketplace build.
Buyer partners
Their own sourcing staff time. Buyers are not charged during the pilot either.

What the farm pays: Nothing during the pilot. No commission on pilot contracts.

After the pilot

Paid subscriptions

Only after pilot results are validated

Farms that got value keep the tools on a normal subscription. Nobody is asked to pay for something that hasn't proven out on their own operation.

What the work is

  • ·Published pilot outcomes: yield vs. forecast, contract fulfillment, cost-per-acre change
  • ·Farms choose whether to continue — records export or delete either way

What drives the cost

  • ·Ongoing support, data licensing, and hosting at steady state

Who funds it

Subscriptions
Farmer Basic $19/mo, Farmer Pro $79/mo, Farm Enterprise $249/mo.

What the farm pays: Their chosen plan — and only if they opt in after the pilot.

What could go wrong

A pilot that only lists upside isn't worth reading. Here's what we watch.

Records take longer to build than farms expect

Bankable numbers need real seasons behind them. A farm enrolling mid-season won't have a clean year-one picture.

How we handle it: Phase 1 is scoped at 1.5–2 years up front, not sold as a quick win. Farms see partial-season limits labeled as partial in their own reports.

Grant timing doesn't line up with onboarding

Program cycles and award dates move. Onboarding labor is the biggest cost and it's front-loaded.

How we handle it: Cohorts are sized to committed funding, not to hoped-for awards. If funding slips, we slow enrollment rather than thin out support.

Buyer demand doesn't match what pilot farms grow

Phase 2 only works if verified demand overlaps the crops and windows in the cohort.

How we handle it: Buyer recruitment is targeted at the crops the enrolled farms already grow, and demand is posted before planting decisions so growers can respond or ignore it.

Farms decline to continue after the pilot

That's the honest outcome if the numbers didn't help them.

How we handle it: No auto-conversion to paid. Records export on request. A farm walking away with a clean two-year record set still got the thing it came for.

Thin cohort makes early benchmarks unreliable

Regional comparisons need enough farms before they mean anything.

How we handle it: Public benchmarks are sourced from USDA NASS, NOAA, and extension budgets — not from a handful of pilot farms. The grower directory stays hidden until at least six farms are listed.

What we ask of partners

  • ·Introduce the pilot to growers you already serve — no endorsement of results we haven't produced yet.
  • ·Review our agronomic assumptions against your region's extension guidance and tell us where we're wrong.
  • ·Point us at funding programs your growers already qualify for.
Bring BAU to your growers Proof & methodologyGrant trackerPost-pilot pricing

Phase timings and cost drivers describe how the pilot is planned and funded today. Dollar figures shown are our published subscription prices, which apply only after the pilot. Nothing on this page is a projection of a grower's own returns.