FAQ
About the Marketplace
Q: What problem does the Marketplace solve?
A: Data ingestion—downloading thousands of GRIB/NetCDF files and transforming them to Zarr/Icechunk—is a major pain point for users working with gridded data. The Marketplace lets users bypass this entirely and obtain instant access to analysis-ready, cloud-optimized (ARCO) datasets directly from trusted providers.
Q: Who should use the Data Marketplace?
A: The Marketplace serves diverse use cases including:
- Energy and commodities trading
- Insurance and finance
- Agriculture
- Climate risk and resilience
- Utilities and operational weather forecasting
- AI/ML training and validation data
- Government agencies
- Academic research
Q: How does the Marketplace work?
A: As a data provider, you build your dataset and store it in Arraylake as an Icechunk repo. Then you create a Marketplace listing with a detailed README and thumbnail. Once published, data users can subscribe. When a user subscribes, a read-only repo appears in their organization with access to your data. You obtain usage metrics and logs showing who is using your data.
Q: Does the Marketplace support frequently updated datasets?
A: Yes. The Marketplace is designed for high-velocity data like weather forecasts that update many times per day. Icechunk's commit-based structure provides a natural atomic unit for dataset updates, and the Marketplace includes notification capabilities (webhooks) for informing users when new data is available. See Low Latency Icechunk ERA5 on the Earthmover Data Marketplace for a real example of a dataset that's updated daily with atomic, ACID-compliant commits.
For Data Providers
Q: Why should I share data through the Marketplace?
A: The Marketplace creates a new channel to distribute (and optionally monetize) your data. It helps you reach end users who need your data while you maintain complete control over storage, licensing, and pricing.
Q: How do I become a data provider?
A: Only verified organizations can publish listings to the Marketplace. To become a data provider:
- Contact sales@earthmover.io to express your interest
- We'll work with you to understand your data and use case
- Once verified, you can create and manage Marketplace listings from Publish → Listings in your organization settings
See the Data Providers guide for more details on the verification process.
Q: What are the different pricing models?
A: The Marketplace supports both free/open data and paid subscriptions:
- Free — No payment needed to access the data. Subscribers get a direct subscription that mirrors your entire repo.
- Paid — Custom pricing negotiated between provider and the user. Subscribers get a filtered subscription scoped to specific variables, time ranges, or regions. In the near future, we will be supporting more automated pricing and billing for data. For now, this is handled offline.
You can also create private listings for specific customers with customized pricing and licenses.
Q: How does the Marketplace support data sovereignty?
A: As a data provider, you control:
- Where your data is stored — Bring your own storage in AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Cloudflare, or even on-prem. Choose your country and region.
- How your data is licensed — You determine the terms; no requirement to use a specific license
- How your data is priced — Choose free or paid pricing based on what's best for your organization
The Marketplace is built on the open-source Icechunk format, giving you maximum autonomy. No other data sharing solution offers this degree of flexibility.
Q: How does the Marketplace support open science?
A: You can use the Marketplace to distribute completely free and open data if you choose. Organizations also need sustainable funding models for maintaining and sharing massive-scale datasets. By supporting both free and paid models, the Marketplace aims to stimulate a conversation about the true value of data and open new revenue channels for research institutions, startups, and organizations of all sizes.
Q: How do I create a Marketplace listing?
A: To publish data on the Marketplace, you'll need to be a verified data provider. Once verified:
- Navigate to Publish → Listings in your organization settings
- Click New Listing
- Fill in your listing details including name, description, thumbnail, pricing model, README, and license
- Optionally attach an Arraylake repository, or leave it blank to create a "Coming soon" listing
- Set the status to Published to make it live
See the Data Providers guide for complete documentation on creating and managing listings.
Q: Can I control which variables are available to subscribers?
A: Yes, for paid listings. When you create a paid listing, you choose exactly which variables and groups from your repo to include. This lets you keep internal data private (like a /staging group) or create multiple listings from the same repo with different variable sets.
Free listings include all variables from the repo automatically.
Q: Can I offer different variables to different subscribers?
A: Yes. When creating a subscription for a paid listing, you can customize which variables each subscriber receives. The options are limited to what's included in the listing, but you can offer subsets. For example, a basic tier with core variables and a premium tier with additional derived products.
See Customizing subscriptions for details.
For Data Users
Q: Why use the Marketplace instead of downloading data myself?
A: The Marketplace eliminates the data ingestion pain point. Instead of downloading thousands of files and transforming them, you get instant access to analysis-ready, cloud-optimized data. Subscribed datasets automatically receive updates from providers—either all updates (for free listings) or updates within your subscription scope (for paid listings). There are no pipelines to maintain.
Q: Do I need to pay to access Marketplace data?
A: Many datasets on the Marketplace are completely free. Anyone with an Arraylake account can subscribe to free listings instantly and start querying data right away. Paid datasets require a Professional plan.
See our pricing page for more details on what's included in each plan.
Q: How do I subscribe to a dataset?
A: Subscribing is simple:
- Browse the Marketplace at app.earthmover.io/marketplace
- Find a dataset you're interested in and click Subscribe (for free listings) or Request Access (for paid listings)
- Select which organization should receive the dataset
- Once subscribed, the dataset appears as a read-only repo in your organization
Only organizations where you have repo-write access appear in the organization picker.
See the Data Users guide for detailed instructions on subscribing and querying data.
Q: What if the dataset I'm looking for isn't on the Marketplace?
A: We're always looking to expand the Marketplace with valuable datasets. If there's a dataset you'd like to see, please click the floating purple help button in the lower right of the Marketplace to request or suggest datasets directly from the website.
Q: What if a dataset on the Marketplace doesn't quite meet my needs?
A: If you need a different format, additional variables, higher resolution, or other modifications to an existing dataset, reach out using the purple help button in the lower right of the Marketplace. We can help connect you with the data provider to discuss your specific requirements. For paid or "coming soon" datasets, you may also click the "Request access" button and submit your questions and comments directly to the data provider.
Q: Can I get access to different variables than what's in my subscription?
A: For paid subscriptions, the data provider controls which variables you receive. If you need additional variables or a different subset, contact the provider directly.
Exchanges
Q: What is an exchange, and how is it different from the Marketplace?
A: An exchange is a curated catalog of listings owned by a single organization. The Marketplace is Earthmover's own exchange: the same listings, subscriptions, and browsing pages power both. The difference is control: on your own exchange, your organization decides which organizations can browse the catalog and which can publish to it.
Q: How do I create my own exchange?
A: From Publish → Exchanges in your organization settings, click New Exchange. You'll need user management permission in your organization, and the page appears once Earthmover enables exchanges for it. See Managing Exchanges for the full guide.
Q: Who can see my exchange?
A: You choose a visibility level: a Listed exchange has a landing page anyone who visits its URL can reach, while an Private exchange is entirely invisible to non-members. With either level, only member organizations see the listings. See Visibility Levels.
Q: How do I let another organization onto my exchange?
A: By invitation. Create one from the exchange's management page, choosing whether it grants the read or the post role, and send the code it gives you to your contact there. Once someone at that organization redeems the code, it appears in your invitations table for approval — approving is what grants the access. See Inviting an Organization.
Q: Which users in a member organization can see an exchange?
A: All of them. Membership is granted per organization and applies to every user in it, so each member sees the exchanges the organization can access under Exchanges in the sidebar. Browsing and subscribing need no administrator role. Creating an exchange, configuring it, managing its members, and publishing listings do require user management permission. See Membership and Roles.
Q: How do member organizations get the data on my own exchange?
A: They subscribe to a listing, exactly as on the Marketplace. Subscribing is instant and creates a direct subscription: a read-only repo in the subscriber's organization that mirrors the provider's repo.
Q: What happens to my listings if an exchange owner removes my organization?
A: The owner organization chooses whether your listings stay visible in a read-only state or are unpublished. Either way, you keep the listings, you can still delete them, and existing subscribers keep their data access. See If Your Membership Is Revoked.