Pricing · AUD
Published bands. Fixed quote. No recovery, no fee.
Assessment is free. Lab recovery and Recovery Studio licences are listed separately below. Nothing is charged until you have agreed the figure that applies to you.
How lab billing works
Four rules, then a figure.
Free assessment
You describe the failure. We say what is likely recoverable and which band it falls in, in writing. No cost and no obligation.
Fixed quote before any work
Once we have seen the device you get one figure and a list of what is in scope. It does not move afterwards.
No recovery, no fee
If we cannot recover the data that matters to you, there is no recovery fee. What matters is agreed in writing at quote time.
Per job, not per hour
Recovery is priced as an outcome. Hourly billing applies only to forensic examination and reporting, where the hours are the deliverable.
Lab recovery
What recovery costs here, before you have to ask.
| Service | What it covers | From |
|---|---|---|
| Deleted, formatted or corrupt (drive healthy) | Files deleted, a drive reformatted, a partition lost, a filesystem that will not mount. The media itself is fine; the map to the data is not. | from $249 |
| Failing or degraded drive (imaging required) | Bad sectors, slow reads, drops out under load. Imaged region by region on hardware built for unstable media, worst areas left until last. | from $449 |
| SSD, NVMe and flash | Controller and translation-layer failures. You get an honest answer early. TRIM means some SSD losses are unrecoverable by anyone. | from $399 |
| USB sticks and memory cards | Cameras, dashcams, drones, phones. Includes carving for cards that no longer present a filesystem. | from $249 |
| RAID, NAS and servers | Arrays rebuilt from the member disks rather than trusting the controller that failed. Any filesystem, including ext4, Btrfs, ZFS and VMFS. | from $690 |
| CCTV, NVR and DVR footage | Proprietary recorder formats parsed directly from the disk. Priced on recorder type, number of disks and the time window needed. | Quoted after assessment |
| Evidence-grade examination and reporting | Chain of custody, hash-verified acquisition, written report of method and findings, timestamp analysis. For insurance, disputes and legal matters. | $195/hr |
| Cleanroom mechanical work | Clicking, seized or head-crashed drives need internal mechanical work in a controlled environment. We do not have one. We assess, write down what we found, and refer it on. That referral costs you nothing here. | Referred out, free of charge |
What moves a job within its band: capacity, how much of the media is unstable, whether the filesystem is encrypted, and how much of the drive has to be read before the files you need are reachable. There is no published rush fee. Priority handling is arranged case by case at quote time.
No recovery, no fee
Success is the files that matter, written down.
If we cannot get back the data that matters to you, you do not pay the recovery fee. What matters is written at quote time: the photo library, the accounts file, the folder with the job files in it. Success is not us deciding that a handful of random recovered files counts.
Two honest exclusions. Consumables are charged either way if they are used: replacement media to return your files on, and return postage. A written forensic report is separate work, charged whether or not the recovery succeeds, and you are told that before it starts.
No recovery can be guaranteed before assessment. Anyone who guarantees one over the phone, before seeing your device, is guessing with your data.
Recovery Studio licences
Software, quoted apart from lab jobs.
We run Recovery Studio in the lab. If you want to work an image on your own Mac, these are the licences. There is no public download. Detail on Recovery Studio.
Most people need a lab recovery, not a software licence. Start a case or see lab pricing.
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Limited edition
Basic
$499
For working your own disk image or folder on a Mac: quick catalogue, signature carve, partition map, honest labels, copy-only export. It is not the operator tool. Enquire to licence it. There is no public download.
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Operator licence · current price
Technician (annual)
$7,500/year
Normally
$8,999/yearThe full operator tool we run in the lab: imaging, deep work, reports, exhibit handling. Same contact path. Terms on enquiry.
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Operator licence
Technician Lifetime
$25,000
One-time lifetime licence to the Technician product as sold. Not a promise of forever updates. Enquire for terms.
Recovery Studio licences are separate from lab recovery jobs. Prices in AUD. Say if you need a tax invoice. We will confirm GST on the quote. We run the app here either way; a licence is for people who will work an image on their own Mac.
Why it costs this
You are paying for a method that does not make it worse.
A failing 4TB drive can take days of supervised imaging: healthy regions first, difficult ones later, stop when pushing further would do more harm than good. You are not paying for minutes at a keyboard.
The cheapest option in this category is usually someone running the same consumer software you could have run yourself, on the original drive, which is how recoverable data stops being recoverable.
Australia-wide shipping by tracked post is available. Sydney drop-off by arrangement.
FAQ
Common questions.
Is the assessment free?
Yes. You get a free triage of what is likely before recovery work starts.
When do I pay for lab recovery?
The quote is fixed before recovery work begins. If we recover nothing you pay nothing for the recovery. Consumables (return media, return postage) and a written forensic report are separate, and you are told before they start.
Do the published “from” figures include GST?
Prices in AUD. Say if you need a tax invoice. We will confirm GST on the quote.
How do Recovery Studio licences work?
Basic is $499. Technician annual is $7,500 (normally $8,999). Technician Lifetime is $25,000, a one-time licence to the product as sold. Enquire for terms. Licences are not lab jobs.
Why is CCTV not a from-figure?
It is priced on recorder type, number of disks and the time window needed. That cannot be honest as a single from-price before we know those facts.
Next step
Tell us what failed.
Free assessment. Fixed quote before recovery starts. No recovery, no fee. Sydney drop-off or Australia-wide by tracked post.