§ 11 · LICENSING
Licensing
The methodology, the rubric, and the published quarterly scores are open. Commercial integrations, derived data products, and consulting engagements are licensed on the terms below.
Open
$0 / CC BY 4.0
Researchers, journalists, students, individual investors. Use freely with attribution.
- Quarterly published scores (184 platforms)
- Methodology & aggregation function
- Validation report & replication code
- Working paper (CC BY 4.0)
- Cite in academic and editorial work
- Commercial redistribution of scores
- Derived data products
- Custom scoring or sectors
Institutional
$18,000 / year
Investment managers, advisory firms, consultancies, in-house research teams.
- Everything in Open
- Commercial use of scores in client materials
- Quarterly closed-room webinar with the author
- Early access to release (T−14 days)
- Sector deep-dive (one per quarter, on request)
- Direct correspondence with maintainer
- Custom scoring of private companies
- Right to publish derivative index
Bespoke
By engagement
Regulators, central banks, large platforms wanting a structured external read on their own footprint.
- Everything in Institutional
- Custom universe construction
- Private-company scoring with NDA
- Co-authored white paper / report
- Dedicated retainer (analyst hours)
- License to publish derivative index
- Standard deliverable: 6-week study
- Pricing reflects depth and exclusivity
Terms
- Attribution
- "Black Hole Index, V3.1, Q2 2026 (Savich, 2026)." SSRN reference required in academic citations.
- Editorial firewall
- No tier — including Bespoke — confers any influence over the published universe scores. The author's editorial decisions are uncontestable. This is in the contract.
- No paid placement
- No platform pays to be in the BHI universe, to be excluded from it, or to score higher within it. Ever.
- COI disclosure
- Every Bespoke engagement is disclosed in the project's annual transparency report.
- Termination
- Institutional and Bespoke licenses are terminable by either party with 60 days' notice. Pre-paid fees are pro-rata refundable.
- Jurisdiction
- BHI Project. All licensing contracts are governed by English law.
What we will not do
To keep the instrument credible, three things are out of scope at any price:
- Score on commission for the platform itself. A platform asking to be scored privately is a structural conflict; we decline.
- Custom scoring intended for advertising or public-facing marketing. Use the public score or do not use the BHI brand.
- White-label re-issuance under a third-party brand. The BHI™ is the BHI™. Co-branded reports are fine; re-issuance under a different name is not.
Contact
For all licensing inquiries: ivan.savich@blackholeindex.com.