← SCP Cost Explorer Read on SCP Wiki ↗
SCP-1889 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-1889
Expected annual
$3.8M
One-time setup
$675K
Annual recurring
$3.7M
Personnel
11
One-time capital costs for secure vaults, high-resolution scanning and specialized laboratory instrumentation are the primary up-front expenses (~$675k). Recurring costs are driven by staff wages, contingency/reserve allocations, legal/PR and monitoring operations, producing a baseline annual operating cost of several million dollars.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $675K
Equipment $401K
[#2, #11, #17, #21] CCTV/NVR/UPS and tamper detection hardware; high-throughput book scanners, OCR/ML compute hardware; specialized lab instrumentation (GC-MS/LC-MS/EM); secure-digital-archive setup.
Facilities $164K
[#1, #4] Vault construction, locked steel cabinet, biometric locks, blast/forced-entry resistance, evidence airlock and environmental/archival climate-control install (vault upgrades + archival HVAC).
Initial Research And Lab Setup $80K
[#10] Development of automated detection pipeline / initial software development for pre-release monitoring and detection.
Access Control And Test Development $30K
[#3] One-time development of access-control software, HR screening protocols and cognitive/education testing program.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $3.7M/yr
Staff Wages $1.0M/yr
[#5, #6, #10, #12, #16, #21, #28] Salaries, benefits and training for core containment/security personnel, in-house hazmat technicians, monitoring/sample-handling staff, publisher-liaison/legal staff and research personnel; includes IT/cybersecurity staff and administrative wages.
Recall Contingency Reserve Allocation $500K/yr
[#13] Annual allocation to recall logistics contingency fund to cover partial/complete recalls and reimbursement costs (reserve buildup).
Insurance And Reserve Allocation $500K/yr
[#22] Annual contribution to insurance/risk reserve for legal settlements, liabilities and regulatory fines.
Catastrophic Contingency Reserve $500K/yr
[#27] Annual allocation to a catastrophic-response reserve for worst-case nationwide contamination events.
Research And Monitoring $250K/yr
[#10, #11, #16, #17] Ongoing sample handling/analysis, OCR/model maintenance, cloud compute costs, specialized testing consumables and field forensics support (non-wage operational costs).
Cover Story And Legal $150K/yr
[#12, #14] Legal retainers, publisher contract negotiation support and baseline crisis/PR operations (retainer-level legal/PR spend, excluding large-incident allocations).
Travel And Field Investigations $100K/yr
[#23] Investigator travel, per diem and covert fieldwork at printing facilities and distribution centers.
Secondary Market Monitoring $90K/yr
[#15] Web-scraping, undercover acquisition budget and staff for used-book/secondary-market monitoring and purchases.
Controlled Testing Per Test $75K/yr
[#18] Annualized budget for controlled containment/read tests (assumes occasional tests; one intensive test every ~1–2 years).
Local Agency Coordination $75K/yr
[#25] Goodwill payments, stipends and liaison budgets for local law enforcement, coroners and university administrators.
Logistics And Transport $70K/yr
[#9] Secure transport contract costs, hazmat transport permits, specialized couriers and chain-of-custody packaging for routine transfers.
Medical Emergency Response $60K/yr
[#19] Agreements with local hospitals, standby ambulance/ER coordination and per-incident medical transport readiness averaged annually.
Cybersecurity And Digital Archival $50K/yr
[#21] Ongoing cybersecurity, encrypted backups, redaction specialists and data-forensics to protect digital evidence archives.
Replacement Materials And Remediation $50K/yr
[#26] Annualized budget for replacement education materials and remediation when small-to-moderate recalls occur.
Misc Admin Overhead $50K/yr
[#28] Routine administrative overhead, permit renewals, record-keeping and annual training refreshers.
Forensic Pathology Per Incident $30K/yr
[#7] Expected annual forensic pathology/autopsy/extended lab contract work (assumes ~2 incidents/year at ~$15,000 per incident).
Supplies And Consumables $25K/yr
[#17, #24] PPE, evidence bags, sterilization supplies, lab consumables and routine replacement PPE.
Counseling Services $25K/yr
[#20] Staff psychological support, debriefings and post-incident trauma care.
Hazmat External Callouts $20K/yr
[#6] Contracted per-call-out cleanup costs and occasional external hazmat call-outs (separate from in-house hazmat wages accounted in staff_wages).
Publisher Expedited Fees $20K/yr
[#12] Contingent expedited-review fees paid to publishers to ensure rapid pre-release inspections (annualized estimate).
Facilities Maintenance $12K/yr
[#1, #2, #4] Vault and camera maintenance, HVAC service, archival conservation upkeep and UPS servicing.
Biohazard Disposal $10K/yr
[#8] Incineration and medical disposal costs for recovered biological material and contaminated books (books + per-cube disposal averaged annually).
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $3.7M/yr
71.8% probability / year
Normal uneventful year with routine monitoring, staff wages, scheduled maintenance and reserve allocations; no major recalls or catastrophic events.
routine monitoring no major contamination found only expected minor incidents
🚨 Minor Incident $3.9M/yr
25.0% probability / year +$200K vs baseline
One or a small number of disappearances/recoveries requiring extra forensic, PR and transport work but no large-scale recall.
single-site disappearance local recovery and forensic analysis targeted limited recall
🚨 Major Recall $5.7M/yr
3.0% probability / year +$2.0M vs baseline
A contaminated print run requiring large-scale recall, mass replacement, expanded logistics and significant PR/legal response.
medium-to-large contaminated print run mass recall and replacement significant public exposure risk
🚨 Catastrophic Breach $13.7M/yr
0.2% probability / year +$10.0M vs baseline
Nationwide or very large-scale contamination requiring catastrophic recall, mass incineration, major legal settlements and full reserve drawdown.
nationally distributed contaminated print run extensive media/political exposure large-scale legal/settlement costs
👥 Personnel 11 total
Role Count Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent 4 Site-level containment/security staff trained in evidence handling and restricted-access enforcement. (Maps to #5)
Hazmat Technician 2 In-house hazmat response and on-call readiness (maps to #6).
Research Scientist 3 Researchers for origin/mechanism, detection pipeline tuning and lab analysis (maps to #16, #10, #11).
Publisher Liaison / Legal Staff 1 Liaison and legal coordination with publishers, contracts and NDAs (maps to #12).
Administrative Staff 1 Program administration, permits, record-keeping and logistics (maps to #28).
IT / Cybersecurity 1 Secure evidence archival, redaction and cyber-protection (maps to #21).
📋 Confidence Notes
Estimates are assembled from ranges in analyst notes; per-incident frequencies and reserve-allocation policy assumptions drive large uncertainty. Capital costs are better-defined; contingency/reserve sizing and incident probabilities are the principal sources of uncertainty.
← SCP-1888 ↑ All SCPs SCP-1890 →