← SCP Cost Explorer Read on SCP Wiki ↗
SCP-5809 Safe ✓ high confidence
SCP-5809
Expected annual
$110K
One-time setup
$224K
Annual recurring
$104K
Personnel
1.025
One-time setup and containment equipment costs are modest (~$224k total) with recurring annual costs dominated by personnel and legal/administrative overhead (~$104k/year). The primary cost drivers are staff wages, optional advanced research spending, and legal/incident response readiness.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $224K
Optional Advanced Research $150K
[#25] Optional advanced research budget (large-scale psychokinetic studies, labs, cross-disciplinary teams) — optional one-time spend.
Incident Response Reserve $30K
[#18] Incident response fund / contingency reserve (one-time seed reserve).
Equipment $19K
[#1, #6, #7, #15] Aquarium & stand; monitoring hardware (camera/sensors); secure computing hardware; experimental sensors/instrumentation.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $15K
[#9] Controlled sandbox / offline game environment development and integration (one-time buildout).
Facilities $3K
[#2] Containment locker modifications, opaque partitioning, installation and materials.
Account Management $3K
[#19] Public account management / takedown actions (one-time costs to close/sanitize accounts and coordinate with operators).
Network Isolation Hardware $1K
[#8] One-time enterprise firewall / dedicated VLAN hardware for network isolation.
Training Initial $1K
[#14] Initial training and SOP documentation development and delivery (one-time portion).
Moderation Hardware $1K
[#20] Initial hardware/software for filtering and keyboard blocking to prevent outgoing messages.
Decommissioning Plan $600
[#23] Decommissioning / biohazard disposal plan and associated one-time costs.
Life Support Initial $550
[#3] Initial life-support redundancy: small filter/heater, spare pump/airstone, UPS purchase.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $104K/yr
Staff Wages $66K/yr
[#10, #11, #12] IT staff (fractional FTE), research personnel (fractional FTE), animal care technician (fractional FTE) annual wages.
Cover Story And Legal $12K/yr
[#17] Legal, compliance, and cover-story retainer/incident budget for account bans, complaints, and takedown negotiations.
Administrative Overhead $10K/yr
[#24] Administrative overhead (procurement, HR, recordkeeping) estimated as a portion of recurring budget.
Security Staffing $4K/yr
[#13] Incremental security staffing / access control and periodic patrol costs.
Research And Monitoring $2K/yr
[#9, #15] Ongoing maintenance of controlled sandbox environment and experiment monitoring/analysis costs.
Logistics And Transport $2K/yr
[#22] Safe transport and transfer kit costs / per‑year transport frequency estimate.
Network Maintenance $2K/yr
[#8] Ongoing IT maintenance and updates for network isolation, egress filtering, and auditing.
Monitoring And Storage $1K/yr
[#6] Environmental monitoring service, camera storage, and logs retention costs.
Moderation And Review $1K/yr
[#20] Ongoing moderation, automated filters maintenance, and human review of outgoing communications.
Veterinary Care $900/yr
[#5] Routine veterinary / aquatic specialist care and potential treatments.
Training Recurring $750/yr
[#14] Annual refresher training and SOP sign-offs.
Data Storage $550/yr
[#16] Secure data storage and archival (logs, video, experiment data) recurring costs.
Supplies And Consumables $350/yr
[#4] Aquarium consumables: food, dechlorinator, test kits, filter cartridges, bulbs.
Facilities Maintenance $250/yr
[#21] Power and basic facilities maintenance (electricity for aquarium equipment and monitoring).
Life Support Spares $100/yr
[#3] Annual spare parts and small replacement items for life-support redundancy (filters, airstones).
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $104K/yr
92.0% probability / year
Normal uneventful year with no major incidents; routine containment, monitoring, and research operations continue.
no breaches routine maintenance and experiments only
🚨 Minor Incident $124K/yr
5.0% probability / year +$20K vs baseline
Small external exposure or account-related incident requiring legal action, account takedown, and forensics.
public account leakage complaints or temporary exposure
🚨 Major Breach $179K/yr
1.0% probability / year +$75K vs baseline
Significant containment failure or public harassment campaign resulting in lawsuits, extended legal actions, and replacement of equipment.
publicized breach legal suits or reputational damage
🚨 Research Scaleup $304K/yr
2.0% probability / year +$200K vs baseline
Decision to pursue optional advanced research at scale (multi‑instrument labs, hiring, and experiments) in a given year.
funding-approved scale-up major research initiative launched
👥 Personnel 1.025 total
Role Count Notes
IT Staff / Technician 0.2 [#10] Fractional FTE for air-gap maintenance, audits, and intrusion detection.
Research Scientist 0.35 [#11] Part-time behavioral/anomalous researcher for experiments and logging.
Animal Care Technician 0.375 [#12] Part-time animal care for daily feeding, maintenance, and SOP compliance.
Security Officer / Security Staff 0.1 [#13] Incremental security/access control responsibilities and occasional patrols.
📋 Confidence Notes
Analyst notes provided line-item estimates for every major cost driver; SCP is Safe-class with stable containment requirements and many concrete cost ranges, enabling a high-confidence estimate.
← SCP-5808 ↑ All SCPs SCP-5810 →