Four ways in — from a free public test to a full program subscription. Each is a real step, and you're never locked into climbing them in order.
Prove it free → measure it on your data → license the platform. The paid pilot is 100% creditable toward a subscription, so nothing you spend to evaluate is lost.
See the whole thesis and verify the gap yourself before you talk to anyone.
Confirm the foundation is real on your own models, hands-on, before any commitment.
Measure the platform on your own held-out data, across your chosen languages and every domain — one clean go/no-go.
Subscribe to the whole living platform — everything today, and everything added while you're subscribed.
The four options above, laid out product by product — so you can see exactly what opens up at each tier.
| PublicFree | EvaluationFree · invite | Validation Pilot$150K · 75 days | Full Annual SubscriptionTalk to us | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Verifying the gap | Scoring your models on the Alphabet Test | Proving value on your own data | Building on the whole platform |
| Languages | Counts only | Bemba + Nyanja (assigned · test only) | 3 you choose | Every released language, growing |
| The domains — what each plan unlocks, product by product | ||||
| FSI · operating alphabet · foundational | Public test | ✓ Alphabet Test · 2 langs | ✓ full FSIs · your langs | ✓ all released |
| Tone · tonal homographs | Teaser | — | ✓ your langs | ✓ |
| Nouns · aligned matrix | Teaser | — | ✓ your langs | ✓ |
| Verbs · generative engine | Teaser | — | ✓ your langs | ✓ |
| Numbers · numerals & voice | Calculator | — | ✓ your langs | ✓ |
| Health · clinical language | Teaser | — | ✓ your langs | ✓ |
| Grammar · concord matrix | Sample | — | ✓ your langs | ✓ |
| Stories · connected speech | Teaser | — | ✓ your langs | ✓ |
| Consented native audio | — | — | Sample (per language) | ✓ full, uncapped |
| Bulk export | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Private data room | — | — | Pilot workspace | ✓ engagement room |
| Term | — | 30 days | 75 days | Annual |
| Price | Free | Free | $150,000* | Talk to us |
*Validation Pilot fee is 100% creditable toward the Full Annual Subscription. Enterprise-only; access is provisioned by BantuNomics. Prices in USD.
A separate, non-commercial track for grant, philanthropic, and impact funders — not a subscription and not for AI labs. A full, curated view of the work and where it's going, so you can support foundational language infrastructure for the 400M+ people who speak these languages.
No. Each door is independent — start a pilot, or go straight to a subscription, without an evaluation first. An evaluation is welcome, not required.
Better than refundable — it's 100% creditable. Convert to the annual subscription and the $150,000 comes straight off the first year.
Evaluation opens the operating alphabet (FSI) for two languages so you can confirm the core is real. The other domains — Tone, Nouns, Verbs, and the rest — open at the Pilot step, on your chosen languages.
No — and we're candid about it. It's a subscription to a living platform that keeps growing wider (more languages) and deeper (more per language). You get everything that exists today and everything added while you're subscribed.
Mission-aligned funders — grant, philanthropic, and impact capital — not AI labs. It's an invite-only, non-commercial view of the work.
Check it yourself in a minute: l26.ai shows today's frontier models acing English and failing the same alphabet test on a Bantu language.
One thing worth understanding about the pricing: BantuNomics is a living platform, not a finished dataset — it grows in two directions at once: wider, as we add more of the 500-plus Bantu languages, and deeper, as each language gains more words, recordings, pronunciation, and grammar. That's why the top tier is a subscription: you're licensing something that never stops improving, not buying a file that goes stale.