---
title: what natural asset work pays
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/what-natural-asset-work-pays
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/what-natural-asset-work-pays.md
subtitle: "the public rate card for natural capital consulting: four services, four ranges, and where each dollar goes."
category: how-to
---

# what natural asset work pays

*the public rate card for natural capital consulting: four services, four ranges, and where each dollar goes.*

Natural capital consulting rates on ensurance are public. A **natural asset valuation** runs $2,000–$5,000. A **regional natural asset analysis** runs $10,000–$15,000. An **ensurance deployment**, where we do the whole job for you, runs $15,000–$50,000. **The program**, which keeps it running, is $1,000–$4,000 a month. The exact number for one place sits inside its range and moves with the size of the deal, or the size of the town or region.

If you buy this work, that is your price list. If you do this work, it is a benchmark. Either way, the money in these numbers goes somewhere specific: to the people who measure a living place, the crews who work on it, and the stewards who keep it.

Picture a mountain town that drinks from one creek. Above the intake there is a burned slope, a wet meadow, and a stand of aspen that holds snow into June. The town already pays when that system fails: a turbid week at the treatment plant, a debris flow across the county road, a boil-water notice. The creek and the slope do their work whether or not anyone hires a consultant or buys a certificate. This post is about what it costs to read that work, put the people who depend on it behind it, and keep it going.

:::johnson
**four services, four public ranges, one direction for the money.**

Every row pays the people who read and keep a living place, and every row ends in something the buyer keeps.

[see the rate card on /services →](/services?from=guide)
:::

## the rate card

| service | what you get | range | moves with |
|---|---|---|---|
| **natural asset valuation** | a RealValue valuation of the natural assets on one deal: what they hold, what they provide, and who depends on them. Yours to keep | $2,000–$5,000 | the size of the deal |
| **regional natural asset analysis** | every natural asset a town or region depends on, valued together: what each holds, what it provides, who depends on it, and what it costs to lose | $10,000–$15,000 | the size of the town or region |
| **ensurance deployment** | we do it all: the valuation, the lines minted, the payors mapped and asked, the MRV clause, and the steward named on the split | $15,000–$50,000 | the size of the town or region |
| **the program** | 12–24 months: certificates issued, MRV run, payors convened, quarterly reports. Premium flow from the certificates is on top | $1,000–$4,000 a month | the size of the town or region |

The first two rows are **the read**: one deal, or a whole region. The third is **the plan**, carried out. The fourth is **the program**, a monthly retainer.

## what each one buys

### natural asset valuation

One property, one deal, one account. The valuation counts the living work the land does in a year (the stocks it holds and the flows they produce, adjusted for condition) and names who depends on it. A real estate appraisal prices the sale. This prices the work the sale ignores ([what a real estate appraisal prices](/guide/what-a-real-estate-appraisal-prices?from=guide)).

Who buys it: a landowner weighing an easement or a sale, a land trust about to close, a buyer who wants to know what the deed price is missing. The deliverable is yours whether or not you go further. [Hire a natural asset valuation](/guide/hire-a-natural-asset-valuation?from=guide) covers what to ask for and how to read the report.

### regional natural asset analysis

The same reading at the scale of a town, a watershed, or a county. Every natural asset the place depends on, valued together, with the one figure most councils never see: what it costs to lose each one. For the mountain town, that means the burned slope, the meadow, the aspen, and the riparian strip by the intake, each with a value, a dependency, and a loss line.

This is the map an ensurance plan is built on. It is also the document a town manager, a utility planner, or a county emergency office can carry into a budget meeting.

### ensurance deployment

Done for you. We value the natural assets a town or region depends on, mint the lines that carry them, map and ask the payors who already carry the bill, write the MRV clause, and name the steward on the split. You get a working ensurance program, not a report.

The difference from a consulting engagement is the last two items. The **payors** are the people already paying when the place fails: the utility, the irrigation company, the resort, the insurer, the county. The **steward named on the split** means the money from the certificates has a person's name on it before the first one is sold. That is how you tell this kind of work from extraction: you can see where the money goes.

### the program

A monthly retainer, 12–24 months. Certificates issued, monitoring run, payors convened, and a quarterly report on what changed. The program is where the instrument does its job: dependents pay for the flows they rely on, the crew keeps condition, and the reading on the account moves. Premium flow from the certificates comes on top of the retainer and goes where the split says.

## who earns from the work

Every row on the card is paid work for real people.

| role | what they do | which rows pay them |
|---|---|---|
| **valuation team** | RealValue readings, dependency maps, loss lines | valuation, analysis, deployment |
| **field crews** | post-fire reclamation, stream and wetland restoration, invasive removal, fuels reduction, fencing | deployment, program |
| **monitoring partners** | sensors, drone surveys, field verification, MRV reporting | deployment, program |
| **stewards** | keep condition on a named place; named on the split | program, plus the premium flow |
| **convenors** | bring the payors to one table and keep them there | deployment, program |

We coordinate field and monitoring work with partners where they are the better hands. The full list of field services sits on [/services](/services?from=guide): heavy equipment and hand crews, beaver dam analogues, post-fire erosion control, sensor networks.

**If you do this work**, the card is a benchmark you can quote against, and a way in. A crew that can deliver in a region becomes the crew a deployment names. A steward who keeps condition becomes the name on the split. [How to earn a living in ecosystem restoration](/guide/how-to-earn-a-living-in-ecosystem-restoration?from=guide) covers the career side. [When ecosystem services consulting pays for itself](/guide/when-ecosystem-services-consulting-pays-for-itself?from=guide) is the buyer's test for whether any engagement is worth its fee.

## where this sits on the value gap

A place has a **cost** (land, project, people), a **value** (what the living system does in a year), and a **price** (a certificate is priced on cost). The [value gap](/guide/the-value-gap?from=guide) is the living work the deed price does not carry. This rate card is the **read the value** position: the valuation and the analysis make the gap legible, the deployment brings the first payor, and the program keeps the reading honest while payment arrives. Nobody gets paid on the gap until someone pays for the flow. [The value gap is where the money is](/guide/the-value-gap-is-where-the-money-is?from=guide) has the whole map.

## the four yields of one engagement

| yield | for the mountain town |
|---|---|
| **financial** | for the people doing the work: the fee, and on the program, the premium flow on the split. For the buyer: the bill they already pay after failure, faced with the asset that stops it |
| **ecological** | a baseline reading of the slope, the meadow and the creek, then MRV over the program, each reading with its verification status |
| **social** | a crew paid in the valley, a steward named, and payors who never sat together now at one table |
| **cultural** | the creek the town grew up on, kept on the record with the people who answer for it; never a cash payout |

[Four yields, one place](/guide/four-yields-one-place?from=guide) explains how all four read on one account.

## how to pick

| if you are | start with |
|---|---|
| a landowner, land trust or buyer on one deal | natural asset valuation |
| a town, utility, watershed group or county looking at everything you depend on | regional natural asset analysis |
| a public body or utility that wants it built, not studied | ensurance deployment |
| anyone with a deployment who wants it kept running and reported | the program |

A government buyer can usually see from the range alone whether a row fits an existing line item. That is the point of publishing it. A utility can read the deployment against the cost of one bad event at the intake. A foundation can fund a read for a partner town and see the result on a public account.

## why the prices are public

Natural capital consulting has mostly been sold by the conversation: a scope, a proposal, a number you hear only after three calls. That works for large clients with procurement teams. It shuts out the small town, the irrigation company, and the land trust with one deal and a board meeting next month.

A public card does three things. It lets a buyer decide before a call whether the work fits. It gives providers a reference point for what the work is worth. And it ties every price to a deliverable you keep, a valuation, a map, a working program, rather than an hourly meter.

## next step

Read the card and the field services on [/services](/services?from=guide). If you know which row fits, [tell us the place and the bill it already pays](/contact?from=guide&topic=every-way-the-work-pays): the town, the asset, the last time it failed. We will come back with where it sits in the range and what the read would show. To see what a finished valuation reads like, browse the accounts in the [natural asset binder](/natural-assets?from=guide).


## the series

**Every way the work pays.** The hub and its thirteen spokes:

- [how to make money with ensurance](/guide/how-to-make-money-with-ensurance?from=guide) (the hub)
- [the value gap is where the money is](/guide/the-value-gap-is-where-the-money-is?from=guide)
- [four yields, one place](/guide/four-yields-one-place?from=guide)
- [what natural asset work pays](/guide/what-natural-asset-work-pays?from=guide)
- [how to bring a property into ensurance](/guide/how-to-bring-a-property-into-ensurance?from=guide)
- [protect your property by paying what protects it](/guide/protect-your-property-by-paying-what-protects-it?from=guide)
- [who gets credit when you bring a deal](/guide/who-gets-credit-when-you-bring-a-deal?from=guide)
- [you make your money when you buy the land](/guide/you-make-your-money-when-you-buy-the-land?from=guide)
- [where you sit in a blended finance stack](/guide/where-you-sit-in-a-blended-finance-stack?from=guide)
- [a coupon that rises with the hazard](/guide/a-coupon-that-rises-with-the-hazard?from=guide)
- [keeping wealth in a living asset](/guide/keeping-wealth-in-a-living-asset?from=guide)
- [how to make an instrument for a place you care about](/guide/how-to-make-an-instrument-for-a-place-you-care-about?from=guide)
- [getting paid to provide liquidity to a small market](/guide/getting-paid-to-provide-liquidity-to-a-small-market?from=guide)
- [the effect is the revenue](/guide/the-effect-is-the-revenue?from=guide)