This provides a year of storage in the cloud and processing for the audio recordings made by the Bird Monitor (approximately 16,000 using the default settings). The first year is included in the price of the Bird Monitor. This is for subsequent years or if you would like to build your own bird monitor.
A proportion of this fee is donated to The Cacophony Project who have built and maintain the platform. This allows them to continue to develop the technology. All the technology developed by The Cacophony Project is open source, so as an alternative you could set up your own server if you have the resources and capability.
The recordings are simply stored with the time and location noted. A Cacophony Index is calculated for every 20s of recording. This page outlines the birds that are identified automatically. New birds are regularly being added to this.