Chapter 15. Pricing
This section describes different ways you can charge your developers for using your API.
- Setup fee
- is a one-time charge applied upon subscription to the service, it is not charged when switching to another plan. It appear in the invoice/credit card only on the first month of a subscription. Can be configured on application plans, service plans, and account plans.
- Cost per month
- is a recurring cost charged monthly. It is prorated if the subscription occurred in the middle of the month. Sometimes it it referred to as "fixed fee". Can be configured on application plans, service plans, and account plans.
- Variable costs
- are the costs derived from the pricing rules applied to each method/metric configured in the application plan. They are based on the usage of your API and therefore cannot be known in advance, only when the billing period has concluded. Only available on application plans.
Example
If you have a plan with monthly cost of $10, but want to charge your developer a $5 setup fee. The initial charge would be for $15, while all subsequent charges would be for $10.
15.1. Pricing rules
Pricing rules define the cost of each API request. Multiple pricing rules on the same metric divide up the ranges of when a pricing rule applies. Pricing rules are based on calendar month, and the counter is reset at 00:00 UTC of the 1st day of each month.
Example 1
Until 100 calls per month (from 1 to 100) each API call can be charged at $0.04, and starting from the call 101 (from 101 to infinity) the calls are charged at $0.10.
Example 2
The first 1000 calls are not charged (cost $0), because they are included in the plan which has a monthly fixed cost. Starting from call 1001, each call is charged at $0.50.
Example 3
Calls from 1 to 100 are charged at $0.30, 100 to 500 – at $0.40, and 500 and further – at $0.50.
Pricing rules are defined for metrics and methods. The actual API requests are mapped to these metrics and methods through the Mapping Rules.
15.2. Setting pricing rules
- Go to [Your_API_service] > Applications > Application Plans.
- Select an existing application plan or create a new one.
- In the section Metrics, Methods, Limits & Pricing Rules click Pricing (x) to open the pricing section.
- Click new pricing rule.
- Set the values From, To and Cost per Unit and click Create pricing rule.
Repeat the last two steps to create all the necessary pricing rules ranges.
Leave the To field empty to set the rule to "to infinity".
The maximum number of decimals is set to 4 for the cost of metric, if a number is added with more decimals, the value is rounded to a number with 4 decimal places.
15.3. Update existing pricing rules
- Click on edit.
- Make the necessary adjustments to the From, To and Cost per Unit fields.
- Click Update pricing rule.
