How pricing and packaging works
Pricing and packaging is all the structured data that goes into computing an invoice: how much your customers pay. In Metronome, configuring pricing and packaging involves:
- Designing and creating billable metrics
- Creating products that can be organized into invoice charges
- Defining pricing and adding it to a plan
- Adding in credits, trials, and so forth when assigning a customer to a plan
When you're ready to connect Metronome, you'll first set up your billable metrics before configuring your products and plans. But when designing your integration it's best to first learn how Metronome works, which informs your metrics setup.
Pricing options
Metronome includes a flexible pricing engine, designed to accommodate a number of pricing options you may need. Metronome supports:
- Usage-based, fixed recurring, and composite charges
- Tiered pricing
- Minimums on metrics and invoice totals
- Free trials
- Credits
- Custom pricing units
- Grouping invoice line items
- Billing in advance or in arrears
If you don't see your desired pricing option on this list, reach out to your Metronome representative.
Products
In Metronome, a product is anything a customer can purchase. Products define the line items that appear on invoices. Products also identify the metrics for calculating billing, and whether those charges are usage-based, fixed (one-time or recurring), or composite.
For example, a product called "cloud database" might be priced as a fixed-base charge with additional charges for metered CPU and storage consumption. In the Metronome app, that product would look like:
Plans
Whereas a product defines what a customer can purchase, a plan specifies the price charged for a product. A plan also sets the billing cycle.
In Metronome, a plan is the primary basis for what you charge your customers.
