This page contains information about the pricing models for software as a service (SaaS) products, and about submitting your pricing models for review.
You can choose one of the following pricing models for your product:
Free: Customers only pay for the Google Cloud resources that they use. If you are offering your product free of charge, skip to Submitting your pricing for review.
Subscription-based pricing: Customers pay a flat monthly fee for using your software. For partial months, the cost is prorated.
Usage-based pricing: Customers pay for your software based on measurements that you choose, called metrics, such as data or storage. For example, you can set your price by gibibyte-hours of storage. If you choose a usage-based pricing model, your app must measure and report usage information to Google.
Combined pricing: Customers pay a base subscription fee for using your software, and additional charges based on their usage.
For any pricing model you choose, you can also offer a free trial of your product.
If your pricing model includes any generic units that measure usage, you must include a list of all usage sub-metrics that might count towards consumption of the generic unit, and information about the conversion rate and pricing of each of those sub-metrics.
After you select your pricing model and set up your pricing plans, you must submit your pricing for review. You can have up to 24 total pricing plans for each product. If your pricing model is based on usage, each plan can measure eight metrics. If you need more plans, or need to track more metrics, contact your Google Partner Engineer.
You can also create customized quotes for specific customers. For example, if you offer a subscription-based Standard plan for $100 per month, you can create a custom quote that gives your customer the same plan for $50 per month. For steps to create a custom quote, see Creating private offers for specific customers.
Subscription-based pricing
In a subscription-based pricing model, customers are charged a flat monthly rate. For partial months, the price is prorated. You can use a subscription-based pricing model if you set your price by non-variable measurements, such as the number of seats of service.
You can offer your product with different sets of features and levels of service. For example, you might have Standard, Pro, and Enterprise plans for your product, with progressively advanced features. You define the service levels you plan to offer when you submit your pricing for review.
By default, you set up subscription plans with monthly billing. Optionally, your plans can include a subscription period, where you can offer users a different price if they sign up for a specific time, such as a year. If your customers sign up for a specific subscription period, their subscription ends at the end of the period, and they must subscribe to your product again. If users choose a monthly plan, the subscription renews at the end of every month.
In a subscription-based pricing model, if customers want to make changes to their plans, the effect and timing of the changes depends on their current subscription plan:
For monthly subscriptions, customers can upgrade or downgrade between service levels, or cancel their subscription entirely. By default, customer- canceled subscriptions end at the end of the current billing month.
If your customers sign up for a specific subscription period, they can change their subscription plan to increase their service level or subscription period, such as:
Switch from a shorter subscription period to a longer period, within the same service level. For example, customers can switch from a Standard monthly plan to a Standard 1-year plan.
Upgrade from a lower to a higher service level, with the same or a longer subscription period. For example, customers can upgrade from a Standard 1-year plan to a Pro 1-year plan.
A combination of both of the previously described options.
In these scenarios, customers switch to their new plan immediately.
If customers have signed up for a specific subscription period and shorten their subscription period, downgrade to a lower service level, or cancel their subscription, the change takes effect at the end of their current subscription period. For example, if a customer is on a Standard 1-year plan and wants to switch to a Standard monthly plan, the change takes effect after the one year is complete.
To set up subscription-based pricing, you must provide the subscription plans that you offer, such as Standard or Enterprise, and the features that are included in those plans. For example, the following pricing model offers three subscription plans, with access to different features in each plan:
| Standard | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| $9.99 / month | $39.99 / month | $99.99 / month |
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Features:
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Features:
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Features:
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The following pricing model modifies the previous example, adding discounted prices if customers sign up for one-year or three-year subscriptions.
| Standard | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
|
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|
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Features:
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Features:
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Features:
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Usage-based pricing
You can charge your customers using measurements that apply to your product, called metrics. A typical example of a metric is the time for which customers use your product. For example, you can charge $0.05 per hour of use. Similarly, you can charge customers by the quantity of data processed by your product, or by the number of API requests that customers make.
While you are choosing your metrics, you must also choose a reporting unit for each metric, which represents the granularity with which you measure your product's usage.
For example, consider a product for which you charge $0.256 per gibibyte
(1024 mebibytes) of data processed, and your reporting unit is by mebibyte. If a
user processes 512 mebibytes of data, they are charged
(512 Mib / 1024 MiB) * $0.256, or $0.128, for their usage. However, if
your reporting unit is by gibibyte, the customer's usage is reported as 1 GiB,
and they are charged the full $0.256, even if they only use a fraction of a
gibibyte.
The following table includes examples of the types of metrics that you can use, and the reporting units that we recommend:
| Metric type | Supported units | Recommended reporting unit | Example price, shown on your Cloud Marketplace page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time | Second, minute, hour, day | 1 second (smallest possible) | $5 per hour |
| Data processed |
Byte, Kibibyte (KiB), Mebibyte (MiB), Gibibyte (GiB) The units for data processed are based on binary multiples, where one kibibyte is 1024 bytes, one mebibyte is 1024 kibibytes, and one gibibyte is 1024 mebibytes. |
1 Mebibyte | $10 per GiB |
| Storage time | See units for time and data | 1 Mebibyte-second | $10 per GiB-hour |
| Custom metric | N/A. You define the unit you want to measure, such as API request. | Depends on metric. | $10 per 1000 API requests |
If you want to charge by a custom metric, ensure that the measurement is a delta metric, where each usage report represents the change in the value since the previous report. For example, you can set a price per email, and every hourly usage report represents the number of emails sent in the previous hour.
Defining your pricing structure
For usage-based pricing, you select one of the following options:
Single rate: Customers pay a set price for their usage, and the charges increase in direct proportion to their usage. For example, if you charge $0.50 per hour of usage, and a customer uses your product for 20 hours, they are charged $10.
The following is an example pricing model with three pricing plans, each with on-demand pricing and a different set of features:
Standard Pro Enterprise $0.002 per email sent $0.004 per email sent $0.006 per email sent Features:
- Access to Admin Console
Features:
- Access to Admin Console
- Multiple logins
- Security
Features:
- Access to Admin Console
- Multiple logins
- Security
Tiered pricing: If you want to give customers sustained-use discounts, you can create pricing tiers. The tiers apply over the course of a billing month. At the start of a new billing month, the price is reset to the first tier. You can define tiers for each metric that you base your price on.
The following is an example of a pricing model with three pricing plans, each with tiered pricing:
Standard Pro Enterprise - $0.002 per email sent for 0-1000 emails
- $0.001 per email sent for 1001 - 2000 emails
- $0.0001 per email sent for 2001+ emails
- $0.005 per email sent for 0-1000 emails
- $0.004 per email sent for 1001 - 2000 emails
- $0.002 per email sent for 2001+ emails
- $0.008 per email sent for 0-1000 emails
- $0.006 per email sent for 1001 - 2000 emails
- $0.003 per email sent for 2001+ emails
Features:
- Access to Admin Console
Features:
- Access to Admin Console
- Multiple logins
- Security
Features:
- Access to Admin Console
- Multiple logins
- Security
When a new billing month starts, the price is reset to the first tier.
You can define separate sets of tiers for each metric that you base your price on.
Combined pricing
In a combined pricing model, customers pay a base subscription fee for using your software, and additional charges based on their usage. You can include a specific quantity of usage in your base fee. For example, the following pricing model has base subscription plans that include a number of API requests, and additional charges as customers increase their usage:
| Standard | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
$9.99 / month subscription fee $0 per request for 1000 API requests $0.002 per request for 1000+ API requests |
$39.99 / month subscription fee $0 per request for 2000 API requests $0.005 per request for 2000+ API requests |
$99.99 / month subscription fee $0 per request for 10000 API requests $0.008 per request for 10000+ API requests |
Features:
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Features:
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Features:
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Submitting your pricing for review
After you have selected your pricing model, you must add your pricing information directly in Producer Portal, and then submit your pricing for review. The approval process takes up to four business days.
The direct link to Producer Portal is:
https://console.cloud.google.com/producer-portal?project=YOUR_PROJECT_ID
In the list of products, click the name of your product.
On the Overview page of your product, go to the Pricing section and click EDIT.
Defining your pricing structures
For each pricing model you want to support, create a name for your pricing plan and follow the steps to define the pricing structure.
After you define the pricing structures for all of the pricing models you want to support, click SET UP to set up the pricing structures and continue on to the remaining features of the Pricing page. Setting up your pricing structures also unblocks the steps for integrating your app's backend, so you can add your pricing details and begin implementing and testing your integration in parallel.
Free
- In the Pricing model drop-down list, select Free.
Subscription-based pricing
- In the Pricing model drop-down list, select Subscription only.
Usage-based pricing
In the Pricing model drop-down list, select Usage-based only.
In the Metrics drop-down list, select ADD OR UPDATE METRICS to add a metric.
For each metric that you add, you must enter a Display name, a Reporting unit, and a Display unit, and then click either DONE or ADD ANOTHER METRIC. The Reporting unit specifies how your metric tracks usage for billing, while the Display unit specifies how your metric's pricing is displayed. For example, you may want to charge your users by per second of usage, but display your product's price per hour to your customers.
Combined pricing
In the Pricing model drop-down list, select Subscription + usage.
In the Metrics drop-down list, select ADD OR UPDATE METRICS to add a metric.
For each metric that you add, you must enter a Display name, a Reporting unit, and a Display unit, and then click either DONE or ADD ANOTHER METRIC. The Reporting unit specifies how your metric tracks usage for billing, while the Display unit specifies how your metric's pricing is displayed. For example, you may want to charge your users per second of usage, but display your product's price per hour to your customers.
Adding pricing details for your pricing structures
After you define your pricing structures, you can add the pricing details for your pricing structures.
To add pricing details for the pricing structures you defined, navigate to the Pricing section of Producer Portal.
Subscription-based pricing and combined pricing
For subscription-based pricing models, and for subscription-based elements of combined pricing models:
Click EDIT SUBSCRIPTION FEES.
Enter your price in the Price field.
Click DONE.
Usage-based pricing and combined pricing
For usage-based pricing models, and for usage-based elements of combined pricing models:
Click EDIT USAGE.
For single-rate pricing, add a Display Quantity and a Price.
For tiered pricing, enter a Display Quantity, and click ADD TIER for each additional tier that you would like to add. Once you see the correct number of tiers, add a Price, and a lower limit for the tier in the From field. The upper limit for each tier is updated when you add the lower limit of the next tier.
Click DONE.
Best practices for defining pricing
- Give your plans names that directly reflect what they offer. Avoid generic terms, such as "test plan" or "new plan".
- Keep your plans' names under 58 characters. You can use hyphens (
-) and spaces, but not other special characters. - Don't define your pricing as $0. When you define private subscription plans, use only non-zero values.
- Use names that are clear for customers to understand for your metering units and reporting units. Avoid generic terms, like "unit" or "token".
- Don't include separate line items for professional services (setup, support, maintenance) or hardware.
- Don't offer "proof of concept" free plans.
- Your products must be production-ready, and not alpha or beta versions.
- Your pricing plans must each have at least one defined feature. Feature names can be up to 128 characters long.
Add features to your plans
After you add your pricing details, you can add features to specific plans by using the Features tab of the Pricing details section. For each combination of a feature and a plan, you can choose Yes, No, N/A, or input a custom value, to indicate the level of support for that feature by the plan.
Answer tax category questions
After you add features to your pricing plans, you use the Tax category tab of the Pricing details section to answer questions about your product.
Your answers to these questions help Google categorize your product for tax purposes. This information is captured to ensure accurate withholding and reporting on your earned income.
Adding an end user license agreement (EULA)
Add an end user license agreement (EULA) in the Terms & Policies tab. We recommend that you use the Google standard EULA if your product allows it. This may help users adopt your product more quickly.
If your product requires a specialized EULA, add your EULA's URL to the EULA URL field.
Submit your pricing model for review
When you're ready to submit your pricing model for processing, click Submit.
You can't modify your pricing model while it's under review.
(Optional) Offering trial software
If you want to offer a trial of your software to Google Cloud users, fill out the Cloud Marketplace solution trial intake form. You must specify:
- The trial period, in days—for example, 30 days. The trial period must last for at least 5 days.
- The trial value, in US dollars—for example, US$100. The trial value must be at least US$50.
Customers can choose any of your pricing plans, and the trial credit applies to the plan that they choose.
The trial ends when the customer reaches the credit limit, or at the end of the trial period, whichever comes first. For example, if you offer a 15-day trial with a maximum credit of $100, the trial ends when users reach the $100 limit, or at the end of 15 days.
At the end of the trial period, customers are charged based on the pricing plan that they chose. If the customer changed their plan during the trial, they are charged based on their new plan.
If your product's pricing is usage-based, we recommend a trial credit limit that is twice the cost of the usage that you expect.
Update the price of products after launch
If it's been at least 30 days after your pricing model has been published and approved, you can update the price of your product. To update the price of your product, complete the following steps:
- In the list of products, click the name of your product.
- Go to the pricing section of your product.
- Click Edit content.
- Make your updates to your pricing.
- When you're done, click Submit price model.
Your product's price is updated after the new pricing is reviewed and approved.
Price updates take up to four business days to be reviewed and take effect. If you're decreasing your price, your price decrease doesn't require any additional waiting period. If you're increasing your price, it takes an additional 45 days from the Operations team's confirmation of receipt of your request for the price increase to take effect. This time window includes 15 days to draft and send a message to active users, and 30 days for users to review the price change.
Delete a pricing plan
If you want to delete a pricing plan in Producer Portal, you must make sure that it has no entitlements associated with it, including both active and cancelled entitlements. This means that you can't delete a pricing plan on your own if it has previously been purchased.
To delete a plan that has entitlements associated with it, contact your Google Partner Engineer.