## m3ter Worked Example 3 - YouTube

Suppose you run a SaaS company that offers a service to companies to perform background checks on employee candidates to support their hiring process:

- Pricing for this service will vary by candidate location and the level of background check done.
- The service is offered for candidate locations across three countries: the USA, the UK, and China.
- Three levels of background check are offered for each location: Standard, Extended, or Complete.

If you want to price differently for each possible combination of location/level, this can mean having to set up multiple Meters/Aggregations to support usage-pricing for all possible combinations. However, for this kind of pricing use case that demands a wide spread of differentiated pricing metrics, you can use a _Segmented Aggregation_ on the same Meter usage data - you can submit data for the same Meter and allow a different pricing to be created for each segment defined by the Aggregation. This topic provides a worked example to show how to set up a Segmented Aggregation to serve this differentiated pricing use case. The example goes on to show how to submit some test data against a test Account and then generate a Bill for the test Account and check billed amounts against submitted usage.

## Step 1: Create Product

_Products_ represent a product or service that you offer to your end customers. A Meter, Aggregation, Plan Template, Plan, or Pricing typically all belong to a Product. **To create a Product:**

1. In the Console, select **Products**. The **Products** page opens.
2. Select **Create Product**. We’ll create a single Product called **Premium Candidate Checks**:

3. Select **Create** Product.

The **Premium Candidate Checks** Product can now serve as a container for any Meters, Aggregations, Pricing, Plans, and Plan Templates we’ll need for the example.

## Step 2: Set up Meter

_Meters_ define the Data Fields that your system will use to submit usage data to the m3ter platform:

- As well as _simple Data Fields_, which collect raw usage data, you can define _Derived Fields_ that reference and apply calculations to simple fields.
- You can create Product-specific Meters or Global Meters.

For this worked example, we’ll create a single Meter for our **Premium Candidate Checks** Product. **To create a Meter:**

1. Select **Usage>Meters**. The **Meters** page opens.
2. In the **Product** drop-down, select **Premium Candidate Checks**.
3. Select **Create Meter**.

Here’s the set up for the Meter to support the pricing model we want to use in the example:

For the example, we’ve set up **Candidate Check Meter 1** and added the three Data Fields:

- A **Location** field: **Category** is **Where**, which is a String field.
- A **Type** field of: **Category** is **What**, which is a String field.
- A **Checks** field: **Category** is **Measure**, which is a Numeric field.

4. Select **Create Meter**.

We now have a single Meter for the example, which we can use to collect usage data on any Account that consumes the **Premium Candidate Checks** Product. This metered usage data will serve as the basis for the Segmented Aggregation we shall create to apply differentiated pricing for Product consumption.

## Step 3: Define Aggregations

_Aggregations_ define how to transform into a single number the individual measurements submitted to a Meter Data Field as usage data. For the usage-based pricing model we want to implement in our example, we’ll need to create a _Segmented Aggregation_ based on the usage data collected by our single Meter - **Candidate Check Meter 1**:

- We’ll use the **Location** and **Type** string Data Fields to create the required segments on the usage data.
- We can target the **Checks** numeric Data Field to give a sum of the number of checks performed for each defined segment.

**To create a Segmented Aggregation:**

1. Select **Usage>Aggregations**. The **Aggregations** page opens.
2. In the **Product** drop-down, select **Premium Candidate Checks**.
3. Select **Create Aggregation**. The **Create** page opens.
4. Enter a **Name** and **Code** for the new Aggregation.
5. Select the **Meter** previously created for the example and with the required Data Fields: **Location**, **Type**, and **Quantity**.

Here’s the basic setup for the Segmented Aggregation:

We’ve targeted the **Checks** field on **Candidate Checks Meter 1**. 6. Scroll down and click the arrow to open the **Segments** panel:

7. Select the two fields to define segment values by location/type.

8. We can add the appropriate location/type segment values using the **Segments** panel:

9. Select **Create Aggregation**.

We now have the **Candidate Checks Aggregation 1** with appropriate segment values defined and which we can use to apply differentiated pricing to a Plan for the **Premium Candidate Checks** Product.

## Step 4: Create Product Plan

_Plans_ represent a pricing plan for one of your products or services. A Plan is always derived from a Plan Template and inherits settings from the Plan Template which control billing operations, such as billing frequency and currency. You can override some of these settings when you create a Plan from a Plan Template. To meet the example requirements:

1. Select **Pricing>Plan Templates**. The **Plan Templates** page opens.
2. In the **Product** drop-down, select **Premium Candidate Checks**.
3. Select **Create Plan Template**. The **Create** page opens.

Here’s the setup for our Product Plan Template:

For the **Candidate Checks Plan Template 1**, we’ve:

- Chosen **US dollars** as the billing currency.
- Selected a monthly **Bill frequency** with a **Bill interval** of **1**, which means Accounts put on the Plan will receive a Bill each month for a month’s period of usage.

4. Select **Create Plan Template**. You are returned to the **Plan Template Details** page.

We can now create a Product Plan for the example based on this template.

**To create a Product Plan:**

1. Select **Pricing>Plans**. The **Plans** page opens.
2. In the **Product** drop-down, select **Premium Data Checks**.
3. Select **Create Plan**. The **Create** page opens.

Here’s the setup for our Product Plan:

4. Select **Create Plan**. The **Plan Details** page opens for our new Product Plan.

We can now price **Candidate Checks Plan 1** using our **Candidate Checks Aggregation 1** Segmented Aggregation.

## Step 5: Price Product Plan

_Pricing_ allows you to configure the cost of usage data under a specific Plan you apply to an Account, and is used to calculate bills. We can use the **Pricing Editor** in the m3ter Console to quickly price up our Product Plan to meet the pricing requirements for the example.

**To price Product Plan:**

1. Select **Pricing>Pricing Editor**. The **Pricing** page opens.
2. In the **Product** drop-down, select **Premium Candidate Checks**.
3. Select **Add Plans**. The **Select Plans** dialog opens and lists all Plans created for the **Premium Candidate Checks** Product.
4. Check **Candidate Checks Plan 1** and select **Confirm**.

We’ll use the Segmented Aggregation we created at **Step 3** for the usage-based metrics to apply differentiated price to the Plan in accordance with the requirements set out in the example.

5. Click **Add Aggregations**. A **Select Aggregations** dialog appears and lists all Aggregations created for the **Premium Candidate Checks** Product.
6. On the **Select Aggregations** dialog check **Candidate Checks Aggregation 1**.

7. Click **Confirm**. The dialog closes and the selected Aggregation is added to the **Pricing** page for the added Plan.

8. In the pricing grid, select **Edit segmented pricing**. The **Segments** pricing page opens:

9. Scroll down the page to reveal the **Segments** pricing grid, which contains a row for each segment defined for the Aggregation:

10. For the example, we’ll suppose that for each segment we want to charge customers a different flat rate per candidate check performed:

| Location | Type | Charge Rate per Check |
| --- | --- | --- |
| China | Standard | $0.2 |
| China | Extended | $0.4 |
| USA | Extended | $0.5 |
| USA | Complete | $0.7 |
| UK | Standard | $0.5 |
| UK | Complete | $0.8 |

11. For the first segment row - **China/Standard** - select **Create Plan Pricing**.
12. Work down the form to enter:

- **Start** and **End** dates for the period the pricing will be active for the Plan.
- A **Description** that will appear for any usage charge line items on Bills, such as **China/Standard Check Charges**.
13. Select **Create Pricing**.

14. Repeat the steps for the remaining five segments to create pricings for them.

15. Now we have a Product Plan to which we’ve applied differentiated pricing according to the pricing requirements using our Segmented Aggregation.

## Step 6: Create Test Account and Attach Priced Plan

_Accounts_ represent one of your end-customers, and contains the end-customer name and contact details:

For this step, we’ll create a test Account for the example and attach our priced Plan to it. **To create a test Account and attach Plan:**

1. In the main Console navigation, select **Accounts**. The **Accounts** page opens.
2. Select **Create Account**.  
3. Enter the details of the new Account which include **Name**, **Code**, and **Email Address**.

4. Select **Create Account**. The **Account Details** page for the new Account opens.

5. Select the **Attached Plans** tab.
6. Select **Attach plan**.

7. Use the **Product** drop-down to select the Product, which is **Premium Candidate Checks** for the example. 
8. Select the Plan, which is **Candidate Checks Plan 1** for the example. 
9. Select **Create Plan**.

We now have a test Account set up that will be billed according to the segmented pricing schema we’ve configured for the Plan for any metered usage of the Product.

## Step 7: Submit Data to Test Account and Check Bill

We’ll now submit some test data to our **Candidate Checks Customer 1** test account and for the **Candidate Check Meter 1**. This will allow us to generate a Bill for the test Account and check that the usage charges on the Bill for the submitted test data are correct.

1. Select **Accounts**. On the **Accounts** page, select the name of the **Candidate Checks Customer 1** test Account. The **Account Details** page opens.
2. Select **Submit usage**.

3. Under stage **1: Select a meter**, use the **Meter** drop-down to select **Candidate Check Meter 1** and then select **Continue**.

4. Enter test data **Values** for the **Location**, **Type**, and **Checks** Data Fields:

5. Select **Submit usage**.

6. Repeat the steps to submit test measures for each of the remaining five segment values for the bill generation.

7. After submitting, we can calculate what the cumulative usage charges should be for the submitted test data.

For the example, we can see that the Bill based on test usage data we submitted has been calculated correctly in accordance with our usage-based differentiated pricing schema.