Monetization

What is Monetization?

Monetization is a process of measuring, accumulating and application of different types of charges against a service rendered to the consumer by a service provider. The different types of charges are applied based on the agreement between the service provider and the consumer. The different types of charges include subscription charges, usage or consumption charges, one time fees such as the installation fees or the site visit fees, penalties for late payments and others. These charges are applied based on some agreed pricing mechanism or pricing rules.

An agreement between the service provider and the consumer may have been formalised by the consumer subscribing to a plan offered by the service provider OR based on a signed contract between the two sides.

How EarnBill’s Billing Engine helps with Monetization?

EarnBill is a complete billing solution that can help monetize different services in varying industries. The EarnBill billing engine is industry agnostic. It is a “no assumptions made” billing system which means its billing core was designed to be flexible to meet different business use cases. It does not target only one specific industry.

This is its real power – a billing core that is very flexible and robust – yet it has an extensibility which allows the system to be implemented for various industries and different businesses. The EarnBill billing solution has been implemented by Telcos, ISPs (Internet Service Providers), Cloud Service Providers (or IaaS providers), SaaS providers, Business Communication providers, E-commerce platforms and others.

Because it has been applied to various industries successfully, its billing core has strengthened further with every implementation while also becoming a fully qualified Telecom Billing System, an ISP Billing System, a Cloud or IaaS Billing System, a SaaS Billing System and more.

EarnBill’s Monetization Model

Monetization

As shown in the diagram, the EarnBill Monetization Platform can be used to monetize services offered from any industry. The EarnBill billing solution captures all kinds of charges from the services or the user accounts. Most of the business use cases have following charges in common:

  • Subscription Charges
  • Usage Charges or Consumption Charges
  • Penalties
  • Fees
  • One time Charges

There are various ways of capturing these different charges. These may be manually entered into the system by front office agents. Some charges may be automatically generated by the billing system. EarnBill supports automated pricing, rating and charging of Call Data Records (or Usage Data Records) through its billing mediation module. It also supports an Online Charging System or OCS platform for supporting prepaid usage.

Monetization Platforms

EarnBill billing solution has been implemented for various different monetization platforms, as listed below:

Monetization for Telcos (Telecommunication Service Providers)

Monetization for Telcos involve managing and charging pricing plans, bundles, discounts and ensuring accurate rating of Call Data Records. Besides, there are increasing requirements from regulatory authorities of a country. The two most important features required by Telcos and MVNOs are billing mediation and online charging system or an OCS platform.

Monetization for ISPs (Internet Service Providers)

Monetization for ISPs entail subscription management, recurring billing, custom and branded invoices, automated and recurring collection of payments using different payment methods, dunning notifications, different pricing strategies, discounts and more…

Monetization for IaaS (or Cloud Service Providers)

Monetization for Cloud Service Providers or monetization for IaaS providers involves implementation of complex billing use cases. The cloud based resources are charged with pay as you go pricing and hourly billing is an important component of the system.

Monetization for SaaS (Software As A Service)

Monetization for SaaS offerings requires that it is easy to integrate the monetization solution with the SaaS platform itself. The SaaS platform has many different events and trigger points that would send critical and important information to a monetization service. The EarnBill monetization solution works in the background and acts as a billing engine that the SaaS platform can rely on.

Monetization for Call Centers

Monetization for a Call Center involves charging the users of call center services with subscription and consumption charges. Typically, the call centers rely on subscription fees but many have started rating and charging the actual usage consumption of services such as inbound call answering, chat and call relay etc. Call centers also provide billing plans with included call minutes for inbound call answering services and this requires tracking of free quota.

Monetization for IoT Solutions

Monetization for IoT solutions entail tracking and billing all the IoT devices that are part of the IoT platform. The IoT solutions require that they get a clear picture of all their active devices and which customer accounts are using them. It should be easy to track the inventory of the devices and their statuses. Also possible to sync the status to actual provisioning status on the telecom network…

Monetization for Utilities

Monetization for utilities or utilities billing includes billing for consumer based services such as electricity supply by power companies, gas supply, water supply etc. The monetization solution relies on data provided by the metered reads coming from consumption metres. The usage consumption or supply of the utilities is tracked and rated by the monetization platform.

Monetization for E-commerce

Monetization for e-commerce platforms involves incorporating a billing engine in the e-commerce platform such that the e-commerce platform can rely on the billing engine to track and manage the recurring subscriptions, also handle the one time and recurring payments and carry out order management. Having a platform which is secure and PCI DSS compliant is crucial considering the importance of online payments from the e-commerce platform.

Monetization for OTT or Streaming Services

Monetization for OTT or Streaming Services entails measurement and rating of data which is being streamed upstream or downstream by the OTT provider. OTT plans sometimes have innovative packages whereby each package controls the number of concurrent users, or the specialised or premium package provides more access, information or viewing/listening options. The OTT platforms require an enterprise billing system and a billing platform that can be easily integrated.