Monetization for SaaS: Billing That Works in the Background
EarnBill integrates with your SaaS platform to handle subscription billing, real-time quota tracking, and automated payment collection. Without getting in the way of your product.
What SaaS Monetization Actually Involves
Your SaaS platform generates dozens of billing events every minute. Monetization means capturing every one of them accurately, without slowing down your product.
Monetization for SaaS offerings requires deep integration between the monetization solution and the SaaS platform itself. Your platform generates many different events and trigger points. Subscriptions, API calls, feature usage, upgrades, each of which needs to be tracked, charged, and reconciled accurately.
EarnBill works in the background as a billing engine your SaaS platform can rely on. It handles the tracking and charging of all services offered on your platform. Subscription fees, usage charges, one-time fees, overages, without your users ever seeing the billing layer directly.
Subscription-based SaaS businesses span a wide range: payment gateways, ecommerce platforms, marketplaces, business communication tools, email providers, digital solution providers, SMS gateways, and more. What they share is the need for a reliable, scalable billing engine that stays out of the product experience but never misses a charge.
How EarnBill Works in the Background for SaaS
A real-world example: monetizing a subscription-based SMS gateway platform with EarnBill
The diagram below shows how EarnBill applies its monetization to a subscription-based SMS gateway: a representative use case for how EarnBill integrates with any SaaS platform offering bundled usage plans.
As shown in the diagram, an SMS gateway provider offers a subscription plan. Say, $X per month for a bucket of 10,000 SMSes. When a user subscribes on the SaaS platform, an API call is triggered to EarnBill, which processes a payment of the plan fee via a payment gateway. If the payment is successful, the user is created in both the SaaS platform and in EarnBill simultaneously.
Once the user exists in the EarnBill monetization platform, a provisioning request is triggered to the Telco carrier that provides the underlying network for the SMS service. If provisioning succeeds, the user receives their API key and credentials. Everything they need to start sending SMSes through the gateway.
From this point, every API call to send an SMS deducts from the quota bucket maintained in EarnBill. EarnBill performs a real-time check on the available quota with each call. Allowing or blocking the request accordingly. Any usage beyond the included allowance is charged automatically per the agreed overage pricing on the plan.
How EarnBill Integrates with Your SaaS Platform
Four key integration points that give EarnBill visibility into everything happening on your platform
Subscription Events
When a user subscribes, upgrades, or cancels on your platform, an API call to EarnBill triggers the corresponding billing action. Plan creation, proration, or cancellation, in real time.
Subscription managementPayment Processing
EarnBill connects to your payment gateway to process subscription fees and one-time charges. On success, it confirms account activation back to your platform, keeping both systems in sync.
Payment collectionReal-Time Quota Checks
Every API call from a user hits EarnBill's quota engine in real time. EarnBill checks the available balance, deducts immediately, and returns a go/no-go decision. Preventing service abuse without blocking legitimate usage.
Online charging systemOverage Charging
When a subscriber exceeds their included allowance, EarnBill charges the overage automatically based on the pricing rules defined on their plan. No manual intervention required.
Pricing modelsThe same integration model applies to any SaaS platform. Whether you're metering API calls, tracking seat usage, or billing feature consumption. EarnBill handles the billing logic so your product team doesn't have to.
SaaS Platforms EarnBill Works With
Any subscription-based digital service that generates billable events can rely on EarnBill as its monetization engine
EarnBill in Action: SaaS at Scale
See how EarnBill was implemented for a large-scale SaaS business
EarnBill has been implemented for a large-scale SaaS business operated by a Multi Brand Business Communications Company in the US. The implementation covers subscription billing, real-time usage tracking, and automated revenue collection across multiple communication products and brands.
Read the case studyReady to Transform Your SaaS Monetization?
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