Common business models

Creating a talent marketplace

Let's walk though how we would model a talent marketplace by using multiple price functions in the price model. We'll start with a basic scenario and see how we can add price functions to compose sophisticated business models.

Basic metered billing: Cody is a consultant who provides consulting services at $100 per hour that is collected monthly. This is the example from the developer quick start.

To handle Cody's billing, we create a price model with:

One price function of type per-unit-meter and meter name cody-hours-worked and meter rate $100.
Billing frequency: monthly.

Usage based billing with tiers: Consulting retainer for $3500 per month which includes 40 hours and is billed at $125 for any additional hours.

We create a price model with:

  • Two price functions:
    1. Type per-unit of $3500
    2. Type per-unit-meter and meter name cody-hours-worked with two tier. Tier 1: 0 to 40, meter rate is $0. Tier 2: 40+ the meter rate is $125
  • Billing frequency: monthly.

Usage based billing with split payouts: Consulting marketplace where consultants have retainers with overage and the marketplace adds a 15% margin which passed along to the buyer. To model Cody Consultant in this marketplace, we would use the following.

  • Three price functions:
    1. Type per-unit of $3500 with destination account Cody.
    2. Type per-unit-meter and meter name cody-hours-worked with two tier. Tier 1: 0 to 40, meter rate is $0. Tier 2: 40+ the meter rate is $125 with destination account Cody.
    3. Type percentage with percent 15% an amount sum-function-outputs.
  • Billing frequency: monthly.

Sum function outputs is a special amount variable that will take add the output of other price functions as an input. Sum function outputs will add up all other functions by default. You can also specify specific index values to only use specific function outputs.

Usage based billing with multiparty split payouts: Consulting marketplace allows consultants to refer customers and referrer gets 5% of the margin. Bobby Buyer was referred by Ruby Referrer. To model this, we would create another customer for Ruby referrer and use the following price model.

Price model with:

  • Four price functions:
    1. Type per-unit of $3500
    2. Type per-unit-meter and meter name cody-hours-worked with two tier. Tier 1: 0 to 40, meter rate is $0. Tier 2: 40+ the meter rate is $125
    3. Type percentage with percent 10% an amount sum-function-outputs and index values [0,1] .
    4. Type percentage with percent 5% an amount sum-function-outputs and index values [0,1] and destination account Ruby.
  • Billing frequency: monthly.

Sum function outputs is a special amount variable that will take add the output of other price functions as an input. Sum function outputs will add up all other functions by default. You can also specify specific index values to only use specific function outputs.