Per-unit pricing

Concepts

Per-unit pricing is the most straightforward way to bill for usage. You set a fixed price for a single unit, and the bill grows at a steady, predictable rate as the customer consumes more.

The logic of dimensions

Per-unit pricing is a 1-dimensional model. It relies on a single factor: Quantity (dimension 1).

Think of this as "the ramp." Unlike tiered or volume models, there are no steps, thresholds, or cliffs. Every unit costs exactly the same as the one before it, creating a smooth, linear increase in cost.

SaaS example: Cloud log storage

A monitoring platform charges a flat rate for every gigabyte (GB) of logs ingested. Whether the customer is a small startup or a large enterprise, the price per unit remains constant.

• Unit Rate: $2.00 / GB

The linear calculation: Because the rate is fixed, the calculation is a simple multiplication of total usage by the unit price.

Get started

Create a per-unit product

This tutorial walks you through building a global per-unit template in your Product Library.

1. Navigate to the Library: Go to Contracts > Products.
2. Create a Standalone Product: Click + CREATE NEW and choose Standalone Product from the dropdown. The Create Standalone Product page will appear. Fill in the required details and click Save & Proceed at the bottom right.
3. Open Price Details: You will be redirected to the Price Details page. Click + Add Price to configure pricing for the product.
4. Select Per-unit Pricing Model: In the Pricing Model dropdown, select Per-unit.
5. Add Price Details and Save: Fill in the required details and click Confirm. Once complete, click Done on the Price Details page to finalize the setup.

How-to: Add a per-unit product to a contract

Terse steps for sales and operations teams applying a model to a customer.

1. Via Contracts

1. Open the target contract in Contracts > Contracts.
2. In the Summary tab, click + ADD PRODUCT V3.
3. Search for and select your configured per-unit product.
4. Click ADD PRODUCT. You will be redirected to the Summary page. Click Publish.

2. Via Customer

1. Open the target customer in Customers.
2. Go to Contracts and click + CREATE CONTRACT.
3. In the Summary tab, click + ADD PRODUCT V3.
4. Search for and select your configured per-unit product.
5. Click ADD PRODUCT. You will be redirected to the Summary page. Click Publish.

Reference

Technical specifications

System architecture

In Zenskar, all pricing models are governed by a hierarchical relationship between entities:

• Contract: The legal agreement between you and your customer.
• Phase: A specific time-bound period (e.g., Q1, implementation phase) within that contract.
• Product: The actual service or software module being sold.
• Pricing model: The specific logic (per-unit pricing) that defines how that product is billed.

Entity hierarchy:

flowchart LR
    CONTRACT[Contract] ---|"has one or more"| PHASE[Phase]
    PHASE ---|"has one or more"| PRODUCT[Product]
    PRODUCT ---|"has exactly one active"| PRICINGMODEL[Pricing model]

style PRICINGMODEL fill:#90ee90

Price resolution flow

The following flow describes how per-unit pricing calculates the final price:

1. Product library: Defines the global rate (r) per individual unit.
2. Contract: Links the product to a customer and defines the quantity source (q).
3. Data source: Provides the value of q (either from a dynamic meter or static product field).
4. Billing engine: Executes a direct multiplication of the rate by the quantity to resolve the total price P.