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Metering Records Upon Cancellation - Conflicting Information?

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Have a SaaS marketplace product. Looking at the metering requirement, especially in the edge case where the customer cancels.

Looking at this page: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/marketplace/latest/userguide/metering-for-usage.html

One paragraph says "sellers have to send metering records within 1 hour of customer unsubscribing:

Sellers can send metering records with a timestamp up to 6 hours in the past if the customer is subscribed to your product. If the customer unsubscribes, sellers have to send the metering records within 1 hour of the customer unsubscribing.

However, another paragraph on the same page says "have 1 hour to send in all unreported usage before the final unsubscribe-success notificaton".

If this is a SaaS with the pricing model "Subscription" (not pricing models "Contract" or "Contract with Consumption"), then the buyer can unsubscribe at any time. When the buyer initiates this unsubscribe action, the seller will receive an unsubscribe-pending notification and have 1 hour to send in all unreported usage before the final unsubscribe-success notification. Anything after the second notification will not be honored. The other two pricing models have a set duration based on the time of subscription and the buyer cannot unsubscribe during it. They can only turn off autorenewal. The same notification is sent at the end of that duration if not autorenewing.

Can anyone clarify?

On a slightly different note, the "unsubscribe-pending" message was received immediately, and the "unsubscribe-success" in 2 minutes. So, I'm not sure how we can send it "before the final unsubscribe-success" notification?

Topics
AWS Marketplace
Tags
AWS Marketplace - Seller
Language
English

asked 2 years ago188 views

1 Answer
0

Thank you for bringing this to attention. There does appear to be some conflicting information in the documentation regarding the timing of sending metering records upon customer unsubscription. Let me clarify this for you based on the most accurate and up-to-date information.

For SaaS products with the "Subscription" pricing model, the process works as follows:

  1. When a buyer initiates an unsubscribe action, the seller receives an 'unsubscribe-pending' notification.

  2. After this notification, the seller has approximately one hour to send in all unreported usage before the final 'unsubscribe-success' notification is sent.

  3. Any metering records sent after the 'unsubscribe-success' notification will not be honored.

This process is designed to give sellers a window of time to report any final usage before the subscription is fully terminated. However, your observation about receiving the 'unsubscribe-success' notification just two minutes after the 'unsubscribe-pending' notification is concerning and doesn't align with the expected one-hour window.

In practice, it's recommended that sellers implement a system to:

  1. Continuously meter and report usage on a regular basis (ideally hourly).
  2. Have a mechanism to quickly aggregate and report any remaining usage immediately upon receiving the 'unsubscribe-pending' notification.

Given the discrepancy you've noticed in the timing of notifications, it would be advisable to:

  1. Ensure your system is set up to respond as quickly as possible to the 'unsubscribe-pending' notification.
  2. Keep detailed logs of the timing of these notifications and your metering record submissions.
  3. If you consistently observe that the time between 'unsubscribe-pending' and 'unsubscribe-success' notifications is significantly less than one hour, it would be worth contacting AWS Marketplace support to report this issue and seek further clarification.

Remember, it's crucial to report usage accurately and timely to ensure proper billing and maintain a good relationship with both AWS and your customers.
Sources
Configuring metering for usage with SaaS subscriptions - AWS Marketplace
Amazon SNS notifications for SaaS products - AWS Marketplace

answered 2 years ago

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