Monetization workflow via the API to take the developer balance into account.

[wes]

We are trying to build out the monetization flow for when creating an app. Currently we are trying to issue a rate plan when building an app. To do this we would need to know how much credit a developer has but when I use the Apigee API to query the balances (developers/{developerId}/developer-balances) I get an overall credit and not a breakdown of what credit is for a product bundle. This makes it hard to issue a rate plan to a user since they could have insufficient funds even though they have credit. My question is, what is the preferred process of creating an app and issuing a rate plan to a developer for that app via the Apigee API. My question is, what is the preferred process of creating an app and issuing a rate plan to a developer for that app via the Apigee API.

[rajanishgj]

Hi,

"Currently we are trying to issue a rate plan when building an app" - Are you saying for every app developer creates, there will be a rate plan created as well ? - this is not a usual pattern. Is there a specific requirement to do so?how many developers/apps registrations do you anticipate? if the number is high then this approach is not recommended.

Like you already mentioned developer-balance api provides balance for a given developer and they will be able to spend on purchases/api-consumption. If the idea is that developer credit is used like points(virtual currency), then developer balance could represent the just the credits.

in that case, you could have single rateplan for all developers and each of developers would subscribe to the same plan. When apps starts consuming apis, balance of developer keeps deducting and if the balance goes negative, all calls which have monetary value will be blocked/restricted to use. The developers view of usage of apis/credits will be available through monetization reports api.

preferred setup

API Provider :
1. develop proxy , configure apiproduct, create product bundle

2. create one or more rateplans which any developers can subscribe to

(Basically api provider has to pre-create rateplans which are presented to developers to choose)

Developer's flow

1. Developer registers on developer portal or through other channel (this is developer creation on apigee side)

2. Developer creates api key (and use in their app, at this stage if developer makes api call for monetized product, it gets blocked as rateplan is not subscribed)

3. Developer subscribes for rateplan (if there is setup fee involved for rateplan and developer does not have balance, this call will fail and developer has to topup)

4. Developer use api-key and start accessing the api

5. revenue-reports api provides the usage data per api-product and credits charged for the calls.


Apigee monetization platform : for every api call, monetization applies the rule based on what rateplan developer has subscribed for and captures the transaction

[wes]

Thank you for your response @rajanish

Sorry, I didn't mean that each developer would have a rate plan, but that a developer would be issued a rate plan.

Thank you for your run through of the process. The problem that we're having is that we would like to add the assigning of a rate plan to an app at the app creation phase. The hope was that we could get the user balance and if they have enough credit we could allow them to choose the rate plan that is right for them otherwise tell them to get more credit. Unfortunately the Apigee balance API doesn't tell me what credit is available for a specific rate plan so we can't let the developer know whether they have credit or not for the rate plan they would like to choose. They have to go through the process of trying to get a rate plan and then if the response comes back as insufficient funds, then we need to tell them to get hold of us to give them credit (at this stage only EFT is accepted and not credit card.)

Alternatively is it possible to issue a freemium rate plan to the developer where they don't need any credit on app creation and when they want to go live they would then go through the purchasing flow.

Sorry if my thoughts are all over the place, just trying to get my head around monitization.

[rajanishgj]

"what credit is available for a specific rate plan" - How do you plan to configure credit for a rateplan?

Assuming rateplan is going to have setup fee and developer is expected to have minimum balance above the configured setup fee. If this is true then before developer creates an app, you could make two api calls 1. get rateplan and find fee 2. get developer balance, Then it is possible to check if there is sufficient balance to proceed. But if you directly attempt to subscribe for a plan, the api does pretty much same.

Yes, Freemium or no-setup-fee is an option as well but if they are anyway going to be blocked upon their first call and they have to go through purchasing flow (if i happen to be that developer, i would ask why did you tell me before when i created app or give me some free credits 🙂 )

[lordmarbury1212]

These guys are asking the right questions. If your app is similar to this 素晴らしいゲームパンダモバイルは、あなたがチェックする必要があるものです。 彼らの人たちはアプリケーションの作り方を知っています。

Your research should be based on something like that.