Last verified with: 10.8.6.0
Overview #
Counting Rules give organizations a flexible way to determine how quantities are counted for pricing.
Instead of tying pricing only to the exact service or package being billed, a business can define a reusable rule that counts a broader set of related items across an account. That count can then be used to decide which pricing tier applies.
This is especially valuable when pricing depends on the total footprint of a customer relationship rather than a single line item. It allows businesses to group related services or packages together, apply shared thresholds, and price more intelligently without duplicating pricing logic across the catalog.
What They Are #
Counting Rules are reusable definitions that determine what should contribute to a pricing count.
At a business level, a Counting Rule can be configured to count:
- a group of services,
- or a group of packages,
- but not both in the same rule.
Those counts can also be shaped by additional business conditions, such as:
- which statuses should count,
- whether counts should be evaluated across statuses or by status,
- and whether only items with usage in the billing period should be included.
In simple terms, a Counting Rule allows a business to say:
“Price this offer based on the total number of these related items the customer has, not just the one item currently being billed.”
How They Work #
From a business perspective, the model is straightforward:
- A Counting Rule is created as a reusable definition of what should be counted.
- The rule is configured to count either selected services or selected packages.
- Status behavior is defined so the rule knows which active, suspended, pre-active, or other states should contribute to the count.
- The rule can optionally count only items that had usage during the billing period.
- The Counting Rule is attached to tiered recurring pricing or qualifying aggregate usage rates.
- During billing, the platform evaluates the account against that rule and determines the total count.
- That total count is then used to select the pricing tier that should apply.
This separates the counting logic from the price itself, which makes pricing more reusable, more flexible, and easier to manage over time.
Why They Matter #
Many businesses need pricing to reflect the combined scale of a customer relationship.
Examples include:
- pricing based on the combined number of connected devices,
- pricing based on multiple related services counted together,
- pricing based on package adoption across an account,
- or pricing that changes depending on which items are active, suspended, or actually generating usage.
Without Counting Rules, those scenarios are difficult to model cleanly. Teams often end up creating duplicate packages, separate price structures, or manual workarounds just to make pricing reflect the real commercial relationship.
Counting Rules solve that problem by making the count itself configurable and reusable. That allows pricing to follow the business model more closely, especially when multiple products or states need to contribute to the same commercial threshold.
Business Benefits #
Counting Rules deliver value in several important ways:
- More flexible tiered pricing. Pricing can be based on a grouped count of related services or packages rather than a single item in isolation.
- Better alignment to real customer scale. Commercial tiers can reflect the total footprint of what the customer has purchased across the account.
- Reusable pricing logic. The same counting definition can support multiple priced offers instead of recreating the same count structure repeatedly.
- Reduced catalog complexity. Teams can avoid building duplicate packages or one-off pricing constructs just to achieve grouped counting behavior.
- Better support for state-aware pricing. Counts can reflect only the statuses that matter commercially, such as active services only or active plus pre-active services together.
- Better support for usage-aware pricing. Where needed, counts can reflect only items that actually generated usage in the billing period.
Counting Scenarios #
This capability is powerful because it supports several different ways to count and group customer activity.
Grouping Multiple Services Into One Count #
Some offers need pricing to depend on the combined total of several related services.
A Counting Rule can group those services together so they contribute to one shared quantity, even if the services themselves are priced differently.
Benefit:
- Supports portfolio pricing instead of isolated line-item pricing.
- Makes it possible to reward customers for combined adoption across related services.
- Helps unify tier logic across multiple offers.
Counting Packages Instead Of Services #
In some business models, the commercial threshold is based on how many packages the customer has purchased rather than how many individual services sit inside those packages.
Counting Rules can be based on packages so the pricing decision follows the product structure that matters most to the business.
Benefit:
- Supports packaging-led pricing strategies.
- Makes it easier to price based on purchased plans, bundles, or subscriptions.
- Avoids forcing service-level counting when the business thinks in package terms.
Status-Aware Counting #
Not every status should always contribute to a pricing threshold.
Some businesses may want to count only active items. Others may want active and pre-active items to count together, or include suspended items in the threshold logic while pricing them differently.
Counting Rules make this possible by controlling which statuses contribute to the count and whether thresholds are shared across statuses or evaluated by status.
Benefit:
- Aligns pricing with operational reality.
- Supports lifecycle-based pricing strategies.
- Gives the business more control over how pending, active, or suspended items affect commercial tiers.
Counting Only Items With Usage #
In some usage-driven business models, it is important to count only items that were actually active in the period from a consumption standpoint.
Counting Rules can support this by counting only items that generated usage during the billing period.
Benefit:
- Connects pricing tiers more closely to actual customer activity.
- Helps avoid overstating scale when inactive items should not influence pricing.
- Supports fairer and more commercially precise usage-based tiering.
Shared Count, Different Prices #
One of the most powerful aspects of Counting Rules is that the same grouped count can be used to determine pricing for different services, even when each service has its own price in each tier.
That means the business can use one combined threshold model while still pricing each item appropriately.
Benefit:
- Supports consistent enterprise pricing structures.
- Allows different products to share a commercial threshold without forcing the same price.
- Reduces the need for duplicated count logic across many services.
Telecom Examples #
Combined SIM Or Device Population Pricing #
A telecom provider may want pricing for multiple SIM or connectivity offers to depend on the customer’s total deployed footprint across those offers.
A Counting Rule can group those related services into a single count so the customer’s total population determines the tier, while each service still keeps its own price within that tier.
Benefit:
- Rewards customers for broader adoption across related offers.
- Supports large-scale connectivity pricing models.
- Reduces the need to manage separate threshold models for each service line.
Package-Based Pricing Across Plan Families #
A provider may want pricing to depend on how many plan packages the customer has subscribed to, rather than the number of component services within those packages.
Counting Rules can count packages directly, making the pricing model easier to align with how the offer is sold.
Benefit:
- Supports commercial models built around plan adoption.
- Simplifies pricing for bundled telecom offers.
- Keeps pricing logic aligned to how products are packaged and sold.
Status-Sensitive Fleet Pricing #
A telecom business may need active devices to count differently from suspended or pre-active devices, while still using a shared pricing framework.
Counting Rules support this by letting the business decide which statuses contribute to the threshold and how status-specific pricing should behave once the tier is determined.
Benefit:
- Improves pricing precision across the service lifecycle.
- Supports operational realities like staged activations and temporary suspensions.
- Gives the provider more control over how account scale is measured commercially.
SaaS Examples #
Cross-Module Volume Pricing #
A SaaS provider may want several related application modules to contribute to the same customer volume threshold, even though each module has its own recurring price.
A Counting Rule can group those modules into one commercial count so the customer benefits from combined adoption.
Benefit:
- Supports platform-wide pricing strategies.
- Encourages broader product adoption.
- Makes enterprise discounting more scalable and consistent.
Subscription Tiering Based On Purchased Bundles #
Some SaaS businesses think in terms of subscribed packages or editions rather than individual technical components.
Counting Rules can count packages so pricing can reflect how many subscriptions, plans, or bundled offers the customer has in place.
Benefit:
- Aligns pricing with go-to-market packaging.
- Supports cleaner bundle-based commercial design.
- Avoids overcomplicating pricing with unnecessary service-level logic.
Usage-Aware Pricing For Active Resources #
A SaaS provider may want tier decisions to be based only on resources that were actually active in the period, such as active environments, used endpoints, or engaged devices.
Counting Rules can support that by counting only items with usage during the billing period.
Benefit:
- Aligns pricing to real customer engagement.
- Helps make tiering feel more fair and commercially defensible.
- Supports hybrid recurring and usage-informed pricing strategies.
Why Customers Value This Capability #
Counting Rules are especially valuable for organizations that:
- use tiered pricing across groups of related products,
- need pricing thresholds based on account-wide scale,
- want to count packages in some cases and services in others,
- need status-aware or usage-aware tier logic,
- or want more flexible pricing without expanding catalog complexity.
In those environments, the challenge is not just setting prices. The challenge is deciding what should count toward the pricing threshold in the first place.
That is where Counting Rules add value. They let the business define the counting logic once, reuse it where needed, and price customers according to the broader commercial relationship rather than a narrow one-to-one line-item view.