Metronome today updated its namesake platform for managing usage-based billing to make it possible to customize dashboards that are integrated within digital applications.
In addition, Metronome 2.0 makes available additional analytics capabilities that make it easier to monitor usage data, analyze margins and track daily revenue using SQL-based metrics without having to first aggregate that data.
The goal is to make it simpler for organizations that have embraced usage-based billing to surface more granular data to their end customers, says Metronome CEO Scott Woody.
That’s critical because customers are becoming less tolerant of being surprised by bills for monthly usage that they have little or no control over, he adds. Organizations that want to retain customers will need to provide more granular insights into usage data that enables those customers to dynamically reduce or increase consumption of a service as they can best afford by taking advantage of pre-determined spending limits and alerts that advise them when those limits are being approached, notes Woody. “Today, customers have no visibility,” he says.
Many organizations today are managing usage-based billing outside of the actual application experience. Metronome is designed to provide organizations with a billing platform that is designed from the ground up to be integrated within a digital workflow using application programming interfaces (APIs), says Woody. That capability makes it possible to integrate billing directly into software engineering workflows, he adds.
That approach also makes it simpler for organizations to maintain a single source of truth for pricing, while allowing for customized contracts and discounts when needed.
It’s not clear to what degree customers might decide to opt for one service over another because of how they are billed. However, there is a growing expectation that organizations will provide their customers with the tools and controls required to limit spending. Otherwise, organizations will need to resort to more disruptive measures such as suspending consumption of a service until they are able to implement their own set of controls.
More organizations than ever, of course, are sensitive to the cost of services than ever. In the wake of a global economic downturn, finance teams have sought to reduce costs by reviewing every subscription service that automatically bills a corporate credit card. Many of the organizations that provide these services are now experiencing declines in revenue generated by bills that were automatically paid each month. The challenge now is regaining some portion of that revenue by showing customers they can exercise more control over how any given service is consumed, says Woody.
Of course, switching billing platforms isn’t a trivial effort. Many organizations that provide digital services today will, if they decide to switch platforms, need to do so in phases. Other organizations that are, however, just launching a subscription service may benefit from not having any legacy platform migration issues.
Regardless of approach, the one thing that is certain is organizations of all sizes are becoming less tolerant of any supplier of a service that doesn’t provide them with an ability to more precisely control how much they spend.