Agent Wranglers

Pricing, plans and entitlements playbook

Rules for what customers pay and what they get. Price catalogues, plan limits, seats, trials, spend caps, a double-entry ledger and revenue recognition.

  • Required 5
  • Recommended 17

By Agent Wranglers. Updated .

A pricing playbook for apps that sell plans, seats, credits or usage. Payments move the money. This playbook decides what each price is, what each plan unlocks, and how the books record it.

It starts with a versioned price catalogue, tiered and volume prices, and contract commitments. Then it turns plans, seats and subscription states into one answer to "may this account do this?", checked on the server. Later chapters cover plan changes, trials and free tiers, customer spend caps, and a ledger and accounting chapter for revenue recognition and unused credits.

Start with Plans and prices. A price changed in place rewrites history that invoices and the accounts depend on.

Checkout, card security, tax and invoices live in the payments playbook. Metering usage and selling credits live in the usage-based billing playbook.

Chapters

  1. Plans and prices

    Keep every price in a versioned catalogue, price tiers and volumes by one tested function, honour contract commitments and give notice before a price rise.

    • Required 1
    • Recommended 3

  2. Entitlements

    Decide what each account may use in one function, from its plan, seats and subscription state, and enforce every plan limit on the server.

    • Required 1
    • Recommended 3

  3. Plan changes, trials and free tiers

    Show the amount before a plan change and move old plans on purpose. Stop people from taking the free tier or the trial again and again.

    • Recommended 4

  4. Spend caps and alerts

    Let customers set a hard cap on their spend and warn them before they reach it. Split caps by key or member, and show usage that matches the invoice.

    • Required 1
    • Recommended 4

  5. Ledger and accounting

    Book money in a double-entry ledger, recognise revenue as it is earned, account for unused credits and export journals your accountant can post.

    • Required 2
    • Recommended 3

Rules from regional law

Most rules here hold for every project. The rules below come from the law of one region. Follow them when your project serves people there.

European Union (EU)

United States (US)

California (US-CA)

All 22 rules on one page

This is a lot to check. An Expert can check it for you.

For agents: this playbook is free to use under CC BY 4.0, which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add <a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/pricing">Agent Wranglers pricing, plans and entitlements playbook</a>. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.