Seat-based pricing
Sequence provides native support for dynamic seat and user based pricing models
Choose your pricing model
Sequence provides native support for businesses with seat-based pricing, including seat types, a simple API to submit seat updates and a dashboard to track seat balances and changes. With Sequence, you can automate billing for standard or tiered seat fees and optionally prorate seat upgrades. Charge a contracted minimum seat number and configure how to bill for seat overage fees.
Learn more about how to configure seat types in Sequence and programmatically update seat balances by submitting seat updates from your application.
Concepts
Linear seat-based pricing
With linear seat-based pricing you set a single price and apply it to all seats your customer uses. With this pricing model, the price per seat is the same regardless of how many seats your customer uses.
Graduated seat-based pricing
With graduated seat-based pricing, the price per seat varies as the total number of seats used moves across tiers. For example, with the configuration below the first 15 seats will be charged £12 each, and every additional seats beyond that will be charged £15.
Worked examples
Monthly in arrears seat-based billing with proration
In this example, Simplify Saas charges its customer £15 a month per seat in arrears. Seats added mid-month are charged a prorated fee.
The customer (Flower Saas) started with zero seats. On April 18th, they added 27 seats. At the end of April, Flower Saas receives an invoices for 27 seats (prorated to £6.50), covering the period of 1 - 30 April.
Through April and May, no other seats are added. At the end of May, Flower Saas receives an invoice for 27 seats at £15 per seat.
Monthly in arrears seat-based billing with proration
In this example, Simplify Saas charges its customer £15 a month per seat in arrears. Seats added mid-month are charged a prorated fee.
The customer (Flower Saas) started with zero seats. On April 18th, they added 27 seats. At the end of April, Flower Saas receives an invoices for 27 seats (prorated to £6.50), covering the period of 1 - 30 April.
Through April and May, no other seats are added. At the end of May, Flower Saas receives an invoice for 27 seats at £15 per seat.
Monthly in advance seat-based billing with overages
In this example, Simplify Saas charges its customer $25 a month per seat in advance. Seats added mid-month are charged a prorated fee at month end.
Throughout April, the customer (Bluepen) adds several seats to their account, ending up with 73 seats at month end. On May 1st, two invoices are raised. The first invoice includes prorated seat charges for seats added throughout April. The second invoice includes charges for the billing period ahead (1-31 May), for 73 seats (see below).
Annual in advance seat-based billing with minimums and overages
In this example, Simplify Saas charges its customer annually in advance for 50 contracted seats at $25 per seat (annually). Extra seats are charged a prorated fee at the end of the annual billing period.
Since the billing schedule starts on March 1, an advance invoice is raised covering the 50 contracted seats.
On April 18th, Orange Corp reached a 60 seat balance, 10 seats above the contracted minimum. A prorated charge is automatically added to the invoice.
Tiered seat-based pricing with minimums
In this example, Simplify Saas charges tiered seat fees, monthly in arrears. The first 5 seats are $10 per seat per month, the next set 10 seats are $12 per seat and any seats beyond that are $15 per seat. Additionally, there is a contracted minimum of 10 seats.
The billing schedule starts on March 1. In March, Flower Saas just add a handful of seats (below the minimum of 10). At month end, they receive an invoice for the contracted 10 seats. Note that these span across two tiers.
A couple months later, Flower Saas add extra analyst seats to their app, reaching a total of 25 seats. At the end of May, they receive the below invoice:
