Engage Voice | Intro to billing for Engage Voice
This article discusses how you are billed for Engage Voice services. It covers the available types of service contracts, the notions of prepayment vs. postpayments, the different types of billing models for agent and supervisor seats, the availability of on-demand seats, and a breakdown of the types of orderable SKUs.
Types of annual contracts
Your contract with RingCentral for Engage Voice services is an annual contract. The contract may be an annual contract with a monthly prepayment, or an annual contract with an annual prepayment. How you pay for services varies according to which contract type you entered.
When you enter an annual contract with a monthly prepayment, you prepay for the coming month in the beginning of the billing period, and you pay in arrears for the actual usage of the month covered by the bill. Your prepaid amount covers certain services included in your contract. At the end of a billing period, you receive a new bill that includes a prepay for the next month, and a post-payment amount for overages based on your usage in the current period. If you use over what you prepaid, you pay for it. For example, you prepaid for 10 seats, but used 15 seats. All the deltas are paid on a monthly basis.
When you enter an annual contract with annual prepayment, you no longer have a monthly prepayment. However, on a monthly basis, you still receive a post-payment bill an amount in arrears if you go over the contracted value. You will still be issued an invoice for the post-payment usage.
Core seat licenses
A core seat license is a mandatory seat license. A customer is required to purchase at least three licenses. The customer purchases a fixed number of seats that are prepaid for each billing cycle regardless of the amount of seats that are actually used. These seat licenses are considered recurring licenses.
You are required to pay for the supervisor or agent seats used during a billing cycle. There are two types of models for billing seats: named seats and concurrent seats. Named seats are associated with users registered in the system, while concurrent seats allow a certain peak concurrency across the billing period.
The specific measurements used to calculate seat usage are as follows:
- Named seats: The maximum number of unique user accounts registered and in an active state during the billing cycle. This is calculated by the number of unique agents who are registered and logged in at least once to Engage Voice during the month.
- Concurrent seats: The maximum number of unique user accounts simultaneously logged into Engage Voice during the billing cycle.
On-demand seats
Besides the contracted number of seats that a customer may purchase, a customer may configure more seats in Engage. At the end of the billing cycle, the customer will pay for the extra seats that were used during the billing cycle. These extra seats are called overage or on-demand seats and are implemented as a usage license in the product catalog. On-demand seats are billed at a higher rate than regular seats.
Suppose you have a campaign where you typically require 10 seats but need to increase that figure to 20 seats during the campaign’s peak period. In that case, you would be charged for the ten on-demand seats used. On-demand seats provide you the flexibility to configure extra seats over your paid seats, as needed, and to remove the seats at any time – they are not added to the committed contract.
The phrase “seat on demand” is included in the name of a license to indicate that this is an overage license.
License name
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License type
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Description
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Engage named seat
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Recurring
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Core seat license
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Engage named seat on demand
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Usage
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Seat overage license
|
At the end of a billing cycle, the system totals the seat usage and calculates the overage amount.
For example, a customer purchases 10 agent seats and prepays for these 10 seats at a charge of 10 * $199.99. During the billing cycle, they use 12 seats. At the end of the billing cycle, the system calculates the usage of seats on demand. The overage is calculated based on 12 seats used. 12 used seats - 10 core seats = 2 overage seats. The two seats are billed at $219.99 each as usage charges for seats on demand licenses.
If the usage seats amount doesn't exceed the core seats amount, the customer pays only for the core seats.
Transport and transport charges
You are billed for any overages on transport services, non-transport services, and overages for seats, local connect buckets, or in-platform services. For a discussion of metering and rounding of calls, and the types of traffic, see Understanding call metering. For a discussion of the default overages included in a contract, and a detailed description of the individual transport charges, see Understanding transport charges.
Add-on licenses
Engage Voice packages contain recurring and usage licenses that are dependent on contracted seats. Add-on licenses are applied for integrations with ManualDial, call recording storage, local connect buckets, and phone scrub licenses, as well as CRM integrations.
There are two types of add-on licenses:
- Licenses that follow the number of core seats.
- Licenses for an arbitrary number of seats.
Add-on licenses that follow the number of contracted core seats
One type is that which follows the number of contracted core seats. This license type, which is used by those add-ons except for the CRM integration add-ons, has the number of add-on seats equal to the number of contracted core seats, and the on-demand add-on seats billed in arrears as a core seat overage.
Add-on licenses for an arbitrary number of seats
The second license type, used by the CRM integration add-ons, allows for an arbitrary number of seats. The named license is a monthly recurring license and shall be equal to the number of named agents who will need access to Engage and CRM together. For example, you have 100 core seats, but only purchase licenses for a total of 50 CRM seats, which is the number of agents needing access to Engage and CRM together.
Charges for add-on overages
If the number of used seats exceeds the number of pre-paid add-ons (that is equal to the core seats) the customer pays a price per add-on times the number of used seats. If the number of used seats doesn't exceed the number of core seats, the customer only pre-pays for the recurring add-on license.
Prepayments and payments in arrears
The client always prepays for an add-on according to the number of contracted seats and pays at the end of the billing cycle for add-ons if the customer exceeds the number of contracted seats. The billing is the same whether the add-on functionality was used by the seat or not. The customer pays for all contracted seats regardless of whether the seats are used by agents.
Add-on license descriptions
- ManualDial seats: The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulates telemarketing calls, auto-dialed calls, pre-recorded calls, text messages, and unsolicited faxes. TCPA compliance tools take control over TCPA compliance. The ManualDial seat is an add-on license for a standalone system that requires a human being to place outgoing calls manually. This license can only be used together with outbound or blended seats. For more information, see Intro to ManualDial.
For more information, see the Engage Voice TCPA risk mitigation whitepaper.
- Local connect bucket: Allows agents to attach a Caller ID from a local connect bucket to outgoing calls. If you purchase a recurring Local Connect license, a corresponding Local Connect on demand license will be included in your order. See Local Connect on demand licenses.
- Call recording storage: For those packages where the customer purchases agents seats, Call Recording Storage licenses works as an add-on license. This is a usage license and its usage depends on the number of core seats and overage seats. The billing is the same whether the seat used the recording function or not. The customer is billed a per-seat cost according to this add-on model.
- DNC Cellular Scrub: Comprehensive consumer full federal and state Do Not Call cellular list suppression scrub. A recurring license.
- DNC National/State Scrub: DNC National/State Scrubbing is a service which will remove numbers from an outbound list for National/State acts. A recurring license.
- Disconnect Scrub: Scrubs campaign list for known disconnected phone numbers. Engage Voice uses an external integration to verify if a number has been disconnected or not ("disconnect scrubbing") before calling the number.
Charges are based on usage calculation received from the system. Price is per 10 scrubs. - Litigation Scrub: Scrubs for serial TCPA plaintiffs & litigators, identifying repeat TCPA lawsuits. Litigation scrub provisioning. A recurring license.
CRM add-on descriptions
- Engage Voice for Microsoft Dynamics: Embedded CRM connector for integration with Microsoft Dynamics. The named license is a monthly recurring license and shall be equal to the number of named agents who will need access to Engage and CRM together.
- Engage Voice for ServiceNow: Embedded CRM connector for integration with ServiceNow. The named license is a monthly recurring license and shall be equal to the number of named agents who will need access to Engage and CRM together.
- Engage Voice for NetSuite: Embedded CRM connector for integration with NetSuite. The named license is a monthly recurring license and shall be equal to the number of named agents who will need access to Engage and CRM together.
- Engage Voice for SugarCRM: Embedded CRM connector for integration with SugarCRM. The named license is a monthly recurring license and shall be equal to the number of named agents who will need access to Engage and CRM together.
- Engage Voice for Bullhorn: Embedded CRM connector for integration with Bullhorn. The named license is a monthly recurring license and shall be equal to the number of named agents who will need access to Engage and CRM together.
- Engage Voice for Zendesk: Embedded CRM connector for integration with Zendesk. The named license is a monthly recurring license and shall be equal to the number of named agents who will need access to Engage and CRM together.
Types of orderable SKUs
The Engage product catalog provides a complete list of orderable SKUs. These SKUs include recurring licenses and usage licenses for core seats, add-ons, and credit bundles, as well as other one-time charges. Recurring licenses are those prepaid licenses that define the estimated number of seats needed on a monthly basis for your call center. Recurring licenses are available for core seats, add-ons, and minute/credit bundles.
Usage licenses are needed when your usage exceeds that provided under a recurring license. For example, if you purchase 10 core seats but will use more seats, you need an on-demand usage license. Usage licenses are needed for on-demand seats, transport overages, processing charges, and other add-ons.
Helpful hint!
Note: Recurring licenses like (core seats, DNC scrub, etc.) are paid upfront according to the master billing term (month or year), but for overages and usage, you always pay in arrears monthly.
An example below illustrates how the customer may purchase add-ons in the Engage Voice Standalone Concurrent Outbound/Blended seats package. Add-ons are optional for purchasing, but if the customer purchases an add-on, they must purchase an equal number of add-ons in the cart to the number of core seats.
Core seat license
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Quantity
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License type
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Mandatory
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Comment
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Engage Voice Outbound/Blended Edition, concurrent agent seat
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10
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Recurring
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Yes
|
|
Overage Seat License
|
||||
Engage Voice Outbound/Blended Edition, concurrent agent seat on demand
|
1
|
Usage
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Yes
|
|
Add-ons
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||||
ManualDial seats
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10
|
Recurring
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No
|
10 SKUs since it should be equal to the number of Engage Voice Outbound/Blended Edition, concurrent agent seats.
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ManualDial seats on demand
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1
|
Usage
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No
|
Actual usage number calculated at the end of the billing cycle.
|
Call recording storage - 90 days, per seat
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10
|
Recurring
|
No
|
10 SKUs since it should be equal to the number of Engage Voice Outbound/Blended Edition, concurrent agent seats.
|
Call recording storage - 90 days, overage per seat
|
1
|
Usage
|
No
|
1 license needed for usage. Actual usage number calculated at the end of the billing cycle.
|
For a complete list of orderable SKUs, see the Engage product catalog.
Editions
You will select an edition for the named seats you purchase. The customer should purchase only one edition that defines the type of seat. For Engage Voice, the editions designate seats dedicated for a specific voice traffic direction: inbound vs. outbound/blended. The customer may select only one type of edition. For example, the customer can't buy five inbound seats and five blended seats.
License name
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License type
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Description
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Engage Voice named seat (for primary inbound use)
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Recurring
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Core seat license
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Engage Voice named seat (for primary outbound or blended use)
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Recurring
|
Core seat license
|
Note: The ManualDial and phone scrub licenses can only be used together with outbound/blended seats.
Example with no overage
For example, you purchase 10 core seats and the ManualDial seats. You purchase 10 ManualDial seat licenses so that the number of recurring add-on licenses matches the number of core seat recurring licenses. You will also be charged for the usage that you use over the number of recurring licenses.
Suppose that you use eight seats during the month. The system examines the usage of the ManualDial seat. Since the number of seats did not exceed the 10 recurring seats, there is no charge for any overage.
Example with an overage
For example, you purchase 10 core seats and the ManualDial seats add-on. You purchase 10 ManualDial seat licenses so that the number of recurring add-on licenses matches the number of core seat recurring licenses. You will also be charged for the usage that you use over the number of recurring licenses.
Suppose that you use 12 seats during the month. The system examines the ManualDial seat usage and determines an overage of 2 seats over the recurring licenses. You are charged for the overage in arrears.
IVR minutes on demand
Engage Voice provides a fair usage limit for how much you can use your IVR based on the number of agent seats in your call center. The fair usage limit is 2,000 minutes per seat.
The details of the IVR offering are as follows:
- Every agent seat will have 2000 minutes included for free
- The total number of minutes available for an account is a sum of all minutes included for agents
- The minutes are consumed on the account level, not user level
- If IVR minutes go over the limit, we charge an IVR on-demand price per minute for the duration
For example, assume the on demand price per minute is $0.02. If the client uses 5 seats then aggregated usage bundle is 5 * 2,000 = 10,000 minutes. If the same billing cycle’s aggregated IVR duration is 11,000 minutes, the customer will pay an additional amount of 1,000 * $0.02 = $20 for IVR usage.
IVR-only solution
An IVR-only billing model requires approval from RingCentral. In this model, the customer does not purchase any seats but instead pays for an IVR minute cost as well the cost of any metered services such as inbound or outbound calling which are billed at the usual rates.
In an IVR-only solution, certain costs are calculated on a per-call basis. For example, when using the Call Recording Storage package, the customer pays for the number of calls that were recorded. You are charged only once when the recording is stored. The call recording storage price depends on the retention time.
Domestic minute bundles
For situations where you know the expected usage, domestic credit bundles give you a fixed number of prepaid minutes paid as a recurring monthly license. Bundles are available in the range of 25k to 5M minutes per month for toll free, domestic inbound, domestic outbound, or IVR bundles. If you exceed these amounts, you will be billed for an overage as previously discussed.
You can purchase only one credit bundle at any point in time. On a monthly basis, or as needed, customers can analyze the billing usage reports in Scheduled Reports, and call RingCentral support or their sales contact if at any time they need to make a change to the billing scheme.
Example
For example, you initially purchase the Domestic Inbound: 25K Minutes Bundle, which gives you 25k domestic inbound minutes, since that is your current estimated usage in a month. Business grows, and at the end of the month you analyze the Billing reports in Scheduled Reports and determine usage was 45k minutes. You contact support to purchase a larger bundle such as the Domestic Inbound: 50K Minutes Bundle.
International credit bundles
While domestic credit bundles provide a fixed number of prepaid minutes, international credit bundles are based on a discounted dollar figure. International credit bundles can be purchased in addition to any base amount included with the purchased tier. International external calls are charged against calling credits on the account per destination rates or as overage once Calling Credits are exceeded. For information on the currently effective rates that apply to international calls, see International dialing rates from North America.
You can purchase only one credit bundle at any point in time. On a monthly basis, or as needed, customers can analyze the billing usage reports in Scheduled Reports, and call RingCentral support or their sales contact if at any time they need to make a change to the billing scheme.
Example
For example, you purchase the Engage Voice International Calling Credit: $900, which gives you $900 in the bundle for a fixed price of $750, which is a discount of about 16%. You obtain savings through the discount. You similarly analyze the Billing reports in Scheduled Reports to identify the total amount of international calls by destination. You compare your expected usage against the current international dialing rates to determine if changes need to be made. You also note the increased discount rate available at the next bundle size.
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