WEB SERVICE PRICING

Kartavya

Web Service Pricing

24-01-03

For consideration – and incorporation if/when necessary:

① In my earlier note, we have talked about a lot of “statistical counters”,

one of which will display:

"How much money left to your credit"

Ideally, we would have liked to display:

"How many transactions left to your credit"

But this is not possible because:

• “Extract” transaction costs Rs. 10

• “Search” may cost Rs. 15

• “Compare Suit” Rs. 5

• “OES” Rs. 1000 (more reasonable)

This is only possible if the subscriber pays separate amounts for each type of transaction,

but this would be very customer “unfriendly”!

Bulk-transaction (Volume) Discounts

Although we may not want (why?) to treat different clients differently when it comes to

“Per Transaction Tariff”,

we should seriously consider following options:

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a) Slab-System

Cumulative Transactions	Rate/Tariff per trans.
0 – 100,000	Rs. 10
100,001 – 500,000	Rs. 8
500,001 – 1,000,000	Rs. 6
> 1 million	Rs. 5

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But once again, problem arises:

→ “Which” of the 3/4 different types of transactions?

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This could be answered as follows:

Extract         | Search          | Compare

---------------------------------------------------------

Cumm. No | Tariff | Cumm. No | Tariff | Cumm. No | Tariff

0–100,000       Rs. 10   0–1000        10       0–5000        10  

100001–500,000  8        1001–5000     8        5001–10000     8  

500001–1,000,000 6       5001–10,000   6        10001–20,000   6  

>1 million      5        >10,000       5        >20,000        5  

The slab-system has the built-in reward system for “high volume / high value” clients

which would automatically cover Placement Agencies / Software Companies.

❸ Bundling System

Here, the idea is to "bundle" the transactions so as to make it attractive for a subscriber to purchase a bouquet.

e.g.:

▶ If a subscriber subscribes only for “Extraction”

→ Rs. 10 / transaction

▶ But, if a subscriber subscribes to “Extraction + Search”

→ Rs. 8 / transaction etc. etc.

Q:

What if a subscriber "cheats" by taking subscription of "Extraction + Search" at Rs. 8/- and then uses only "Extraction" (which, say, is higher priced)?

So, the tariff structure should be as follows:

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If taken separately (at different points of time):

▶ Only "Extraction" → Rs. 10 (BASE / MANDATORY)

▶ Only "Search" → Rs. 10 (Add. Service)

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But if taken together as a "bundle", then:

▶ Extraction → Rs. 10 (BASE / MANDATORY)

▶ "Search" → Rs. 8 (Add. service)

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It is quite possible that a company's main problem is:

"How to convert an unstructured email resume into structured database."

And therefore, he is very keen to subscribe to the RESUMINE (Extractor) service.

But, once he has got a structured database of resumes, he may choose to...

…use some other STANDARD / OFF-THE-SHELF / FREE software/search engine and NOT bother to subscribe to any

"SEARCH" webservice!

This is a situation where “bundling” (offering additional service at discounted price) may appeal to him – especially since our SEARCH engine has several features / functionalities which STANDARD / OFF-THE-SHELF softwares may not have.

Subscriber also has the assurance that the TWO SERVICES are well integrated & will work together seamlessly — without hiccups.

So, rather than doing R&D to integrate resume database extracted using RESUMINE, with some other search engine, he may prefer to go in for “bundling” — especially if the discounted tariff for the additional (add-on) webservice is quite attractive / competitive.