Billable users: Billing and rules

To determine an organization's count of billable users in a calendar month, we count the users during that month who had a billable user type of either full platform user or core user. A user's billable user type is defined as the highest user type at which a user was set during a calendar month. We use UTC timezone to define the start and end of a calendar month.

For an example of how this works in practice: If a user is set as a full platform user at any point during a calendar month, their billable user type for that month is "full platform user," and won't change, even if they downgrade later that month. This is the case even if that user is changed to a full platform user only briefly.

If you're planning on adding billable users or changing your users' user type, you should keep these rules in mind. Some tips:

• If you want to add a billable user or upgrade a user, you might choose to do that at the beginning of the month.
• If you want to downgrade a user, you might choose to do that at the end of the month.

The count of your unique users is determined by email address. If there are multiple user records in an organization that have the same email address, for billing purposes those user records would count as a single user, and that user's billable user type would be their highest user type assigned during that month.

For users on our newer user model: users are billable when they're added by admins as billable users. Even if a billable user has never logged in to New Relic and has a Pending invite tag in the UI, they're still billable. (For users on our original user model, Pending invite users are not billable.)

For more on adding and inviting users, see Add users.

The cost of your billable users depends on an organization's pricing edition (Standard, Pro, or Enterprise), or on any custom deal you might have with New Relic.

When a New Relic organization first starts being billed, their billable user count is pro-rated based on when during the month they started. If an organization cancels their subscription, prorating is also applied for their last month.

The rules pertaining to how many times you can downgrade full platform users differ depending on whether your usage plan is pay-as-you-go or a commitment contract.

Pay-as-you-go downgrade rules

For the pay-as-you-go usage plan, there are no rules limiting the downgrading of users. But note that the billing calculation can impact your decisions of when to upgrade or downgrade users.

Commitment contracts downgrade rules

Before upgrading or downgrading a user, you should understand how user billing works.

For organizations with commitment contracts, the rule governing full platform user downgrades and upgrades is this:

If a full platform user is downgraded to a lower user type in a later month and then returned to a full platform user in a later month, and this downgrade/upgrade cycle happens twice in a contract year, that user will be billed as a full platform user for the remainder of the year, regardless of edits to their user type. There are no rules governing user type changes that happen within a month because of how user billing works: a user's billable user type for a calendar month is the highest user type they are set at during that month.

Here are details on the terms used in the context of this rule:

• A downgrade means going from being billed as a full platform user in one calendar month to, in a later calendar month, being billed as a lower user type (core or basic), or deleted.
• An upgrade means going from being billed as a core user, basic user (or a previously deleted user) in one calendar month to, in a later calendar month, being billed as a full platform user.
• A contract year begins on your contract's starting point, or on the anniversary of that point. If your organization started out on a different pricing plan and switched to a commitment contract, the user type downgrade rule will apply from the date you opted in until your contract renewal date or the annual anniversary date of your commitment term, whichever is earlier.

Example of downgrade limits

Let's say a contract year starts in March. And, let's say the user cycles through these account types from month to month:

1. The user is billed as a full platform user in March
2. The user is billed as a basic user in April (downgrade)
3. The user is billed as a full platform user in June (upgrade)
4. The user is billed as a basic user in July (downgrade)

If that user returns in any subsequent month to being a full platform user, they will be billed for the remainder of that contract year as a full platform user, even if they are downgraded again to be a basic user or core user after that.

The following rules apply only for organizations on the original user billing version:

• How billable users are determined. For a calendar month, an organization is billed based on a calculation of the number of billable users for that month.
• Prorating in first and last month. The count of billable users is prorated based on when a New Relic organization starts their subscription, or based on when a user becomes a monthly provisioned user (added as a monthly provisioned user or converted to one).
• Users are billable when provisioned. A user counts as billable the moment they are set to a billable user type in New Relic. This applies regardless of whether that user has ever logged into or used New Relic.
• User count based on email address. If there are multiple user records in an organization that have the same email address, for billing purposes that would count as a single user.
• Caveat for our original user model. If your organization has users on our original user model: If a user is set as a basic user in one account in the organization and as a billable user in another account, the billable user status takes precedence.

The following user downgrade rules apply for organizations on the original user billing version:

User type is meant to be a fairly long-term setting based on a user's expected New Relic duties and responsibilities. For that reason, a monthly provisioned user may only be downgraded a maximum of two times in a 12-month period. If a user's user type has changed more than this allowed number of changes, New Relic can charge that user as a monthly provisioned user.