Amazon DevPay - Limited Beta
Amazon DevPay is a simple-to-use billing and account management service that makes it easy for developers to get paid for applications they build on Amazon Web Services.
Amazon DevPay removes the pain of having to create or manage your own order pipeline or billing system. It allows you to quickly sign up customers, automatically meter their usage of AWS services, have Amazon bill them based on pricing you set, and collect payments. Amazon DevPay provides a simple web interface for pricing your application based on any combination of up-front, recurring and usage-based fees. It is built on top of Amazon Flexible Payments Service (a payments web service for developers), and lets you leverage Amazon's trusted billing infrastructure, making it easy for tens of millions of Amazon customers to pay for your application using their existing Amazon accounts.
Amazon DevPay Functionality
Amazon DevPay allows you to use Amazon's infrastructure to manage customer accounts and billing for applications built on Amazon S3 or Amazon EC2 (other services will be added over time). To use Amazon DevPay, you simply:
- Develop your software application using Amazon S3 or an Amazon EC2 Machine Image (AMI).
- Use the simple Amazon DevPay web interface to register your application or AMI with Amazon DevPay, provide a product description and configure your desired pricing.
- Embed the Amazon DevPay purchase pipeline link into your web site to allow your customers to purchase your product.
- Protect your application from unauthorized use by integrating with Amazon DevPay's authentication mechanism.
- Monitor the money you are earning on the Amazon DevPay Activity page.
Service Highlights
Easy-to-Use Billing and Account Management System
Amazon DevPay lets you easily leverage Amazon's proven billing and account management infrastructure, removing the pain of having to create or manage your own billing and account management systems. The service provides you with a simple web interface to register, describe and price your application. Amazon DevPay provides you with a link that you can place wherever you wish on your application, leading customers into the purchase pipeline that Amazon DevPay manages for you. Amazon DevPay automatically tracks your customers' usage of AWS services, calculates their bills based on the prices you have set, and ensures only paying customers have access to your application. Amazon DevPay then deposits the appropriate funds directly into your dedicated Amazon DevPay account, which is automatically created for you by Amazon Payments.
Flexible Pricing Options for Your Product
Amazon DevPay provides you with the flexibility to choose how you want to price your application. You can charge your customers one-time or recurring monthly fees. In addition, Amazon DevPay meters your customers' Amazon Web Services usage and lets you charge your customers based on that usage. Amazon DevPay also lets you change your pricing at a later time if needed.
Trusted Experience for Your Customers
Amazon DevPay, like Amazon FPS, leverages the Amazon Payments infrastructure and provides developers with an easy way to charge Amazon's tens of millions of customers. Amazon customers can pay using the same login credentials and payment information they already have on file with us. This helps Amazon customers keep their payment information secure and removes the friction you would face if you required customers to enter their payment information before they could make a purchase.
Pricing
- No minimum fees and no setup charges
- 3.0% of the total amount billed
- $0.30 per bill generated
The fees apply to all charges collected from your customers. If you price your application below the AWS price of the underlying AWS services you may be responsible for additional fees.
(Amazon DevPay is sold by Amazon Web Services LLC.)
Resources
- Resource Center
Browse the resource center for code samples, documentation, release notes, and more information to help you build innovative applications. Subscribe to RSS feeds or set up e-mail watches to be alerted of the latest developments for this service.
- Developer Forums
- FAQs
Detailed Description
Register Your Application and Set Its Price
Click the "Sign Up For This Web Service" button above to register your application with Amazon DevPay. During the registration, you describe your application and specify the price your customers will pay for consuming it. Your pricing can contain any or all of the following types of charges:
- One-Time Charges - One-time sign-up fees billed to your customer on the day they sign up for your application.
- Recurring Monthly Charges - Monthly fixed fees for using your application, billed to your subscribed customers at the beginning of each month. Your customers are charged a prorated portion of the monthly fee when they first sign up for your application.
- Metered Amazon Web Services Usage Charges - Charges tied to your customers' metered usage of Amazon Web Services. You can choose to charge your customers for any usage dimension that Amazon Web Services measures (e.g., per GB-Month of storage used, per GB of all data transfer in, etc.), or entirely hide that dimension from your customers by setting the price of that dimension to $0. For example, you could charge your customers $0.50 for each GB of data transferred in using Amazon S3, and $0.40 for each GB-month of storage used in Amazon S3 - even though your actual costs to use Amazon S3 are $0.10 for each GB of data transferred in and $0.15 for each GB-month of storage used. Amazon DevPay charges your customers based on the pricing plan you define and bills you for the cost of the AWS services used at the regular AWS prices. All metered charges are billed to customers on the first of the month following the period in which they were accrued.
Integrate Your Application with Amazon DevPay
Integrating your application with Amazon DevPay is simple.
To integrate your Amazon S3 application with Amazon DevPay, you need to add two parameters to the Amazon S3 API calls you're already making. The two parameters are: "product token" and "user token." A product token is an identifier for your application and is obtained when you're done registering your application with Amazon DevPay. A user token is an identifier for your customer who will be using your application and will be billed by Amazon DevPay for this usage. You obtain the user token via either the ActivateHostedProduct or ActivateDesktopProduct API calls.
To integrate your AMI with Amazon DevPay, you need to associate a "product code" with your AMI. A product code is a handle to your application and is obtained when you're done registering your application with Amazon DevPay. You associate the product code with your AMI by using an Amazon EC2 command line tool or the ModifyImageAttribute API. Your customers can then purchase this AMI through Amazon DevPay and launch your AMI using the same Amazon EC2 APIs that they would use with any other AMI.
Once your application or AMI is integrated with Amazon DevPay, Amazon DevPay makes sure that only customers whose accounts are in good standing with your application are able to use your application. This integration also enables Amazon DevPay to automatically meter your customers' usage and charge them based on the price that you have defined when you registered your product with Amazon DevPay. For more information on integrating with Amazon DevPay, please see the Amazon DevPay Getting Started Guide (part of our Technical Documentation).
Sell Your Application
Once you have registered and integrated your application with Amazon DevPay, you are now ready to start charging for your application. During the registration process, Amazon DevPay provides you with a link to a purchase pipeline for your product. Embed this link in your web site to allow your customers to purchase your product through Amazon. Customers can sign in with their Amazon.com credentials and select a credit card that is stored in their Amazon.com account. After your customers purchase your application, they are directed back to your web site.
Receive Payments
Every month, Amazon Payments bills your customers based on the pricing you set, deducts the Amazon DevPay fee of 3% plus $0.30, and deposits the net amount into your Amazon DevPay account. Amazon DevPay then charges you for the costs of the underlying AWS services (i.e., Amazon S3, Amazon EC2) that your customers have consumed, based on regular AWS prices. You can transfer funds from your Amazon DevPay account out to your own bank account at any time.
Monitor Your Business and Adjust Prices
After you start selling your application via Amazon DevPay you can view your Amazon DevPay Activity page to monitor the money you are earning.
Amazon DevPay also provides you with a web interface to adjust your pricing if necessary. Using this interface you can specify a new price and effective date for that price for your application. Amazon DevPay allows you to customize the e-mails that your customers get informing them of the price change. All usage from the effective date onwards is charged to your customers at the new price that you have set.
Amazon DevPay Pricing
Amazon DevPay charges you 3%+$0.30 per application for all the bills that we collect from your customers. If we are not able to collect from a customer, we do not charge you that fee.
The following simple example illustrates these charges:
- Total Revenue we collect from 100 of your customers: $1,500
- Amazon DevPay fee: 3%* $1,500 + $0.30*100 customers = ($75)
- Your costs of underlying AWS Services (e.g., Amazon S3): ($1,100)
- Net Proceeds: ($1,500 - $75 - $1,100) = $325
The Amazon DevPay fee in the above example is $75. However, if you choose to price your application such that your total revenue minus Amazon DevPay fee is less than what you'll owe AWS for the cost of the underlying AWS services (e.g., Amazon S3 charges), you will also be responsible for fees of 3% + $0.30 on the difference between the total revenue (minus Amazon DevPay fees) you expect to receive and the AWS services costs your application has incurred.
Continuing the example above, this time you price your application so that the total revenue is $1,000 (not $1,500):
- Total Revenue (from 100 customers): $1,000
- Amazon DevPay fee: 3% * $1,000 + $0.30 * 100 = ($60)
- Your costs of underlying AWS services: ($1,100)
- Net Liability: ($1,000 - $60 - $1,100) = ($160)
- Amazon DevPay Fee on Net Liability: 3% * $160 + 0.30 = ($5.10)
In this example, since you have incurred a Net Liability, you are also responsible for the Amazon DevPay fee of 3% + $0.30 on the Net Liability of $160 (which is equal to $5.10) since Amazon DevPay will be charging your account to recover this shortfall.
Intended Usage and Restrictions
