LiveRamp Token-Based Billing Model
LiveRamp offers a token-based billing model in which your contract includes a pool of tokens that you spend based on the amount of data you bring to the platform and the actions performed against the data. This article describes how LiveRamp's token-based billing works and helps you understand how token spending is calculated on the Usage Reports page.
To view the Usage Reports page, select Administration → Organization → Usage Report from the navigation pane.
Note
This billing model is available in an early limited release. To see if you can move to the token-based billing model, talk to your LiveRamp representative.
Access and Usage
Under the token-based billing model, your LiveRamp usage is calculated based on two main units of measurement: Access and Usage.
Access: The amount of data (expressed as "rows") your organization accessed, ingested, or resolved using LiveRamp. For example, if you connect your data source to LiveRamp Clean Room and 500,000 rows are resolved to RampIDs, 500,000 rows are considered to have been accessed.
Note
For more information on the definitions of records accessed, ingested, and resolved, see the "Metrics Definition" section below.
Usage: The additional actions performed against the data, expressed as "units". For example, if you query against 100,000,000 rows in Clean Room, this would be considered as 100,000,000 units of data usage.
The table below shows the services that can be included in your usage report and the corresponding unit of measurement.
Product Area | Service Type | Unit of Measurement |
|---|---|---|
Activation | Records Ingested | Access |
Records / Segment / Destination | Usage | |
Analytics Environment | Records Ingested NoteCurrently, there is no usage-based billing for Analytics Environment. | Access |
Clean Room | Records Resolved | Access |
Records Queried | Usage | |
Identity Engine | Records Ingested | Access |
Identity Resolution and Translation | Records Accessed | Access |
Measurement Enablement | Records Ingested | Access |
Terms and Definitions
See the definitions below to help you understand how access and usage are calculated:
Record: A single row of data in a file, a single call to an API, or a transaction through a cloud native application, before deduplication.
Records Ingested: Records that a company has ingested into LiveRamp in order to use a LiveRamp service. Records ingested exclude the following:
Records that were previously ingested and resubmitted, but flagged for exclusion (for example, as a result of opt-out or deletion requests).
Records that were previously ingested into a LiveRamp platform and resubmitted to another LiveRamp platform (for example, a records transfer from one platform to another.
Records Accessed: Records that LiveRamp accessed and resolved to RampID in order to use a LiveRamp service.
Records Resolved for Clean Rooms: Records that have been resolved to RampIDs within LiveRamp Clean Room.
Records / Segment / Destination: The amount determined by summing the maximum number of records for every unique destination account a segment is distributed to over the month. See the section below to learn more.
Note
If the same record appears in multiple segments that are combined within LiveRamp to create a single audience file for distribution to a destination, it will only be counted once for that destination.
If the same record is sent to the destination multiple times using separate files, or appears multiple times in an audience file combined outside of LiveRamp, then the record will be counted once for each time it is distributed to the destination.
Records Queried: Records subject to a LiveRamp Clean Room query or question.
Tokens
Tokens are LiveRamp's unified secondary currency used to track your consumption across products. You can purchase a lump sum of tokens, which can lower overall costs, or opt for a pay-as-you-go model suitable for fluctuating usage. As your LiveRamp usage increases, your token balance will decrease.
The conversion rate per token (the volume of usage a single token covers) is contractually agreed upon based on your tier level. You can always request more tokens through contract amendments if needed before the end date of the contract.
If an overage occurs and you continue to use LiveRamp, LiveRamp would calculate the number of tokens that would have been used and apply an overage fee per token. Any unused tokens remaining after your contract end date will not be carried over or refunded.
Note
If your company has multiple child accounts in LiveRamp, tokens are shared between the parent account and its associated child accounts. Child accounts do not have separate allocations.
Tier Levels
Tiers are predefined, contractual commitments that define your token conversion rate and usage volume. LiveRamp offers multiple tier levels to choose from, each with a different token conversion rate. In general, the greater the volume of rows, the higher the tier level, and the better the conversion rate.
Tier Levels Example
The table below illustrates how LiveRamp's tier-level offerings might look.
Tier | Metric | All Platforms (Access) | Activation (Usage) | Clean Room (Usage) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
12 | 1 token = | 1,550,000 | 1,400,000 | 330,000,000 |
11 | 1 token = | 1,150,000 | 1,000,000 | 285,000,000 |
10 | 1 token = | 845,000 | 710,000 | 250,000,000 |
9 | 1 token = | 635,000 | 535,000 | 215,000,000 |
8 | 1 token = | 480,000 | 400,000 | 190,000,000 |
7 | 1 token = | 360,000 | 300,000 | 165,000,000 |
6 | 1 token = | 270,000 | 225,000 | 140,000,000 |
5 | 1 token = | 205,000 | 170,000 | 125,000,000 |
4 | 1 token = | 145,000 | 120,000 | 110,000,000 |
3 | 1 token = | 100,000 | 85,000 | 95,000,000 |
2 | 1 token = | 71,000 | 60,000 | 80,000,000 |
1 | 1 token = | 50,000 | 42,000 | 71,000,000 |
Example Scenarios
Learn how tokens are calculated for the different use cases, based on the example tier levels above.
Note
Token calculations are rounded down to two decimal points. For example, if your company is on tier 11 and has performed ingestion on 2,000,000 rows, the token usage is calculated as: 2,000,000 / 1,150,000 = 1.73 tokens.
The minimum billable amount is 0.01 tokens; any usage below 0.01 is rounded up to 0.01.
Tier Level | Scenario | Access Token Calculation | Usage Token Calculation | Total Tokens Spent (for the month) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
3 | You connect your data in LiveRamp Clean Room where 100,000,100 records are resolved to RampIDs. You then run a query against 1,000,000 of those records in Clean Room. | 100,000,100 / 100,000 = 1,000 (rounded down from 1,000.001) | 1,000,000 / 95,000,000 = 0.01 | 1,000.01 |
8 | You ingested 500,000 records in Identity Engine, and in that same month, you distributed 2,800,000 records to two destinations. | 500,000 / 480,000 = 1.04 | (2,800,000 x 2) / 400,000 = 14 | 15.04 |
12 | You ingested 3,000,000 records to be used for the Analytics Environment. In that same month, you send 1,250,000 records to LiveRamp for Measurement Enablement. | (3,000,000 / 1,550,000) + (1,250,000 / 1,550,000) = 2.73 | 0 | 2.73 |
How Tokens are Calculated for Activation Workflows
For Activation, tokens are billed based on the number of Records / Segments / Distribution units for the given month.
LiveRamp calculates the total units using the following logic:
For each unique destination account a segment is distributed to, LiveRamp determines the maximum number of records within the segment over the month.
For each segment, LiveRamp sums up the maximum number of records per destination account.
LiveRamp sums the results across all segments.
This method of calculation prevents overbilling if the number of records within a segment changes when it is removed from a particular destination.
Example Scenario
See how the calculation works in the scenario below:
Date | Action | Active Destination Accounts |
|---|---|---|
April 1 | 1,000 records uploaded to segment A. | None |
April 5 | Segment A was distributed to destination accounts 1 and 2. |
|
April 10 | Segment A was removed from destination account 1. |
|
April 15 | Segment A was distributed to destination account 3. |
|
April 20 | 9,000 new records uploaded to segment A. |
|
Based on the scenario above, the maximum number of records in segment A distributed to each destination account for the month of April is as follows:
Destination account 1: 1,000
Destination account 2: 10,000
Destination account 3: 10,000
After summing these values, the total comes to 21,000 units. On the Usage Report page, the user can view how many tokens this would cost by clicking on the Records / Segments / Distribution row and navigating to segment A's row.