Billing Clients for their Usage
WHMCS allows you to bill clients according to the resources they consume (for example disk space, bandwidth, number of domains, or email addresses).
We added this feature for cPanel and DirectAdmin in WHMCS 7.9 and for Plesk in WHMCS 8.5. For more information, see Usage Billing.
Configuration
To configure usage billing:
1. Navigate to Configuration > System Settings > Products/Services (Setup > Products/Services > Products/Services in WHMCS 7.10 and earlier).
2. Choose Create a New Product or click Edit for an existing product. If you are creating a new product, specify the product type, group, and product name, and other information.
3. Click the Module Settings tab.
4. Choose the module to use with this product. In this example we will use cPanel.
5. Configure any module-specific information. For example, for the cPanel module, select the WHM Package Name to use with this product.
cPanel will typically prevent access to a website if it reaches the bandwidth limit on the assigned package. We suggest configuring the package limits in WHM higher, to allow the consumption of more resources.
6. If the module supports Usage Billing, a Metric Billing section will appear:
7. Toggle the desired metric (for example, Bandwidth) to On:
8. Click Configure Pricing to set the pricing for the Bandwidth that the client consumes. The Configure Pricing box will appear.
9. Configure the price that the client should be charged for the bandwidth they consume.
The available pricing options are flexible to suit your needs. Below are three common examples:
A. The client will be charged $1.00 for every GB of bandwidth consumed each month.
Per Unit is selected as there is only one unit price: $1.00 per GB:
B. The client wil be charged $1.00 for every GB of bandwidth they consume up to 10GB, and then $0.50 for every GB they consume above that (a bulk discount).
The Total Volume scheme is selected. This displays the Add Range button to create an additional range to specify the price for 10GB and above:
C. The client will be charged $1.00 for every GB of bandwidth they consume over 10 GB. This is because of the Quantity Included value.
The Per Unit scheme is selected as there is only one unit price: $1.00 per GB:
10. Click Save. The modal will close and you can finish the rest of the product configuration.
11. Click Save Changes.
Invoicing
When a client orders the product above, WHMCS will track the bandwidth usage of the client.
At the end of each calendar month:
- The system will record the total consumed bandwidth.
- It will calculate the cost using the current pricing schema.
- It will add it to the service's next renewal invoice as an individual line item.
The system will generate the service's next renewal invoice according to the Next Due Date setting.