Since the launch of the ​SOLO Server Automation service in 1998, pricing has been based upon the simple services provided (a per license/activation fee and a percentage fee on integrated shopping cart orders processed). The SoftwareKey System features have now expanded to offer many new ways for you to license your software and maintain control.
For example, our new Cloud-Controlled Network Floating Licensing feature allows you to enforce a maximum concurrent number of users of your software.
To provide a simple way to price our services based upon usage of these features, we are introducing a simple way for us to charge for the increased traffic to our licensing servers so that our services can scale to meet the demand of our growing customer base: API Transaction fees.
Our core functionality of license Activation/Deactivation/Transfer is billed separately and will not cause API Transaction Fees. In SOLO Server, under the menu Reports / Monthly Statement and Account Usage, you can view a summary of your usage, including the total number of API Transactions processed through your SOLO Server account for the other services that go beyond activation.
While the report allows you to display the Total API Transactions count for the date range you selected, accurate reporting for all SOLO Server API endpoints is available starting in 2019. Here is an example of the HTML summary:
We invite you to evaluate the new licensing features recently introduced in the SoftwareKey System to see if they would be valuable to your business. We hope you agree that the API Transaction Fee is simple to understand and is a fair way to charge for these new features.
​Frequently Asked Questions
Will this increase my monthly cost?​
Because each account includes a generous number of API Transactions based upon your selected ​SOLO Server package, customers with typical implementations will not see an additional cost.
When will billing for API Transactions begin?
This ​API Transaction Fee policy ​will be slowly rolled out ​throughout 2019 and will only add ​costs to ​a small set of customers who use SOLO Server Automation in a non-typical way. Affected customers will be contacted before this policy is enforced. We will provide several months' notice to identify possible ways to avoid API transaction fees.​
What happens if I was told that I am going above the number of included API Transactions?
During this feature implementation, we realized that some customers were inadvertently making unnecessarily frequent API requests to our servers. Because your software development team has complete control over the number of API Transactions made to our IT infrastructure, we are happy to work with them to identify if your implementation falls into this category. If it is determined that no changes should be made to the design of your software in order to meet your business goals, an API Transaction overage fee will apply.
​Why do you need to charge for API Transactions when there is already an Activation fee?
All requests made to our servers to process license activation, license deactivation, and license transfer are NOT billable as API Transactions, as these are the core services covered by the Activation fee.
We understand that each of our customers has different needs. Whether you wish to use the new licensing features such as Cloud-Controlled Network Floating Licensing or you wish to maintain additional control with periodic license refreshing and validation with SOLO Server, the API Transaction fee is a simplified approach to billing based upon actual use.
​Is there a detailed breakdown of all possible billable API transactions?​
Essentially all licensing client function calls or web service calls that connects to SOLO Server ​Automation is considered an API transaction. The exceptions to this include any calls to the server related to ​product activation and deactivation and Cloud-Controlled Network Floating Licensing Close Session. Note that product activation of development/test licenses are not charged an activation fee ​but ​would be ​counted as a billable API transaction.
​Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about this new API Transaction Fee Policy.
