One of the ways Google offers Google product services to users is through
service distribution channels such as the authorized Google Workspace resellers.
When working with the Reseller API, it's important to understand the
conceptual relationships of resellers to customers, payment plans, product SKUs,
and licenses.
Reseller
A reseller buys user licenses from Google and resells these licenses to Google
customers. A reseller can manage customer subscriptions directly, or, if
customizing multiple services, a reseller can work with a service integrator to
manage customers.
Resellers can choose from the following plans:
- annual commitment:
The reseller purchases a fixed amount of licenses
from Google for one year. Customers can create up to the license count, but
resellers are billed for the number of licenses ordered. If customers need
additional licenses, resellers can use the
subscriptions.changeSeats
API call to raise the number of licenses ordered.
- flexible:
Every time a customer creates a new user, Google
charges the reseller for this license. The reseller's contract with Google
describes the price, specifications, and maximum number of licenses.
Along with managing user licenses, the reseller (or its partnered service
integrators) provide customers with a broad range of additional services such as
training, promotions, advertising, pricing, deployment customizations,
troubleshooting, and maintenance.
Licenses
A license lets a user with a Google account access Google Workspace
services. When a customer assigns a license to a user, it becomes an active
license. Only active licenses are counted when calculating a customer's total
number of users.
Customer
A Google customer begins with a Google Workspace account that the
reseller configures. When setting up the customer's account, the reseller
supplies a primary domain name, alternate email, and a physical address. Then,
the reseller also creates a subscription for each product SKU available to the
customer. The customer hosts each individual user account. For more information,
see
Order a new customer account
.
Plans
A plan defines a reseller's billing terms with Google. These plans don't define
the billing relationship between a reseller and their customers. Resellers
define their own billing terms with their customers.
Reseller API
supports the Google Workspace monthly post-pay system, which has several available
payment plans:
ANNUAL_MONTHLY_PAY
: Annual commitment with monthly payments
ANNUAL_YEARLY_PAY
: Annual commitment with one yearly payment
FLEXIBLE
: Non-commitment plan with monthly payments
TRIAL
: Free trial plan
- Trial length is variable up to a maximum of 30 days.
- Daily Gmail sending limit of 500 messages per user.
FREE
: Free plan
only
for Cloud Identity Free Edition subscriptions
For more information on these plans, see
Choose a payment plan for your customers
.
Subscription
A subscription manages the relationship of a Google customer's
payment plan with a product's SKU, user licenses, 30-day free trial status, and
renewal options. A primary role of a reseller is to manage the Google customer's
subscriptions.
In the Reseller API, a subscription is a primary API resource. It
defines the settings for a payment plan, licenses, 30-day free trial, renewal,
and a reseller's purchase order. A customer can have more than one subscription,
one for each product SKU that the reseller assigns to the customer.
Each subscription has a unique identifier, a
subscriptionId
. Because a
subscriptionId
changes when the subscription changes, don't use a
subscriptionId
value as a key for persistent data. This key will break if the
subscription changes.
For more information, see
Manage subscriptions
.
Products and product SKUs
A product is a commercial offering of a specialized set of Google service and
application features. A product can have customized versions of terms, pricing,
and other agreement details. Each of these product versions is identified by a
product SKU. In this version, the Reseller API offers a subscription
for each SKU in the Google Workspace, Google Vault, and Google Drive products.
For more information, see
Products & SKUs
.