| copyright | lastupdated | keywords | subcollection | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2020-11-13 |
billing, data centers, MAU, monthly active users, service plans |
assistant |
{:shortdesc: .shortdesc} {:new_window: target="_blank"} {:external: target="_blank" .external} {:deprecated: .deprecated} {:important: .important} {:note: .note} {:tip: .tip} {:pre: .pre} {:codeblock: .codeblock} {:screen: .screen} {:javascript: .ph data-hd-programlang='javascript'} {:java: .ph data-hd-programlang='java'} {:python: .ph data-hd-programlang='python'} {:swift: .ph data-hd-programlang='swift'}
{: #services-information}
Billing for the use of {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}} is managed through your {{site.data.keyword.cloud}} account. {: shortdesc}
The metrics that are used for billing purposes differ based on your plan type. You can be billed based on the number of API calls made to a service instance or on the number of active users who interact with the instance.
For answers to common questions about subscriptions, see How you're charged{: external}.
{: #services-information-plan-details}
Explore the {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}} service plan options{: external}.
Find out more about what is included with the plans.
{: #services-information-limits}
Information about the artifact limits per plan is available from the topics that describe how to create the artifacts, so you can refer to the limits when you need to know them. Here are links to the topics:
- Assistants
- Counterexamples
- Dialog nodes
- Entities
- Inactivity timeout
- Intents
- Integrations
- Logs
- Skills
- Versions
- Web chat integration
{: #services-information-premium}
The following features are available only to users of Premium plans.
- Activity tracker
- v2 Logs API{: external}
The following features are available only to users of Plus or Premium plans. 
- Autolearning
- Intent conflict resolution
- Intent recommendations and intent user example recommendations
- Intercom integration
- Phone integration
- Private endpoints
- Search skill
- SMS with Twilio integration
- WhatsApp with Twilio integration
The plan type of the service instance you are currently using is displayed in the page header. You can upgrade from one plan type to another. For more information, see Upgrading.
{: #services-information-user-based-plans}
Unlike API-based plans, which measure usage by the number of API calls made during a month, the Plus and Premium plans measure usage by the number of monthly active users.
For example, you can pay $120 for the Plus plan, which covers from 0 to 1,000 monthly active users per service instance per billing period. A Plus plan service instance supports up to 100 assistants. For more details about what is supported by this plan and other plans, see the artifact limits information.
A monthly active user (MAU) is any unique user who has at least one meaningful interaction with your assistant or custom application over the calendar billing month. A meaningful interaction is an exchange in which a user sends a request to your service and your service responds. Welcome messages that are displayed at the start of a conversation are not charged.
A unique user is recognized by the user ID that is associated with the person that interacts with your assistant. It is your responsibility to pass the user ID information to the service. {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}} checks for the following information from API requests in this order for billing purposes:
- user_id: A property defined in the API that is sent in the context object of a /message API call. Using this property is the best way to ensure that you accurately attribute /message API calls to unique users. For more information about the user ID property, see the API reference documentation:
- `context.global.system.user_id`: [v2 API](https://cloud.ibm.com/apidocs/assistant/assistant-v2#message)
- `context.metadata.user_id`: [v1 API](https://cloud.ibm.com/apidocs/assistant/assistant-v1#message)
-
session_id (v2 only): A property defined in the v2 API that identifies a single conversation between a user and the assistant. A session ID is provided in /message API calls that are generated by the built-in integrations. The session ends when a user closes the chat window or after the inactivity time limit is reached.
If you use the stateless v2 message API, you must specify the session_id with each message in an ongoing conversation (in
context.global.session_id). {: note} -
conversation_id (v1 only): A property defined in the v1 API that is stored in the context object of a /message API call. This property can be used to identify multiple /message API calls that are associated with a single conversational exchange with one user. However, the same ID is only used if you explicitly retain the ID and pass it back with each request that is made as part of the same conversation. Otherwise, a new ID is generated for each new /message API call.
For example, if the same person chats with your assistant on three separate occasions over the same billing period, how you represent that user in the API call impacts how the interactions are billed. If you identify the user interaction with a user_id, it counts as one use. If you identify the user interaction with a session_id, then it counts as three uses (because there is a separate session that is created for each interaction).
Design any custom applications to capture a unique user_id or session_id and pass the information to {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}}. Choose a non-human-identifiable ID that doesn't change throughout the customer lifecycle. For example, don't use a person's email address as the user ID. In fact, the user_id syntax must meet the requirements for header fields as defined in RFC 7230.
The built-in integrations derive the user ID in the following ways:
- For Facebook integrations, the
user_idproperty is set to the sender ID that Facebook provides in its payload. - For Slack integrations, the
user_idproperty is a concatenation of the team ID, such asT09LVDR7Y, and the member ID of the user, such hasW4F8K9JNF. For example:T09LVDR7YW4F8K9JNF. - For web chat, you can set the value of the
user_idproperty. For more information, see Adding user identity information.
Billing is managed per monthly active user per service instance. If a single user interacts with assistants that are hosted by different service instances that belong to the same plan, each interaction is treated as a separate use. You are billed for the user's interaction with each service instance separately.
{: #services-information-billing-testing}
When testing your skills and assistants, any messages that you submit in the "Try it out" pane are not charged. However, test messages that you send from the preview link integration are charged. For the preview link, a random user_id is generated and stored in a cookie. The multiple interactions that a single tester has with the assistant embedded in the preview link are recognized as coming from a single user and are charged accordingly. If you are doing your own test, running a scripted regression test for example, use a single user_id for all of the calls within your regression test. Other uses are flagged as abuse.
{: #services-information-billing-anonymous}
If your custom application or assistant interacts with users who are anonymous, you can generate a randomized universally unique ID to represent each anonymous user. For more information about UUIDs, see RFC 4122{: external}.
- For web chat, if you do not pass an identifier for the user when the session begins, the web chat creates one for you. It creates a first-party cookie with a generated anonymous ID. The cookie remains active for 45 days. If the same user returns to your site later in the month and chats with your assistant again, the web chat integration recognizes the user. And you are charged only once when the same anonymous user interacts with your assistant multiple times in a single month.
If an anonymous user logs in and later is identified as being the same person who submitted a request with a known ID, you are charged twice. Each message with a unique user ID is charged as an independent active user. To avoid this situation, you can prompt users to log in before you initiate a chat or you can use the anonymous user ID to represent the user consistently.
{: #services-information-regions}
{{site.data.keyword.cloud_notm}} has a network of global data centers that provide performance benefits to its cloud services. See {{site.data.keyword.cloud_notm}} global data centers{: external} for more details.
You can create {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}} service instances that are hosted in the following data center locations:
| Location | Location code | API location |
|---|---|---|
| Dallas | us-south | N/A |
| Frankfurt | eu-de | fra |
| Seoul | kr-seo | seo |
| Sydney | au-syd | syd |
| Tokyo | jp-tok | tok |
| London | eu-gb | lon |
| Washington DC | us-east | wdc |
| {: caption="Data center locations" caption-side="top"} |
For an additional cost, you can request that service instances in a Premium plan account be hosted by different data centers. {: note}