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.changeSeatsAPI 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 paymentsANNUAL_YEARLY_PAY: Annual commitment with one yearly paymentFLEXIBLE: Non-commitment plan with monthly paymentsTRIAL: 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.