# About Group Subscriptions

MetraNet's Account Hierarchies feature allows for group subscriptions. A group subscription links any number of accounts to a single product offering. The main purpose of a group subscription is to have a number of accounts qualify for special rates and discounts as a group.

To configure a group subscription, you choose a product offering and then choose the group's participating accounts.

You can also set Custom Rates on a Group Subscription (see About Custom Rates). This allows you to set rates on any number of accounts—even an entire company, if all accounts in the company participate in the same group subscription.

| Note | In MetraCare, you can configure how the system rates a group subscription in either of two ways: Use Shared Counters: All accounts in the group contribute to a single counter for purposes of qualifying for rates. Do Not Use Shared Counters: Each account in the group keeps its own counter for purposes of qualifying for rates.

A counter is how the MetraNet system keeps track of subscriber usage over the course of a billing period (or other specified time period). The counter may track the number of minutes of usage, the number of megabytes in a download, or simply the number of times a service is used. Anything that can be counted can be used by a product offering's counter (See the illustration below for three examples of product offerings with counters).

## Shared vs. Non-Shared Counters

| Important | Pay close attention to whether a group subscription needs shared counter rating or not. Your Product Administrator designs product offerings with either shared counters or non-shared counters in mind. Choosing the wrong rating method could lead to serious errors on subscriber bills.

If a group subscription uses shared counters, then all of the accounts participating in the group subscription contribute to the product offering's counter(s). If a counter is the number of minutes, then all the accounts in the group subscription will share the pool of minutes collectively.

For example, say a group's number of free minutes is 2000 and there are three participants: Alan uses 500 minutes, Sam uses 1000 minutes, and Alex uses 400 minutes. When Alex makes another call, he will only have 100 minutes before he will be charged the rate for additional minutes. After this, any calls made by any of the three will be charged for the additional minutes.

If a group subscription does not use shared counters, then each account participating in the group subscription has its own counter, and does not contribute to any group amount. If a counter is the number of minutes, then each account will have its own pool of minutes not shared by the group.

For example, say there is a group subscription not using shared counters that has 500 free minutes. Alan uses 500 minutes, Sam uses 1000 minutes, and Alex uses 400 minutes. If Alan makes any more calls he will be charged the additional minute rate. Sam has already gone over this amount by 500, and Alex has 100 free minutes left.

Note that not all product offerings use counters. For instance, a product offering containing a simple %50 discount does not have a counter. Therefore, a group subscription to this product offering would not need to specify shared counter vs. non-shared counter rating because no counters are present.

## Example of a Product Offering With Counters