Manage customer entitlements for your SaaS product

When customers choose a pricing plan for your software, Google creates an entitlement, which indicates that the customer has bought your product from Cloud Marketplace. This section reviews how to create and manage entitlements for your customers using the Partner Procurement API.

For more details on managing entitlements, visit the reference documentation.

Before you begin

  • Set up access to the Cloud Commerce Partner Procurement API, as described in Integrate your app.

If you've turned on multiple orders of the same product, the Partner Procurement API can send multiple events with the event type ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVE for the same value of ACCOUNT_ID, each with a unique ENTITLEMENT_ID representing a different offer. This means that you must ensure that your app's event handling logic can respond to the ENTITLEMENT_ID instead of the ACCOUNT_ID or the PRODUCT_ID.

You must ensure that your frontend integration can handle the new orders object included in the JWT payload. For more information, see Integrate your app's frontend.

For more information about turning on multiple orders of the same product, see Turn on multiple orders of the same product.

Approve an entitlement

When a customer chooses a pricing plan, Cloud Marketplace creates an entitlement and sends the following Pub/Sub message to your app:

{
  "eventId": "...",
  "eventType": "ENTITLEMENT_CREATION_REQUESTED",
  "providerId": "YOUR_PARTNER_ID",
  "entitlement": {
    "id": "ENTITLEMENT_ID",
    "updateTime": "...",
    "newPendingOfferDuration": "P2Y3M",   // Contract duration for offer-based entitlements
  },
}

where ENTITLEMENT_ID is an ID created by Cloud Marketplace. If the offer has a specified duration, that duration is provided in years and months. If the offer has a specified end date, instead of a duration, the field indicating the duration is empty.

In your system, update the user's account to reflect that they have purchased a plan. Then, to approve the entitlement, make an HTTP POST request to the Partner Procurement API, and send the ENTITLEMENT_ID that you're approving:

POST v1/providers/YOUR_PARTNER_ID/entitlements/ENTITLEMENT_ID:approve

Reject an entitlement

To reject an entitlement, make an HTTP POST request to the Partner Procurement API, and use the reject method in your request:

POST v1/providers/YOUR_PARTNER_ID/entitlements/ENTITLEMENT_ID:reject

To give a reason for rejecting the entitlement in the request body, use the following format:

{
  "reason": "..."
}

Change an entitlement plan

Depending on how you set up your pricing plans, your customers might be able to change their plan. If a customer selects a new pricing plan, you receive a Pub/Sub message, in the following format:

{
  "eventId": "...",
  "eventType": "ENTITLEMENT_PLAN_CHANGE_REQUESTED",
  "providerId": "YOUR_PARTNER_ID",
  "entitlement": {
    "id": "ENTITLEMENT_ID",
    "newPendingPlan": "ultimate",   // New plan
    "updateTime": "...",
    "newPendingOfferDuration": "P2Y3M",   // Contract duration for the new offer, for offer-based entitlements
    "newProduct": "test-product.cloud.goog"
    "newPendingOffer": "projects/1234567/services/test-product.cloud.goog/standardOffers/aaaaaaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaa"
  },
}

If the offer has a specified duration, that duration is provided in years and months. If the offer has a specified end date, instead of a duration, the field indicating the duration is empty.

To approve the plan change, make the following HTTP POST request to the Partner Procurement API:

POST v1/providers/YOUR_PARTNER_ID/entitlements/ENTITLEMENT_ID:approvePlanChange

The request body must have the plan that is being approved:

{
  "pendingPlanName": PLAN_NAME
}

After the change is approved, you receive another Pub/Sub message when the change takes effect. In the message, the eventType field changes to ENTITLEMENT_PLAN_CHANGED. To check the status of a plan, make the following HTTP GET request to the Partner Procurement API.

GET v1/providers/YOUR_PARTNER_ID/entitlements/ENTITLEMENT_ID

The response is similar to the following, with the state field indicating whether the new plan is active, or whether the plan change is still pending:

{
  "name": "providers/YOUR_PARTNER_ID/entitlements/ENTITLEMENT_ID",
  "provider": "YOUR_PARTNER_ID",
  "account": "USER_ACCOUNT_ID",
  "product": "example-server",
  "plan": "pro",
  "state": "ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_PLAN_CHANGE",
  "newPendingPlan": "ultimate",
  ...
}

Cancel an entitlement

If a user decides to cancel their entitlement, you receive a Pub/Sub notification. Similar to changing a plan, the actual cancellation might take effect at the end of the current billing cycle.

The notification is in the following format:

{
  "eventId": "...",
  // If the entitlement is canceled at the end of the month,
  // eventType is ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_CANCELLATION
  "eventType": "ENTITLEMENT_CANCELLED",
  "providerId": "YOUR_PARTNER_ID",
  "entitlement": {
    "id": "ENTITLEMENT_ID",
    "updateTime": "..."
  },
}

Delete an entitlement

If a user makes a direct request to Google support, or if they leave the Google platform, their entitlements are immediately canceled, and their entitlement and accounts are deleted after a 60 day grace period. To protect the user's privacy, you must delete their data from your servers when you're notified.

When the entitlements are canceled and the account is deleted, you receive notifications similar to the following:

{
  "eventId": "...",
  "eventType": "ENTITLEMENT_DELETED",
  "providerId": "YOUR_PARTNER_ID",
  "entitlement": {
    "id": "ENTITLEMENT_ID",
    "updateTime": "...",
  },
}
 
{
  "eventId": "...",
  "eventType": "ACCOUNT_DELETED",
  "providerId": "YOUR_PARTNER_ID",
  "account": {
    "id": "USER_ACCOUNT_ID",
    "updateTime": "...",
  },
}

Entitlement state transitions

The following table shows how an entitlement transitions between states based on different events.

Current State Triggering Event New State Notes
(None) ENTITLEMENT_CREATION_REQUESTED ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVATION_REQUESTED The customer selects a plan.
ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVATION_REQUESTED Provider approves the entitlement ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVE The entitlement becomes active.
ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVATION_REQUESTED Provider rejects the entitlement ENTITLEMENT_CANCELLED The entitlement is not created.
ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVE ENTITLEMENT_PLAN_CHANGE_REQUESTED ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_PLAN_CHANGE_APPROVAL or ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_PLAN_CHANGE The customer requests a plan change.
ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVE ENTITLEMENT_CANCELLING ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_CANCELLATION The customer cancels their plan, effective at the end of the term.
ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVE ENTITLEMENT_CANCELLED ENTITLEMENT_CANCELLED The customer cancels their plan immediately.
ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_PLAN_CHANGE_APPROVAL Provider approves the plan change ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_PLAN_CHANGE or ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVE If the current plan requires the billing cycle to complete, it goes to pending. Otherwise, it becomes active.
ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_PLAN_CHANGE_APPROVAL Provider rejects the plan change ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVE The entitlement reverts to the old plan.
ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_PLAN_CHANGE ENTITLEMENT_PLAN_CHANGED ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVE The billing cycle completes, and the new plan takes effect.
ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_PLAN_CHANGE ENTITLEMENT_OFFER_ENDED followed by ENTITLEMENT_PLAN_CHANGED ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_CANCELLATION The customer accepted a private offer resulting in a plan change, and the transition takes effect.
ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_CANCELLATION ENTITLEMENT_CANCELLED ENTITLEMENT_CANCELLED The billing cycle completes, and the entitlement is fully canceled.
ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_CANCELLATION ENTITLEMENT_CANCELLATION_REVERTED ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVE The pending cancellation was reverted by the customer.

List of event types for account tasks

The following is a list of the eventTypes that your app might receive in Pub/Sub messages:

eventTypeDescription
ACCOUNT_CREATION_REQUESTEDDeprecated
ACCOUNT_ACTIVEIndicates that the customer's account has been created.
ACCOUNT_DELETEDIndicates that the customer's account was deleted from Google Cloud systems.
ENTITLEMENT_CREATION_REQUESTEDIndicates that a customer selected one of your pricing plans.
ENTITLEMENT_OFFER_ACCEPTEDIndicates that an offer was accepted by a customer. Includes the scheduled start time of the offer, if there is one. This event is sent for both private offers and standard offers (public purchases).
ENTITLEMENT_ACTIVEIndicates that a customer's chosen plan is now active.
ENTITLEMENT_PLAN_CHANGE_REQUESTEDIndicates that a customer chose a new plan.
ENTITLEMENT_PLAN_CHANGEDIndicates that a customer's plan change is approved and the changes have taken effect.
ENTITLEMENT_PLAN_CHANGE_CANCELLEDIndicates that a customer's plan change was canceled, either because it wasn't approved, or because they switched back to their old plan.
ENTITLEMENT_PENDING_CANCELLATIONIndicates that a customer canceled their plan, and the cancellation is pending until the end of the billing cycle. This state is also applicable when a customer on an existing plan (public or private offer) accepted a private offer resulting in a plan change. After receiving the events ENTITLEMENT_PLAN_CHANGE_REQUESTED and ENTITLEMENT_OFFER_ENDED, when the event ENTITLEMENT_PLAN_CHANGED is received, the entitlement is in this state.
ENTITLEMENT_CANCELLATION_REVERTEDIndicates that a customer's pending cancellation was reverted. Note that cancellations cannot be reverted after they are final.
ENTITLEMENT_CANCELLEDIndicates that a customer's plan was canceled.
ENTITLEMENT_CANCELLINGIndicates that a customer's plan is in the process of being canceled.
ENTITLEMENT_RENEWEDIndicates that a customer's entitlement was renewed for another term. You don't need to take any action to complete the renewal.
ENTITLEMENT_OFFER_ENDEDIndicates that a customer's private offer has ended. If the customer's entitlement was canceled, a separate ENTITLEMENT_CANCELLED event is triggered. If the customer's entitlement is still active, their plan reverts to non-discounted pricing.
ENTITLEMENT_DELETEDIndicates that information about a customer's plan was deleted from Cloud Marketplace.
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