Wallets are arguably the most crucial abstraction within Sulu’s billing and payment infrastructure. They are the engine powering real-time pay-as-you-go (PAYG) billing and enabling flexible monetization strategies.

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What are Wallets?

Every Organization in Sulu, whether acting as a Merchant or a Consumer, possesses at least one Wallet.

  • Ownership: Wallets are owned by Organizations.
  • Function: They act as a repository of funds within the Sulu ecosystem.
  • Currency: Each Wallet is denominated in a specific currency (e.g., USD).

Think of a Wallet as a prepaid balance or a virtual account held within Sulu. This balance is the key to enabling immediate, real-time transactions for usage. Crucially, Wallets offer two major advantages:

  1. Universal Payment Medium: A Consumer’s Wallet balance isn’t tied to a single merchant. It can be used to pay for any product or service monetized through the Sulu platform, creating a seamless experience across different vendors.
  2. Payment Abstraction for Merchants: When a Consumer pays via their Wallet, the Merchant receives the funds directly into their Wallet. The Merchant doesn’t need to worry about the Consumer’s original funding source (credit card, bank transfer, etc.), the geography, or the associated compliance complexities. Sulu, leveraging its global banking partnerships, handles the intricacies of the underlying payment methods and ensures real-time settlement between Wallets.

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Enabling Real-Time PAYG

The core superpower of Wallets, powered by the payment abstraction mentioned above, is facilitating true PAYG billing:

  1. Consumer Top-up: Consumers add funds to their Wallet using various methods supported by Sulu (e.g., credit cards, bank transfers).
  2. Merchant Reports Usage: When a Consumer uses a Merchant’s product, the Merchant reports a Usage Event to Sulu.
  3. Real-time Billing & Payment: Sulu instantly calculates the cost based on the Customer’s Subscription (Plan and Price) and the reported usage.
  4. Instant Fund Transfer: The calculated cost is immediately deducted from the Consumer’s Wallet balance and credited to the Merchant’s Wallet balance.

This real-time flow eliminates many problems associated with traditional post-paid billing:

  • Eliminates Unpaid Invoices: Payment happens at the time of usage, not days or weeks later.
  • Reduces Chargeback Risk: Since funds are transferred from a pre-funded balance, chargeback risks associated with credit card payments for past usage are significantly mitigated.
  • Prevents Runaway Usage: Merchants can use the Entitlements API to check if a Consumer has sufficient balance before granting access to a resource, preventing usage beyond the available funds.
  • Customer Cost Control: Consumers have clear visibility into their spending and can’t be charged beyond their Wallet balance, providing cost certainty.

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Other Use Cases

Beyond pure PAYG, Wallets support various billing scenarios:

  • Prepaid Credits: The standard Wallet functions directly as a prepaid credit system.
  • Vouchers & Promotions: Merchants can credit Consumer Wallets directly as part of promotional offers or compensation.
  • Usage Aggregation: While payments are real-time, usage data is still aggregated for invoicing and analytics.
  • Spending Limits: The Wallet balance inherently acts as a hard spending limit for Consumers.

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Payouts for Merchants

As Consumers use a Merchant’s product, funds accumulate in the Merchant’s Wallet.

Merchants can withdraw these accumulated funds via Payouts.

  • Destination: Payouts are sent to an External Bank Account linked to the Merchant Organization.
  • Requirements:
    • The Merchant Organization must be fully verified and approved (due diligence process).
    • An External Bank Account must be added and verified.
  • Initiation: Payouts can be requested via the Sulu Merchant Dashboard.

If you have questions about your account status or adding an External Bank Account, please contact the Sulu team.

Next, let’s explore how you define what you sell using Products.