***

title: Glossary: Platform Concepts
subtitle: Core Prolifi platform terminology
slug: glossary/platform-concepts
---------------------

For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL. For a complete documentation index, see https://docs.prolifi.io/glossary/llms.txt. For full documentation content, see https://docs.prolifi.io/glossary/llms-full.txt.

This page covers the foundational platform objects and concepts used throughout Prolifi. For other glossary categories, see: [Billing Terms](/glossary/billing-terms), [Pricing & Subscription Terms](/glossary/pricing-subscription-terms), [Payments & Integration Terms](/glossary/payments-integration-terms), and [Reporting & Global Terms](/glossary/reporting-global-terms).

***

### Add-on

**Plain-language definition:** An optional extra that a customer can purchase on top of their base plan. Add-ons are sold separately from the core subscription and represent incremental value — for example, additional storage, a premium feature set, or a higher usage limit.

**Technical definition:** A product entity that is linked to a parent subscription but billed independently or as a line item within the parent subscription's invoice. Add-ons may carry their own pricing plan, billing model, and entitlement definition.

**See also:** [Plan](#plan), [Entitlement](#entitlement), [Product Catalog](#product-catalog)

***

### Billable Object

**Plain-language definition:** Any entity in Prolifi that generates a financial obligation — most commonly a subscription or a one-off order. Understanding what makes something billable is important for developers integrating payment collection flows.

**Technical definition:** A Prolifi resource that can produce an invoice. Currently the primary billable objects are: Subscription (recurring), Order (one-off), and Usage Record (for usage-based billing). The billable object is the upstream entity that invoice generation references.

**See also:** [Subscription](#subscription), [Invoice](/glossary/billing-terms#invoice), \[Order]

***

### Billing Anchor Date

**Plain-language definition:** The date on which a customer's billing period is fixed. When a customer subscribes on the 15th of a month, the billing anchor date determines whether they are billed on the 15th of each subsequent month (aligned to subscription start) or on a standardised date for all customers (e.g., the 1st of each month).

**Technical definition:** A configurable property on a subscription that determines the recurring invoice generation date. Anchor dates affect proration calculations for mid-cycle changes and are used alongside billing period length to generate invoice schedules.

**See also:** [Billing Cycle](#billing-cycle), [Proration](/glossary/billing-terms#proration), [Recurring Billing](/glossary/billing-terms#recurring-billing)

***

### Billing Cycle

**Plain-language definition:** The repeating period at the end of which a customer is charged. A monthly billing cycle means a charge is generated every month; an annual billing cycle means once per year. The billing cycle is set per plan and can differ across plans even on the same product.

**Technical definition:** The configured interval between invoice generation events for a recurring subscription. Billing cycle length (e.g., monthly, quarterly, annually) combined with the billing anchor date determines the exact dates on which invoices are generated. Billing cycle events include: usage aggregation (if applicable), invoice draft creation, finalisation, and payment collection trigger.

**See also:** [Billing Anchor Date](#billing-anchor-date), [Recurring Billing](/glossary/billing-terms#recurring-billing), [Invoice](/glossary/billing-terms#invoice)

***

### Customer

**Plain-language definition:** A person or business that has a commercial relationship with you that is managed through Prolifi. A customer record holds identity information, billing address, preferred currency, and all associated subscriptions, invoices, and payment methods.

**Technical definition:** A first-class entity in the Prolifi data model. The `Customer` object carries: identity fields (name, email, external identifier for sync), billing address, locale and currency preference, and relationships to payment methods, subscriptions, and invoices. Customers are identified within integrations by an `external_id` field that maps to the corresponding record in your application.

**See also:** [Subscription](#subscription), [Payment Method](/glossary/payments-integration-terms#payment-method), [Operating Entity](#operating-entity)

***

### Entitlement

**Plain-language definition:** What a customer is allowed to access or consume as a result of the plan they are on. Entitlements control feature access — for example, a customer on the Professional plan may be entitled to 10 user seats, 100 GB of storage, and access to the analytics module. Entitlements are distinct from billing: billing determines what is charged; entitlements determine what is unlocked.

**Technical definition:** An entitlement is a structured record attached to a subscription that defines the type, quantity, and behaviour of a customer's access right. Entitlements are provisioned automatically when a subscription is created or upgraded. They carry a state (active, exhausted, expired) and a consumption record (for variable and usage-based entitlements). The entitlement state is queryable via the API and is the mechanism through which your application enforces paywalls and feature gating.

<Tip>
  For more on how to use entitlements in your integration, see [Entitlement Management](/billing-pricing/entitlement-management).
</Tip>

**See also:** [Variable Entitlement](/glossary/pricing-subscription-terms#variable-entitlement), [Expirable Entitlement](/glossary/pricing-subscription-terms#expirable-entitlement), [Carry-Over Entitlement](/glossary/pricing-subscription-terms#carry-over-entitlement), [Auto-Extension Entitlement](/glossary/pricing-subscription-terms#auto-extension-entitlement), [Entitlement Enforcement](#entitlement-enforcement)

***

### Entitlement Enforcement

**Plain-language definition:** The process by which your application checks whether a customer is allowed to do something before permitting it — for example, checking that a customer still has API calls remaining before allowing another request. Prolifi provides the entitlement state via API; your application enforces the paywall.

**Technical definition:** The practice of querying the Prolifi entitlement API before allowing a customer action that consumes an entitled resource. Prolifi does not automatically block actions at the application layer — it provides the state data necessary for your application to make the enforcement decision. The entitlement check response includes: current balance, limit, consumption rate, and expiry date.

**See also:** [Entitlement](#entitlement), [Variable Entitlement](/glossary/pricing-subscription-terms#variable-entitlement), Paywall

***

### Feature

**Plain-language definition:** A specific capability or function within your product that can be associated with a plan or package. Features are the building blocks of entitlements — you define features (e.g., "Advanced reporting", "API access", "Priority support") and then specify which plan includes which features at what level.

**Technical definition:** A product-level attribute used to structure entitlement definitions. Features are defined at the product catalog level and referenced in entitlement configurations. A feature may be binary (access / no access) or quantified (x units of access per billing period).

**See also:** [Entitlement](#entitlement), [Plan](#plan), [Product Catalog](#product-catalog)

***

### Grandfathering

**Plain-language definition:** The practice of keeping existing customers on their current price or plan terms even when you change the pricing or package for new customers. Grandfathered customers are "protected" from a change — they remain on the old terms until they upgrade, cancel, or you choose to migrate them.

**Technical definition:** A plan lifecycle state in which a pricing plan version is closed to new subscriptions but remains active for existing subscriptions. Grandfathered subscriptions continue to generate invoices at their original pricing. Migrating grandfathered customers to a new plan version requires an explicit subscription update action.

**See also:** [Plan](#plan), [Subscription](#subscription), [Lifecycle](/glossary/pricing-subscription-terms#lifecycle)

***

### Operating Entity

**Plain-language definition:** A legal entity through which you conduct business in a specific country. If your business operates in the UK, Germany, and the United States, you may have three operating entities — one per jurisdiction. Prolifi uses the operating entity context to determine the correct currency, tax regime, invoicing format, and payment gateway for each transaction.

**Technical definition:** An `OperatingEntity` object in the Prolifi data model that represents a legal business unit with a jurisdiction, default currency, tax registration, and associated payment gateway configurations. All invoices, tax calculations, and gateway settlements are scoped to an operating entity. Multi-country deployments require at least one operating entity per country of business operation.

<Tip>
  For guidance on setting up operating entities across jurisdictions, see [Multi-Country Setup](/global-operations/multi-country-setup).
</Tip>

**See also:** [Collection Country](/glossary/reporting-global-terms#collection-country), [Multi-Currency Pricing](/glossary/reporting-global-terms#multi-currency-pricing), [Tax Treatment](/glossary/reporting-global-terms#tax-treatment)

***

### Plan

**Plain-language definition:** A specific version of a product at a particular price and package level. If you sell a product in three tiers — Starter, Professional, and Enterprise — each tier is a plan. Plans define what the customer gets (entitlements) and what they pay (pricing).

**Technical definition:** A plan is a priced, entitled product variant that can be attached to a subscription. A plan carries: a pricing plan (the pricing model and amount), entitlement definitions, billing model, billing frequency, and trial period configuration. Multiple plans can exist under a single product, enabling tier-based packaging without creating separate product objects.

**See also:** [Product Catalog](#product-catalog), [Entitlement](#entitlement), [Pricing Model](/glossary/pricing-subscription-terms), [Subscription](#subscription)

***

### Product

**Plain-language definition:** The thing you are selling. In Prolifi, a product is a defined item in your catalog — it could be a SaaS subscription, a physical device, a service package, or an API access tier. Every plan, entitlement, and subscription in Prolifi is attached to a product.

**Technical definition:** The `Product` entity is the root object in Prolifi's catalog data model. Products carry: name, description, category, status (active, archived, draft), metadata, and relationships to plans and entitlements. Products do not carry pricing directly — pricing is always attached at the plan level.

**See also:** [Plan](#plan), [Product Catalog](#product-catalog), [Entitlement](#entitlement)

***

### Product Catalog

**Plain-language definition:** The complete list of everything you sell through Prolifi — organised by products, plans, add-ons, and the pricing and entitlements associated with each. The product catalog is the foundation of everything else in Prolifi: subscriptions, invoices, and entitlements all reference catalog items.

**Technical definition:** The aggregate of all `Product`, `Plan`, and `Entitlement` objects in your Prolifi account. The product catalog is the upstream dependency for subscription creation, pricing calculations, and entitlement provisioning. Changes to catalog objects (e.g., archiving a plan) affect all downstream subscriptions and invoices that reference those objects.

<Tip>
  For a detailed guide to structuring your catalog, see [Product Catalog & Pricing](/billing-pricing/product-catalog-pricing).
</Tip>

**See also:** [Product](#product), [Plan](#plan), [Entitlement](#entitlement), [Subscription](#subscription)

***

### Subscription

**Plain-language definition:** The ongoing commercial relationship between a customer and a plan. When a customer signs up for your service, they are creating a subscription — a record that ties them to a specific plan, billing model, and pricing, for as long as that subscription remains active.

**Technical definition:** A `Subscription` object links a `Customer` to a `Plan` and governs the recurring billing lifecycle. A subscription has a state machine: trial -> active -> paused -> cancelled -> reactivated. State transitions trigger downstream events including invoice generation, entitlement adjustments, and proration calculations. A subscription carries: start date, billing anchor, current plan, applied discounts, and all associated lifecycle history.

**See also:** [Plan](#plan), [Billing Cycle](#billing-cycle), [Lifecycle](/glossary/pricing-subscription-terms#lifecycle), [Entitlement](#entitlement)

***

### Value Metric

**Plain-language definition:** The unit of measurement that your pricing is based on. For a cloud storage product, the value metric might be gigabytes stored. For an API platform, it might be API calls made. For a per-seat SaaS product, it is the number of user seats. Choosing the right value metric is a strategic decision — it determines how customers perceive price fairness and how revenue scales as customers grow.

**Technical definition:** The dimension along which a pricing plan scales usage or calculates charges. For per-unit, volume, tiered, and usage-based pricing models, the value metric is the billable unit. The value metric is defined at the pricing plan level and is referenced by usage events when recording consumption.

**See also:** [Pricing Model](/glossary/pricing-subscription-terms), [Usage Tracking](/glossary/payments-integration-terms#usage-tracking), [Usage Metric](/glossary/payments-integration-terms#usage-metric)