GLOSSARY TABLE | Alphaus Inc Help Center

Term	Definition
1 + 3 Years	Plan consists of a blend of 1 Year Guaranteed Commitments and native 3 year commitments with partial upfront spend.
Breakeven	The number of days until discount savings from a selected commitment plan start to take effect and the plan becomes cost-effective compared to on-demand pricing in WavePRO.
Cloud Billing Management	The practice of organizing, tracking, and optimizing all cloud costs and invoices across accounts and services, enabling users to understand, control, and reduce their cloud spend.
Cloud Resellers	A partner that purchases cloud services from AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud and resells them to end customers. Cloud resellers typically use Ripple for billing and invoicing, and offer WavePRO to their clients for cost visibility.
Commitment Cost	The total cost incurred to purchase and maintain cloud commitments for a payer (for example, amortized RI/Savings Plan charges and any related buyback/refund losses) over a given period, before applying premiums or margins to calculate revenue and profit.
Commitment Coverage Rate	The percentage of a user's eligible cloud usage covered by active commitments. A low coverage rate indicates a clear opportunity to expand commitment adoption and improve savings.
Commitment Inventory	The WavePro tracking strategy document that defines how to log and analyze user behavior around the inventory of cloud commitments (what exists, how it is used, and how it changes over time) in the Commitment features.
Commitment Management	The continuous process of monitoring, analyzing, and optimizing how cloud discount commitments are structured and utilized. Effective commitment management enables users to make informed purchasing decisions and maintain the appropriate level of cost protection over time.
Commitment Planner	A WavePRO feature that enables users to analyze current cloud usage and active commitments, simulate various purchase scenarios, and determine which commitment plans to purchase or adjust in order to optimize savings and protection status.
Commitment Utilization	A measure of how efficiently purchased commitments — both native and guaranteed — are being consumed. Commitment utilization is a key metric tracked in cost management and optimization workflows to identify underused capacity and improve ROI.
Cost Aggregation	The process of consolidating raw cloud usage and commitment data — across services, accounts, and plans — into summarized metrics that are presented in a cohesive, unified view for analysis and reporting.
Discount Rate	The percentage discount applied to on-demand pricing via RI/SP commitments.
Enterprise Discount Program (EDP)	A top level percentage discount sometimes offered by cloud service providers to larger organizations in exchange for cost commitments.
Flexible Plan	A Guaranteed Cloud Commitment with a 30-day lock-in period, providing discounts equivalent to standard 1-year native RI/SP rates. After the initial 30-day lock-in period, the money-back guarantee activates and the commitment renews on a monthly basis, allowing the customer to cancel at any subsequent month.
Guaranteed Cloud Commitments	Flexible cloud commitments backed by a money-back guarantee, available with minimum commitment periods of 30 days or 1 year — significantly shorter than standard native cloud commitment terms.
Guaranteed Commitment Manager	The Ripple UI module that lets MSP admins and sales manage payers’ commitment-related business: tracking payer lists, viewing payer details, and controlling whether the Commitment service is enabled or disabled for each payer.
Guaranteed Reserved Instances (GRI)	A Reserved Instance purchased on the customer’s behalf and bundled with a money‑back guarantee.
Guaranteed Savings Plans (GSP)	A Guaranteed Commitment that uses Savings Plans as its underlying instrument and is bundled with a money‑back guarantee.
High Discount	A Guaranteed Cloud Commitment with a 1-year minimum commitment period, delivering discounts equivalent to 3-year native commitment pricing.
Managed Service Providers (MSPs)	The primary user persona for Ripple. MSPs use Ripple to consolidate usage data across multiple end customers and generate itemized invoices per billing group, streamlining cloud billing operations at scale.
Minimum Lock-In Period	The usage periods of 30 days and 1 year available in the Guaranteed Commitments Plan, which cannot be cancelled or refunded.
Minimum Term	The minimum period that users (MSPs and end-customers) must maintain when utilizing Guaranteed Commitments
Money-back Guarantee	The promise that allows end-users to receive refund or buyback of unused or underutilized commitments under predefined conditions, reducing the customer’s financial risk when adopting Guaranteed Commitments.
Monthly Cost	The total cloud-related costs for a payer in a given month (for example, commitment purchase) before revenue or premiums are applied.
Native Commitments	Native commitments are cloud providers–issued discount contracts, such as AWS Savings Plans and Reserved Instances.
On-Demand Price	The standard pay-as-you-go rate charged by a cloud provider for a given resource when no discount commitments — such as Savings Plans or Reserved Instances — are applied. On-demand pricing serves as the baseline for calculating savings from commitments.
Rebate	If usage falls below the committed amount, the customer is eligible to receive a refund for the negative portion of their cost savings.
Ripple	The MSP/Partner management console and central platform for cloud billing management, including full Archera integration. Ripple serves as Alphaus' invoicing solution for cloud resellers and MSPs, handling billing operations across AWS, Azure, and GCP, and comes with end-user portal WavePRO.
Risk Premium	The added fee to guaranteed commitments that an MSP charges to end-users to cover the financial risk of managing commitments while still offering lower prices than standard on-demand rates.
Savings	The net cost reduction achieved by applying commitments to eligible cloud usage. Calculated as: On-Demand Cost × Coverage Rate − Commitment Cost = Savings
Service Management	A Guaranteed Commitment Manager page for centrally viewing and controlling which Payers have commitment services enabled or disabled.
Term Length	This is the time period associated with a cloud commitment.
Total Cost	The sum of all costs incurred to provide commitment related services for a payer over a given period (ex., guaranteed commitment purchase costs, buyback/refund, and any associated operational expenses) before subtracting revenues to calculate profit.
Total Discount	The total reduction a payer receives over a given period compared with on-demand pricing, including all commitment related discounts (e.g., RIs/Savings Plans) and any additional service discounts configured in Ripple.
Total Monthly Cost	The combined amount an end user pays each month for a commitment plan, calculated as the sum of the base monthly cost and the applied risk premium, representing the customer’s total monthly payment obligation under the plan.
Total Monthly Savings	The aggregate savings achieved across all active commitments within a given calendar month, representing the total financial benefit of commitment coverage during that period.
Upfront Cost	This refers to a one-time payment made at the start of a Guaranteed Commitment plan — the amount the user must pay before utilizing the discount service based on that commitment. The monthly amortized portion of this cost is treated as eligible for refund.
WavePRO	The end-customer–facing cost visualization console, delivered as a companion to Ripple. WavePRO provides end users with visibility into their cloud spend, commitment status, and savings performance in a unified dashboard.