Setting Up and Enabling Guaranteed Commitments in Ripple

Who This Guide Is For

This guide is for MSP operators and cloud partners using Ripple — Alphaus' cloud billing management platform. If you're responsible for onboarding clients to Guaranteed Commitments or managing their access in WavePro, this is your onboarding reference.

What Ripple Does in the Context of Guaranteed Commitments

Ripple is where MSPs control the Guaranteed Commitment Manager — the feature that enables or disables Guaranteed Commitments access in WavePro for your clients.

The Guaranteed Commitment Manager has two tabs available:

Payer Settings — where you configure and verify each payer account before Guaranteed Commitments can be activated

Service Management — where you toggle Guaranteed Commitments on or off for each billing group

Note that a payer account must reach Verified status in Payer Settings first before any billing group under it can be enabled in Service Management.

Setting Up and Enabling Guaranteed Commitments

If this is your first time accessing the Guaranteed Commitment Manager, you'll see a brief overview of the feature. Click Get Started to proceed — this will take you to the main view, where you'll find two tabs: Payer Settings and Service Management.

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Before You Begin

Make sure the following are already in place in Ripple before proceeding:

The client's payer account is registered in Ripple under Settings > Payer Account Settings
A billing group containing that payer account has been created under Account/Group > Billing Groups

If you haven't done these yet, complete them first before continuing with this guide:

No registered payer accounts yet? → Refer toRipple – Payer Account Registration (AWS CloudFormation)or Ripple – Payer Account Registration if you are setting up a payer account using either AWS CloudFormation or manual setup.

No billing groups yet? → Please refer to Ripple - Create a Billing Groupfor guided steps.

Step 1: Check Payer Status in Payer Settings

Navigate to Commitment > Guaranteed Commitment Manager > Payer Settings.

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This tab lists all payer accounts associated with your organization, along with their current status. Each payer will show one of the following statuses:

Status	What It Means
Needs Ripple Setup	The payer account has not yet been registered in Ripple. The Configure button is not clickable.
Ready to set up	The payer is registered in Ripple and ready for Guaranteed Commitment onboarding.
Setup in progress	The onboarding wizard has been started but has not yet been completed. Click Configure to resume.
Setup error	Something went wrong during onboarding. Click Configure to retry. If the issue persists, contact the Alphaus Support Team.
Verified	Onboarding is complete. Billing groups under this payer can be enabled in Service Management.

If a payer shows "Needs Ripple Setup":

The Configure button will not be clickable. You need to register the payer account in Ripple first:

Go to Settings > Payer Account Settings
Locate the payer account and complete the registration setup (including S3 bucket configuration)
Once registered, return to Commitment > Guaranteed Commitment Manager > Payer Settings — the status will have updated to Ready to set up

Step 2: Configure the Payer Account

Once a payer shows Ready to set up, click Configure to open the onboarding wizard. The wizard walks through the following steps:

Billing Account → Installation → Verify → Cost Explorer → CUR → Complete

Billing Account

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Enter the 12-digit AWS account ID for the payer (management) account — not a linked account. This is the root account that owns consolidated billing for the organization.

You can find this ID in the AWS console (top-right menu) or in AWS Organizations.

💡Why this matters: Guaranteed Commitments and cost analysis are applied at the organization level. Using a linked account ID here will cause setup to fail.

Choose your installation method. Currently, CloudFormation is available. Terraform and IAM Console options are coming soon.

Installation

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Deploy the required IAM role and permissions using a guided CloudFormation stack.

Click "Launch in AWS Console" — you'll be redirected to the CloudFormation stack creation screen inside your AWS environment.
Review the stack parameters. Keep all default values unless specifically instructed to change them.
Scroll to the Capabilities section. Acknowledge the required IAM capabilities, then click Create Stack.
Wait for the stack status to read CREATE_COMPLETE. This typically takes 2–5 minutes.
Return to the Ripple setup page to continue.

⚠️ Common issue: If the stack fails, confirm that the IAM user or role launching the stack has cloudformation:CreateStack, iam:CreateRole, and related permissions. Please note that insufficient permissions are the most frequent cause of stack creation failures.

Verify

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Verify your installation to confirm that the required permissions are set up correctly for your AWS master billing account. Make sure that your CloudFormation stack has finished creating CREATE_COMPLETE before clicking “Verify installation.”

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Enable AWS Cost Explorer

Ripple requires Cost Explorer access to analyze spend and generate commitment recommendations.

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Click “Check Status” to confirm that Cost Explorer is enabled. If it’s not, click “Open AWS Cost Explorer” and follow these steps:

Sign in to the master billing account — not a linked account.
Navigate to Cost Management > Cost Explorer.
If Cost Explorer has never been enabled, you'll see a prompt to activate it. Enable it now.
Return to the Ripple setup page and click "Check Status" to verify that Cost Explorer is accessible.

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💡Note: Cost Explorer data can take up to 24 hours to populate after first activation. If Check Status returns an error immediately after enabling, wait and retry.

Connect the Cost and Usage Report (CUR)

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CUR data powers historical usage analysis and commitment planning accuracy. There are two ways to connect a CUR:

Generate a New CUR — Creates a new CUR starting from the current month.
Use an Existing CUR — Connects an existing CUR for more historical coverage. This option is not yet available but is coming soon.

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Select Generate a New CUR and click Proceed. Then, click the Verify/ Generate CUR to trigger verification. Continue if it’s already “Available.”

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💡Note: AWS may take up to 24 hours to generate and make a new CUR available. After you click Verify/ Generate CUR, you can safely leave this page and come back later to recheck.

Onboarding Complete

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Once the CUR is connected, onboarding is complete. Expect an email with analysis results within 24–48 hours.

The payer account status in Payer Settings will now show Verified.

Step 3: Enable Guaranteed Commitments in Service Management

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Navigate to Commitment > Guaranteed Commitment Manager > Service Management.

This tab lists all billing groups, along with their Company Name, Resource Type, and an Enabled toggle. Billing groups whose payer account has not yet reached Verified status will have their toggle inactive.

To enable Guaranteed Commitments for a billing group:

Locate the billing group in the table
Click its Enabled toggle
A confirmation modal will appear: "Enable Commitment Feature?" — click Enable to proceed

The system will perform checks before proceeding:

Condition	Result
Billing group contains no payer accounts or linked accounts	Error — "No payer accounts or linked accounts were found for this billing group." The toggle will not be enabled.
Billing group has accounts but their corresponding payers are not yet configured	Toggle cannot be enabled. Complete payer onboarding in Payer Settings first.
Resource Type is Tag	Toggle is grayed out — "Tag-based billing groups are not supported yet."
Payer account is Verified for that billing group	Toggle can be enabled.

Once enabled, that billing group's clients will have access to the Commitment Planner and Commitment Inventory in WavePro, where they can review commitment plan recommendations and purchase Guaranteed Commitments.

To Disable Guaranteed Commitments

Navigate to Commitment > Guaranteed Commitment Manager > Service Management and toggle off the billing group. The Guaranteed Commitments feature will no longer be available in the client's WavePro.

Summary: Your Ripple Workflow

Phase	Action	Location
Prerequisites	Register payer account + create billing group	Settings > Payer Account Settings; Account/Group > Billing Groups
Payer onboarding	Configure payer through the onboarding wizard until Verified	Guaranteed Commitment Manager > Payer Settings
Client enablement	Toggle Enabled on the relevant billing group	Guaranteed Commitment Manager > Service Management
Client offboarding	Toggle off the billing group's Enabled switch	Guaranteed Commitment Manager > Service Management

Next Steps

New to WavePro? See the companion guide: Using WavePro to Plan, Purchase, and Track Guaranteed Commitments to understand what your clients experience once onboarding is complete.
Ready to onboard your first client? Start at Settings > Payer Account Settings to confirm your payer accounts are registered, then head to Commitment > Guaranteed Commitment Manager > Payer Settings to begin configuration.
Questions about the setup? Contact our Alphaus Support Team.