Bundle Modes

Property	Soft	Super
definition	Consumer pays each merchant separately	Consumer pays one merchant in the bundle
discounting	Non-contingent. Each merchant grants their own discount	Contingent. All discounts tied together
technical requirements	remittance API, Bundle data API	Entitlement API, remittance API, Bundle data API
consumer flow	Consumer receives acitvation links for each app in the bundle and subscribes separtely	Consumer subscribes once through bundle publisher and gains access to all merchants
entitlement integration	Subscription activation notices	Full consumer lifecyle notices
escrow flow	Commissions paid to bundle publsher	Commissions paid to bundle publisher and revenues paid to merchants

Super bundles

Super bundles are a tighly coupled packaging of subscription apps, that bring additional value propositions for app businesses beyond soft bundles.

What is a super bundle

A super bundle is where a customer is offered a bundle of subscription apps for a single price and payment. The customer makes one payment for the entire bundle through the reseller app and is provided access to all apps in the bundle. The subscription offer here is contingent meaning; should the user unsubscribe from the bundle they will lose priviledged access to all apps in the bundle and must subscribe to each app individually to maintain access.

Lifecycle sequence

• Merchant apps in the bundle define special deal pricing only available to the resller
• The reseller merchandises this special pricing as part of a subscription bundle in their app. The customer will make one subscription payment to the reseller application.
• When the customer subscribes to the bundle, the reseller will report this subscription event to the Falcon protocol.
• The Falcon protocol will instruct each merchant app in the bundle to provision access via an entitlement to the customer. The merchant app will continue to validate entitlements with the Falcon protocol to maintain the correct state.

Contingent Benefits

In a contingent offer the discount incentives a consumer receives are contingent on them maintaining their subscription to the bundle. This is a powerful inducement to keep a user subscribed and a key reason super bundling drives long term retention.

Contingent coupons

It is possible to create a contingent incentive without the need for a super bundle integration.

In the contingent coupon scenario, the consumer is offered a discount on all apps in the bundle if they subscribe to all apps in the bundle. This is administered via special coupon codes. All merchants in the bundle must still integrate with the Falcon Protocol to manage the contingent benefits via the coupons. But for payments each merchant will handle their own payment processing directly with the consumer.

Entitlement Management

In a super bundle both the bundle publisher and merchant must integrate with the Falcon Protocol Entitlement API. This is to ensure that the consumer lifecycle is maintained with state across all members of the bundle.

Soft bundles

Soft bundles are a light coupling intergration whereby bundle participants can gain from the distribution and converion benefits without needing to create dependencies on payments and entitlement management.

What is a soft bundle

A soft bundle is where a customer is offered a bundle deal of two or more applications but payment for these applications is handled by each bundle participant independently. Typically the merchant apps in the bundle (those being sold by the reseller) will offer the user a discount or deal on a subscription in their own app which is exclusive to the bundle reseller.

Lifecycle sequence

• Merchant apps in the bundle define special deal pricing only available to the resller
• The reseller merchandises this special pricing as part of a subscription bundle in their app. The customer will only receive this special pricing after subscribing to the resllers apps.
• Upon subscription the customer is granted deal access to the merchant app and is directed to authenticate with the merchant app and receive their discounted plan.

Entitlement Management

In a soft bundle the consumer purchases their subscription directly from each merchant present in the bundle. The deal pricing is granted typically by way of coupons. As such there is no need to integrate with the Entitlement API for managing user access state. There is still the requirement however of sending the Falcon Protocol a callback upon user activation and subscription to register the activation of the user as a customer.

Lack of Contingent Benefit

Contingent benefits are one of the primary inducements to keep a user subscribed. This is the retentive power of super bundles. In soft bundles however there is no contingent inducement/benefit.