Cloud billing and related management tools are on the rise according to a recent report. The study from IndustryARC found the cloud billing market will generate $9.34 billion in revenue by 2022. That’s thanks to a growing demand for cloud cost management and transaction management tools for customers and channel partners.
The loftier definition of cloud billing is “the process of generating bills from the resource usage data with the help of predefined data sets and billing policies.”
More plainly, it's a way for partners to monitor all their cloud usage, and consolidate those services to save cash -- perhaps for the MSP itself or for end-customers who need help keeping cloud costs under control. The cloud billing solution provider charges a monthly fee for the ongoing service.
According to the survey, growth within this sector will likely be fueled by a shift from a product-centric approach to a customer-centric approach. Additionally, cloud usage, in general, is expected to climb along with increased mobile adoption.
Many solutions are blending cloud infrastructure management, cost management and perhaps even billing management. Some example companies in the market include CloudMGR, CloudCheckr and CloudAbility. CloudAbility actually acquired CloudMGR in March 2016. Other notable names include Oracle Corporation and IBM.
Amazon rolled out its own SaaS billing solution at the end of 2016 so customers can now receive a single bill with metered usage for dozens of third party applications. Indeed, many public cloud providers have similar offerings including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Office 365, while key players like Ingram Micro Cloud offer their own alternatives. Also, ConnectWise CloudConsole focuses heavily on cloud billing management for MSPs.
Unsurprisingly, North America dominated the cloud billing market in 2016, but the Asia-Pacific region is expected to see the highest compound annual growth, with 22 percent by 2022. Other regions like Africa, The Middle East, and Latin America will see slower growth thanks to a lack of infrastructure.