Raven is a true platform. We pull in truckloads of data from our awesome partners. We’re able to bundle access to this data and our tools for a monthly fee. Each plan includes some limits on the amount of searches or data you can pull in per category.

But if you ever want more of something specific (say you want to run more ranking results one month, or are doing more social monitoring this year) you can pay for what you’d like beyond what’s included and we’ll bill you based on a fixed overage rate.

Checking usage

To keep all users on the same page, Raven shows subusers usage per tool.

Account owners can always access their current usage by going to Preferences > Usage.

Once you’re there, you’ll see two overage categories: Account Usage and Monthly Usage. Let’s review each so you know how to get the best value out of Raven.

Example usage page

You’ll notice this is a Pro account since the fixed monthly fee is $99/mo. What’s included in your plan is listed in the “Included” column. You can also toggle to view another account at the bottom to see if you’d save more using a different plan.

Account Usage

In the Account Usage column, usage is defined by how much of a service you’re using at any given time. Notice the “Maximum this month” column? This column details your highest use of each service over the course of the billing cycle, so it’s easy to pinpoint where any overages are coming from.

For example, this account owner gets an included 1,000 ranking results a billing cycle before overages. He’s currently using 1,200 ranking results, but earlier in his billing cycle he was up to 1,400, so that’s the number this overage is based on. Here’s more on how you are billed for ranking results.

This concept holds true for all items in this category. If at one point in the current billing cycle you have 10 additional social monitor searches added beyond the included 20, you’ll see an overage for this on your next invoice – even if you’re currently back down to the allotted 20 by the time you get the bill.

Monthly Usage

In the Monthly Usage column, usage is defined by how much of a service you’ve used over the course of the billing period. Each time a new monthly billing cycle turns over, Current Usage goes back to zero. Notice there’s no “Maximum this month” column here.

Let’s use the Backlink Explorer Reports row as an example. This account owner has run 42 Backlink Explorer results so far this billing cycle – 2 more than what is included. This is the total number of times he clicked the search button, regardless of the amount of searches he’s deleted or saved.

In contrast, since Social Monitor searches are in the Account Usage camp, you could remove a search and then add a new one and not affect billing. But items in the Monthly Usage camp are handled cumulatively, based on the total use per billing cycle.

Whee! No limits

You also may be in for a nice surprise as many things have no overages in Raven. For instance, you can:

• Add as many profiles and websites as you’d like.
• Connect as many Facebook and Twitter accounts as you’d like.
• Add as many free read-only users as you’d like.
• Run as many searches in Research Central as you’d like.
• Add as many subusers as you’d like (Agency users only)

Take a look at our plans page for the most recent and complete information.

Happy Ravening!