When Service is integrated with CloudPortal Business Manager, the service metadata describes all the resource consumption measured by the service, and any attributes that describe the resources being consumed. A service operator can use this information to define products with rules to that determine how much of the usage collected for a specific resource is classified as usage of the defined product. This process is known as mediation and the rules are called mediation rules.

A service operator can determine, based on the business needs, if all calls are charged the same rate or if a different rates are applicable for weekends and evenings, local or long distance, and so on. The service provider would create different products for each classification. They may charge all calls the same, but have another product called daytime surcharge, which has an additional price per unit for only the daytime minutes. These classifications are decided by the service provider and will vary depending on the business needs served by each installation.

When a service measures usage, it does so in a specific unit. However, an operator may choose to price things in other scales. For example, while the mobile service measures call duration in seconds, but the operator wants to charge in minutes. To achieve this, a product can have a conversion factor which is used to convert usage for a particular product from the unit of measure of the usage to the unit of measure of the product. Services typically declare common scales to scale up or down their unit of measure. A service provider may also specify a custom conversion factor and provide a corresponding unit of measure. For example, the mobile service may measure calls in seconds and may define scales such as 6secconds, half-minute, or minute. The operator could then choose whichever unit they want to price the calls. Alternatively, they could create a custom unit called 15 seconds and specify the appropriate conversion factor.

In some cases, it may be necessary to combine multiple usage types. For example, assume that the service measures incoming calls and outgoing calls separately. The operator can either price incoming and outgoing calls separately, each having products as described earlier or charge for both incoming and outgoing calls the same way. In this case, the operator could add both usage types with the COMBINE operator to the product (with their corresponding mediation rules) and combine the two usages. Alternatively, if the service measures all calls and outgoing calls separately and if an operator wishes to charge for incoming calls separately, they could COMBINE (or add) all calls into this product and EXCLUDE (or subtract) outgoing calls to derive the value of incoming calls. The exact definitions depend on what the service measures and what the operator wants to charge for.

Once a product is defined, reference prices in all supported currencies may be set for the product. These prices can be overridden on a per channel basis.

Every channel can override price or charge from the reference catalog for a product or product bundle. However, mediation rules, entitlements, and provisioning constraints cannot be over-ridden.