Ask HN: How do you charge clients for hosting their mobile backend?

Require pre-payment for a set number of API requests, bandwidth transfer and bandwidth throughput above what it costs you to deliver it. This insures you are covered for infrastructure upgrades, contract bandwidth increase costs, security and more as you grow. What ever bundles you create, insure that the pricing is enough to give you a good profit so all of your expenses are covered and you have money to put aside.

If paying for a client's hosting needs is a potentially high risk arrangement, my gut reaction is to have the client's account tied to their credit card and to invoice maintenance and other services separately. Because:

1. It means that the client owns the resources and that is good for the client.

2. It means if the client stops paying for hosting, you're not out the money.

3. It means that if hosting gets expensive, you don't own the problem...you own the solution in the form of additional billable services.

4. It means that the client can make the decision to pull the plug if usage gets to high and you're not involved.

I'd add that under this scenario, you can maintain the client's account on their behalf and charge a nice fee for doing so...maybe a fixed fee plus a percentage of hosting costs. If the client wants to move to a cheaper alternative, you can charge for that work too. The most important thing is that you do not own hosting costs when there is a problem.

Good luck.