Ramps & multi-period deals
The classic enterprise structure: start the customer at a level they can say yes to, and grow the commitment over the term. Dealops models ramped, multi-period deals natively — no spreadsheet side-cars, no flattening the deal into a fiction your CRM can hold.
Period-level commitments
A multi-year deal can define a different commitment per period:
| Period | Annual commitment | Effective usage rate |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $250,000 | $0.045 |
| Year 2 | $400,000 | $0.040 |
| Year 3 | $600,000 | $0.035 |
Each period carries its own commitment level and pricing, and the deal summary shows the year-by-year build alongside total contract value.
Each period can also use commitment tiers, so the customer's level in each year maps onto your standard commitment ladder.
Price and volume ramps
Ramping isn't limited to commitments. Individual lines can ramp too:
- Price ramps — a platform fee that steps up over the term ($3,000/mo in year 1 → $4,000/mo in year 2 → $5,000/mo in year 3), down to per-month granularity when a deal needs it.
- Volume ramps — a quantity that grows on a schedule (1 environment at launch, 3 from month 4, 5 from month 7).
Keeping periods in sync
When a multi-period deal uses the same tier structure each year, Dealops can keep the periods synchronized: edit the structure once and every period updates together. Turn sync off when periods genuinely diverge. Renewal quotes default to synchronized periods, since renewals usually re-ramp a consistent structure.
Summarizing ramps downstream
Like tiers, ramps sometimes need to become a single number for a document or CRM field. Dealops can flatten a ramp using a strategy you choose — average across periods, the first period, the last period, or the minimum/maximum — or write one CRM line item per period when full fidelity matters. Month-by-month breakdowns are available for systems that want the complete schedule.
Ramps across the lifecycle
- Expansions: when a mid-term amendment changes the contract window or commitment, existing periods are preserved and adjusted to the new window rather than rebuilt from scratch. See Expansions & amendments.
- Renewals: the expiring ramp resolves to its final-period state — that's where the customer actually ended up — and the renewal quote starts there, ready for the next term's ramp. See Renewals.
- Billing: ramped commitments provision into your billing system as period-by-period commits on the contract. See Billing with Metronome.
Approval rules evaluate the real deal structure — total contract value, per-period commitments, effective discounts — not just a flattened summary, so a back-loaded ramp can't slip past a discount threshold. See Approval workflows.