Pricing Model

Praevis runs a first-price auction. Understanding how pricing works helps supply sources (Publishers) set effective floor prices and demand sources (DSPs) bid strategically.

First-price auction

In a first-price auction, the winner pays exactly what they bid — there is no second-price reduction.

Example:

• Demand source A bids $5.00 CPM
• Demand source B bids $3.50 CPM
• Demand source C bids $2.80 CPM
• Floor price: $2.00 CPM

Result: Demand source A wins and pays $5.00 CPM. Not $3.51 (second price). Not $2.01 (floor + $0.01). Exactly $5.00.

This means demand sources should bid their true maximum willingness to pay — there’s no benefit to shading bids as there is in second-price auctions.

Exchange margin

Praevis takes a percentage of the clearing price as the exchange margin. The remainder goes to the supply source.

Publisher revenue = clearing_price × (1 − exchange_margin)

Example at $5.00 CPM clearing price, 40% margin:

Publisher revenue = $5.00 × (1 − 0.40) = $3.00 CPM
Exchange revenue  = $5.00 × 0.40 = $2.00 CPM
DSP pays          = $5.00 CPM (their bid)

The exchange margin is not disclosed to demand sources in bid requests — the clearing price they pay is their bid. The margin is deducted before the supply source receives their payout.

Specific margin rates are set by contract. Contact [email protected] for details.

Platform partner revenue share

For platform partners, revenue flows through an additional layer:

Clearing price      = DSP bid ($5.00 CPM)
Exchange margin     = 40% → $2.00 to Praevis
Publisher revenue   = 60% → $3.00
Partner share       = e.g. 70% of publisher revenue → $2.10 to partner
Publisher payout    = 30% of publisher revenue → $0.90

The exact partner revenue share is set at contract stage.

Floor prices

The floor price is the minimum bid a demand source must submit to be eligible to win. Bids at or below the floor are ignored (not counted as wins).

If bid ≤ floor → no-bid outcome (publisher gets empty VAST / passback)
If bid > floor → eligible to win

Setting the right floor:

• Too high: DSPs can’t win → low fill rate, lost revenue
• Too low: DSPs win cheaply → high fill rate, low eCPM

Start with a floor 20–30% below your target eCPM and adjust based on win rate data from the dashboard.

Micro-dollar precision

Praevis stores all revenue values internally as micro-dollars (1/10,000 of a cent = 1/1,000,000 of a dollar).

$1.00 = 1,000,000 micro-dollars
$0.01 (1 cent) = 10,000 micro-dollars
$0.001 (0.1 cent) = 1,000 micro-dollars

Why micro-dollars? At high request volumes, fractional cents matter enormously:

Rounding to cents at the individual impression level would cause massive revenue distortion at scale. Micro-dollars preserve full precision.

Dashboard display: Revenue is shown in cents (USD × 100) for readability. The micro-dollar precision is maintained internally and on invoices.

Invoicing

Demand sources receive invoices for their spend. Supply sources receive revenue statements showing their payout. Praevis reconciles the middle.