Why the same service costs a different amount from one week to the next
You ordered a service at one price a fortnight ago, came back, and the number is different. Nobody edited it to spite you. Three separate things feed that figure, and any one of them moving changes it.
One: the supplier changed their cost
A panel is a reseller. Behind every service on the list is a supplier who charges us a cost per 1,000, and that cost is not fixed either — it moves with their own supply. When a source of accounts dries up, gets swept by the platform, or simply becomes more expensive to run, the supplier raises the cost, and every panel reselling them sees the same rise on the same day.
This is the most common reason a price moves, and it is also why the cheapest services move the most. A service costing a fraction of a taka per 1,000 is drawing from whatever is cheapest this week, and whatever is cheapest this week changes.
Two: the exchange rate moved
The catalogue is held in the currency the supplier bills in — US dollars. What you see is that figure converted into the currency your account is in, at the day's rate.
So a service whose dollar cost has not moved at all can still show a different number in taka, rupees or naira from one week to the next. If a price has changed by a percent or two and nothing else about the service has, this is almost always the reason.
You can check it yourself: switch the currency picker to USD and compare. If the dollar figure is the same as you remember, the service did not change — the rate did.
Three: the commission changed
On top of the supplier's cost sits the panel's commission, and that is a decision rather than a market. It is the same percentage across the catalogue unless a specific rule says otherwise, and when it is adjusted, every price moves together and in the same direction.
This is the rarest of the three and the easiest to spot: if every service you look at has moved by the same proportion, that was a commission change. If one service moved and its neighbours did not, it was the supplier.
Why the price is recalculated rather than stored and forgotten
It would be simpler to write a price into a table once and leave it. It would also mean the site advertising a number it no longer charges — you would see one figure on the price list and a different one at checkout, and the difference would look like a trick rather than a stale cache.
So the sell price is derived from the current cost and the current commission every time the catalogue syncs, and a change to the commission reprices everything immediately. The number on the price list and the number taken from your wallet are the same number by construction.
What a rising price on one service actually tells you
It is information, not just an inconvenience. A cheap service whose cost has climbed steeply is usually a service whose supply has become harder — which often shows up as more partial deliveries and heavier drops shortly afterwards.
When a service you rely on gets noticeably more expensive, that is a reasonable moment to test the next tier up rather than absorb the rise. The gap between a cheap service under strain and a proper "Non Drop" one is frequently smaller than it was a month ago, and the delivery is steadier.
What to do if you are quoting clients
If you resell, do not build your price sheet by copying today's rates and forgetting them. Two habits prevent most of the pain:
- Quote with a margin that survives a move. If your margin is three percent, a supplier raising costs by five wipes it out and you are paying for the privilege of working. Ten to fifteen percent absorbs ordinary movement.
- Re-read the catalogue before a large quote. The API's services call returns the current rate for every service in one request; that is what it is for. Quoting from a sheet you built in June is quoting from a market that no longer exists.
What does not change the price
Nothing about you. There is no surcharge for ordering more often, no different rate for a customer who complains, and no price that goes up because you looked at it twice. Where an account has a discount it is stated on the account and applies everywhere.
Nor does the price change between the moment you fill in the order form and the moment you press the button. The charge is worked out from the same chain the form quoted you, so what the summary said is what leaves the wallet.
The short version
One service moved: the supplier. Everything moved by a percent or two: the exchange rate. Everything moved by the same proportion: the commission. Nothing about it is arbitrary, and all three are visible if you know which one to look at.
Why a cheap service moves most
The arithmetic is unkind at the bottom of the price list. A service costing a fraction of a taka per 1,000 is drawing from whatever supply is cheapest this week, and cheapest supply is by definition the least stable. When it tightens, the cost can double and still be a small number in absolute terms — but it has doubled.
Expensive services move far less, because their supply is deliberate rather than opportunistic. If price stability matters to you — and it does if you are quoting clients — that is a reason to sit a tier above the cheapest option even when the cheapest is working.
How to watch it without watching it
If you order the same handful of services regularly, note their rates once a month. Five numbers in a spreadsheet is enough to tell you which of your regulars is drifting upwards, and drift upwards is usually the first sign that a service is about to start partialling.
Resellers get this for free from the API: the services call returns the current rate for the whole catalogue in one request, so a weekly snapshot is a single scheduled job and a file. That history is worth more than it costs — it is the difference between noticing a supply problem in advance and discovering it through customer complaints.
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