docs/PRODUCT_ROADMAP.md

# Qx-SmartLedger — Product & Architecture Roadmap

> Status: forward-looking, to start **after Audry validates a production-grade MVP**. This is greenfield
> for monetization and multi-tenancy — nothing in sections 2–9 is built yet. Dev-context only.

Decisions captured (product):
- Self-serve **online payments** for Hustler / Pro / Mogul; **Incubator is sales-led** (talk to sales).
- **Per-seat** pricing is a cross-cutting dimension (operators / staff).
- Payment rails: **Zimbabwe mobile money first (Paynow → EcoCash / OneMoney / card)** + a **pan-African
  aggregator (Flutterwave / Paystack)** next, behind one pluggable provider interface.

---

## 1. Current baseline (what exists today)
- WhatsApp Cloud API → **Render relay** → Meta; **Gemini** multimodal (intent / vision / translate /
  codegen / coach) + **AssemblyAI** ASR; **Firestore** + Firebase **Storage**.
- Data model: `users/{phone}/<subcollection>` — `transactions, stock_batches, customers,
  price_overrides, temp_*, context`. Approval / profile doc at `users/{+mobile}`
  (`status, currency, business_name, wa_name, distill_consent`).
- **Wart to fix first:** the profile doc is keyed `+mobile` but ledger subcollections are keyed `mobile`
  (no `+`). Must be normalized before any multi-tenancy work.
- `distillation_examples` capture is live (`distill.py`, `scripts/export_distillation.py`).
- **No tiers, payments, roles, or orgs yet.**

## 2. Tiers / personas
1. **Hustler** (free, self-serve): one trader, one shop, core bookkeeping (text / voice / image), basic
   reports, capped history / usage.
2. **Captain / Pro** (paid, self-serve, online pay): one business, full features — PDF receipts, period
   reports, business coach, deeper history, exports, multiple **operator seats**.
3. **Mogul** (paid, self-serve, online pay): **multiple shops under one owner** — per-shop ledgers,
   consolidated cross-shop reporting, per-shop operators, inter-shop transfers. Price = per-business base
   + per-extra-shop + per-seat.
4. **Incubator / Organisation** (sales-led, invoiced): an org tracking many independent businesses it
   incubates — cohort dashboard, per-business progress, aggregate analytics, **consent-gated read
   access**, program / cohort grouping, staff roles. Per-seat across the cohort.

## 3. Core architecture change — accounts & multi-tenancy
The phone-keyed model cannot express multi-shop or orgs. Introduce explicit entities (top-level
collections; ledgers move off the phone key):
- `businesses/{business_id}` — the ledger owner (`name, currency, tier, owner_member_id, org_id?,
  created_at`). Ledgers live at `businesses/{business_id}/{transactions, stock_batches, customers, ...}`.
- `members/{member_id}` — a person (`phone_hash, display_name`); identified by WhatsApp number.
- `memberships/{id}` — `member_id × business_id × role(owner|manager|operator|viewer) × status`. Drives
  access **and** seat counting.
- `organisations/{org_id}` — incubator / parent (`name, admins[], subscription`); businesses reference
  `org_id` and carry a per-business consent flag for org visibility.
- **Message routing:** inbound phone → resolve member → active business context (default + a
  `switch shop` command for Mogul / operators; sticky in `context`).
- **Backwards-compat:** today's single user = 1 member + 1 business; a migration creates a `business_id`,
  moves / dual-reads the subcollections, and fixes the `+mobile` vs `mobile` key.

## 4. Access control & context resolution
- Role matrix: **owner** (all incl. billing), **manager** (txns + reports, no billing), **operator**
  (record txns, limited reads), **viewer** (read-only — used by incubators).
- A phone in multiple businesses → "Which shop?" picker / `switch to <shop>`; active context stored per
  member.
- Incubator access = a **viewer** membership into each incubated business, granted on the business
  owner's opt-in consent, revocable.

## 5. Payments & billing
- **Pluggable `PaymentProvider` interface.** Phase 1: **Paynow** (EcoCash / OneMoney / card, Zimbabwe).
  Phase 2: **Flutterwave / Paystack** (mobile money + cards across KE / NG / GH / ZA). Provider webhooks
  → subscription state; the existing relay is for WhatsApp only, not for payment callbacks.
- **Billing model:** per-business base (Hustler free / Pro / Mogul) + per-extra-shop (Mogul) +
  **per-seat** operators. **Incubator = sales-led** org contract (manual / invoiced), per-seat across the
  cohort.
- **Subscription state** on `businesses.subscription` / `organisations.subscription`:
  `plan, status(active|trial|past_due|canceled), renews_at, seats, provider_refs`. Trials, grace,
  dunning via WhatsApp nudges.
- **WhatsApp-native upgrade flow:** "upgrade" → provider checkout link or mobile-money push → webhook
  confirms → tier flips → confirmation + payment receipt.
- **Feature gating:** a central `entitlements(business)` map (tier → features: receipts, report depth,
  coach, vision, # shops, # seats, history window, exports, API). Enforce at command entry; gated
  actions return a friendly upsell, never a hard error.

## 6. Internal admin interface (ours — already exists; design its data contracts)
The admin is a separate app over Firestore / Storage. It will manage:
- Approvals & onboarding (replaces the manual `users/{+mobile}.status` flow).
- Businesses / orgs CRUD; tier / subscription overrides; seat management; comp / trial grants.
- Members & memberships; role assignment; **read-only** support impersonation.
- Billing ops: subscriptions view, manual incubator invoices, refunds, dunning state.
- Cohort / incubator management: create org, attach businesses, progress dashboards.
- **Training-data management:** review `distillation_examples`, verdict / label QA, redaction, export
  runs (wraps `scripts/export_distillation.py`), consent audit.
- Feature flags & analytics (usage, retention, MRR, per-tier funnels).
- Contract: stable Firestore schemas + admin-only callable functions; the bot path never sees billing
  secrets.

## 7. Cross-cutting
Migration (phased, dual-read), data integrity, per-business currency, audit log, per-tier rate limits,
per-member data export / delete (ties to `distill_consent`), observability / metrics.

## 8. Phased delivery (post-MVP)
- **P0 Foundation** — normalize account keys; add `business_id` + `memberships`; migrate existing users
  1:1; no user-visible change.
- **P1 Pro + payments** — Paynow rails, `entitlements` / gating, WhatsApp upgrade flow, admin
  subscription management.
- **P2 Mogul** — multi-shop model, switch-shop UX, consolidated reports, per-shop seats.
- **P3 Incubator** — org entity, consent-based viewer access, cohort dashboards, sales-led billing;
  add pan-African rails (Flutterwave / Paystack).
- **P4 Hardening** — dunning, analytics, training-data admin tooling, exports.

## 9. Where it lands when built (reuse existing)
- New modules: `accounts.py` (entities + membership + context resolution), `billing.py`
  (`PaymentProvider` + webhooks), `entitlements.py` (tier → feature gating).
- `main.py`: resolve member → business context at message entry; gate features; payment / upgrade &
  switch-shop commands. `is_user_approved` (main.py:713) becomes a membership lookup; `_vendor_profile`
  becomes a business-profile lookup.
- `utility.py`: ledger reads / writes re-pointed from `users/{mobile}` → `businesses/{business_id}` via an
  accessor that hides the key (one change point feeds all `*_transaction` / stock / customer helpers).
- Unchanged: relay / `whatsapp_client.py`. `distill.py` + `scripts/export_distillation.py` feed the
  admin's training-data module.

---

## 10. Cost per user & pricing model

> Estimates as of **mid-2026** from public pricing (sources at bottom). The two model IDs we use
> (`gemini-3.1-flash-lite`, `gemini-robotics-er-1.6-preview`) are priced here at their **Flash-Lite /
> Flash-class** equivalents — verify against the live billing page before locking pricing. All figures
> USD.

### 10.1 Unit rates by service
| Service | Unit | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Gemini Flash-Lite (text intent / translate / codegen / coach) | 1M input / 1M output tok | **$0.10 / $0.40** (batch $0.05 / $0.20) |
| Gemini vision (image in, ER-class) | per image (~1.1k input tok + prompt) | **~$0.0002–0.0004** |
| AssemblyAI Universal ASR | per minute | **$0.0025** ($0.15/hr) |
| Deepgram Aura TTS (voice replies, capped ~500 chars) | per 1k chars | **~$0.015** → ~$0.004–0.008/reply |
| WhatsApp **service reply** (inside the 24-h user window — our normal mode) | per message | **$0.00 (free)** |
| WhatsApp **utility template** (business-initiated, "Rest of Africa" incl. +263) | per message | **<$0.01–0.03** |
| Firestore | 100k reads / 100k writes | **$0.06 / $0.18** (deletes $0.02) |
| Firebase Storage (distillation media, receipts) | GB-month / egress GB | **~$0.026 / ~$0.12** |
| Render relay + app host | flat / month | ~$7–50 (amortized across all users) |

### 10.2 Cost per interaction (one bookkeeping action)
| Modality | Extra services beyond Firestore | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|
| **Text** | Gemini translate (most msgs) + ~40% LLM intent (60% deterministic = free) | **~$0.0002–0.0004** |
| **Voice** | + ASR (~$0.0006 / 15-s note) + **TTS reply (~$0.004–0.008)** + text pipeline | **~$0.005–0.009** |
| **Image** | + Gemini vision (~$0.0003) + text pipeline | **~$0.0005** |
| Firestore per action (~30 reads + ~6 writes + distill writes) | — | ~$0.00003 |

**The reply path is mostly free on WhatsApp** because the bot is reactive (service messages inside the
24-h window). The two real swing costs are **TTS for voice** and **any business-initiated templates**
(expiry nudges, dunning) — keep those minimal.

### 10.3 Monthly cost per active user
| Profile | Assumptions | Est. infra cost / month |
|---|---|---|
| **Light Hustler** (text-first) | ~120 actions, mostly text, a few utility nudges | **~$0.10–0.20** |
| **Voice-heavy Hustler** | ~150 actions, ~50% voice **with spoken replies** | **~$0.40–0.60** (TTS dominates) |
| **Pro / heavy** | ~400 actions, reports + coach + codegen, 3 seats | **~$0.60–1.50** |
| + cumulative distillation media (images/audio kept) | grows over time | ~$0.002–0.02 / user / mo |
| + amortized relay/app host @ ~1k users | flat ÷ users | ~$0.01–0.03 / user |

**Fully-loaded: ~$0.15–0.60 / active user / month typical; up to ~$1.50 for heavy or voice-with-TTS users.**

### 10.4 Suggested pricing (USD/month; charge local mobile-money equivalent)
| Tier | Price | Includes | Est. cost | Gross margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Hustler** | **Free** | 1 shop, ~100 actions/mo, text + voice, basic reports; PDF + coach as teasers | $0.10–0.30 | acquisition (loss-leader) |
| **Captain / Pro** | **$3–5** | full features, 1 shop, ≤3 seats, PDF receipts + reports, coach, exports | $0.30–0.80 | **~80–90%** |
| **Mogul** | **$9–15 base** + **$3–5 / extra shop** + **$1–2 / extra seat** | multi-shop, consolidated reporting | scales with shops | ~80% |
| **Incubator** | **sales-led**: ~$2–4 / tracked business / mo + per-seat for org staff | cohort dashboards, consent-gated viewer access | low per business | high (contract) |

Pricing notes:
- **Annual plan** ≈ 10× monthly (2 months free) to improve retention and cash flow.
- **Cap the free tier's voice/TTS and coach** usage — that is where a free user can actually cost money;
  default voice replies to **text-first** and make spoken replies a Pro perk.
- Even at a **$1/mo** entry point margins stay 50–85%; $3–5 Pro is comfortably **>80%** gross.

### 10.5 Cost-control levers (already partly in place)
- **Deterministic parsing first** (≈60% of writes skip the LLM) — keep widening it.
- **Stay reactive** on WhatsApp (free service window); batch/limit business-initiated templates.
- **Gemini batch mode (−50%)** for all non-realtime work (distillation re-scoring, exports, reports).
- **Text-first replies**; shortest viable TTS; cheapest TTS vendor.
- **The distilled student model is the strategic lever**: once trained on the captured dataset
  (`distillation_examples`), it can self-host and drive the **marginal AI cost toward ~$0**, turning
  today's ~$0.20–0.60/user into mostly fixed compute — the main reason to capture the data now.

> Sources (mid-2026): Gemini API pricing (ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing), AssemblyAI pricing
> (assemblyai.com), WhatsApp Business Platform pricing
> (developers.facebook.com/documentation/business-messaging/whatsapp/pricing), Firestore/Storage
> (Google Cloud pricing). Re-verify before setting public prices.