What is the difference between fixed rate and fixed price? Can they be one in the same?
Context: I was recently involved in the purchase of satellite services on tracking devices. The devices themselves were bought previously, so this procurement was just for the commerical satellite tracking service. Standard industry practice is to bill monthly (as a subscription) for each "active" device. The end user (customer) knew the number of devices they had, but the actual number of devices needing satellite services at any given time is somewhat variable as it is dependent on mission requirements. For example, the customer had 100 devices, but some months (this timeframe noted only due to standard commerical billing practices of monthly subscription billing), we may only require active service on 95 or 97 of them. The customer, obviously, only wants to pay for those devices needed as the requirement is dynamic (dependent on mission requirements).
The vendors charge a fixed activation/deactivation/re-activation fee each time we change the number of units requiring service. They also bill at a fixed monthly rate per unit needing service--for the sake of clarity, lets say that fixed rate is $50/month for each active device. Further, lets say the fixed rate for activation/deactivation/re-activation is $30 per instance.
The resultant contract action for these has FFP CLINs for these services. The CLIN for the activation/deactivation/re-activation fee have a fixed rate ($30), quantity (10, as historically this is all the customer has every required for the performance period), and a NTE total price. The monthly subscription CLIN has a fixed monthly rate per device ($50), quantity (100, as this is the number of devices we own), and a NTE total price. The vendor (per their standard industry practice) will only bill for the services we actually used--so if only 95 of the devices are active during that billing cycle, that is what they will bill.
I guess I always thought of fixed rate and fixed price as completely different things (which is evident in T&M contracts). That at the end of a fixed price contract, there should be no remaining funds--no need to descope or deobligate. In the case described above however, the chances of descope/deobligating are great, as the total price per CLIN is a NTE amount.
So I ask again, what is the difference between fixed rate and fixed price? Can they be one in the same? I provided the previous example as the argument I have been given that, yes, indeed, they can be one in the same. I am not sure I buy this argument.
Thoughts? Discussions?