Abstract: An event rating engine can be configured for a particular task and is logically decoupled from a rating database when a usage event is rated. The rating engine obtains rating rules from a rating database. The rating database includes rating rules that include rating business rules by usage type along with rate tables containing the current rate values. A rating domain server is coupled to the rating database interface to the rating rules. A rating editor coupled to the rating domain server and provides an interface to the rating domain server. At initialization, the rating engine downloads a set of rating rules from the rating database and interprets the rating rules to form an independent and autonomous rating process that can rate a usage event while being logically decoupled from the rating database during the rating process.