#Merino-usage-based-billing
umbral summit
Hello Hanzo, how are you?
ancient marsh
I'm doing well, thanks for asking 🙂
umbral summit
Good, so I've being planing to use Stripe's usage-based billing as my main inbound selling method, due to the fact that we're selling a subscription with a pack of "credits" each month to run some computational processes
At first we planned to manage this by ourselves, since each credit should represent different values for each process, etc
And at some point if some one wasted it all, we would warn the user on new processes attempts of a flat extra free based on what he's asking of our softwares
But, at this point I'm not sure if we're using the correct method (usage-billing), or even if we should somehow link how much credits a client is using with stripe, so it know how much to charge
Nor if it's possible to manipulate the Payment Intent that the client shall recieve at it's next invoice
I've read the docs, and feel like we have a lil bit of a specific situation
So I'm a lil bit insecure going forward
umbral summit
hi ?
warped jay
Sorry there are 13 people all talking in real time so it's quite busy, but let me read your questions
umbral summit
Sorry for the trouble opening another one, didn't knew you could simply come here lol
warped jay
no trouble at all, it's our fault we dropped your ask
I read what you said but I don't really follow what you mean
umbral summit
What I'm wondering I guess if I'm on the right track
warped jay
Can you give a concrete example of who pays what/when
umbral summit
A client should pay a monthly subscription + over the threshold fee's if there are any
My objective is to provide a machine learning service
Which would have a limited amount of lines for training and previsions
So at first we planed on having some kind of credit system, with graduated pricing
But I'm not sure if this is the best approach
warped jay
Ah gotcha, so basically each month you get say $100 for 10 credits, and then the next 10 are maybe $90, etc.
if so metered billing is the right approach yes
umbral summit
Yes, that's it
But should we link somehow what we have on our database
To stripe?
Like a client balance or something that update stripe's data with new values to charge at the correct date
Or is it possible for us to simply create the payment intent with the correct values and then capture it without creating any kind of conflict with stripe's normal flow of capturing charges ?
warped jay
damn
You mentioned usage billing, so I assumed you were already familiar with our Billing product, the Subscriptions and Prices API, etc.
https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/usage-based this covers a lot
umbral summit
I've been struggling with this guide a while now
But now I've seen the usage record APi
Ah that it answer's my questions
Thanks for all the help koopajah
warped jay
Ah that's the part you were missing
so yeah you create a Subscription and then throughout the month you report usage
and at the end of the month we charge the customer for the amount they owe you based on their usage
umbral summit
and at the end of the month we charge the customer for the amount they owe you b...
Yeah that was my biggest doubt
For some reason I've read this stuff a few times and skipped this info every single one of them lol
But know it's manking sense
Thanks again o/
warped jay
Yeah that product is always confusing until you talk through some examples and then it clicks 🙂
umbral summit
One last simple thing, when you guys say that a price model has 2 graduated tiers
It means that it's the same product, same subscription, but with 2 distinct price tiers right?
Like from 0 - threshold = tier 1
over limit = tier 2
warped jay
it's the same Price and that Price has multiple tiers
warped jay
yeah it's really cool to go volume discounts too