#zach_best-practices
wet timberBOT
👋 Welcome to your new thread!
⏲️ We'll be here soon! Typically we respond in a few minutes, but sometimes we might take a bit longer if the server is busy or if you have a particularly tricky question.
⏱️ We close idle threads, which makes them read-only. Once a thread is closed it won't be reopened, but you can always start a new thread if you have another question.
🔗 This thread will always be available, even after it's closed. You can find it again using Discord's search, or you can save this link: https://discord.com/channels/841573134531821608/1238132143125692416
📝 Have more to share? Add more details, code, screenshots, videos, etc. below.
marble tinsel
hi bismarck
fathom gale
You control reporting usage here
So you would ensure they have an active Subscription for that Product
marble tinsel
Hmm, with old usage though, you had to be susbscribed to the product
in order to send usage
because you provided a subscription item when sending usage
fathom gale
Correct, I don't believe we enforce that with the new Meters API
As it provides greater flexibility
marble tinsel
Greater flexibility only if #2 of my questions is solved for.
Or else you have a meter record, but no way to bill for it
fathom gale
Yeah I actually haven't tested that but I assume it does bill for the collected usage
So recommend testing that out
fathom gale
Can you share the Subscription ID?
wild spindleBOT
marble tinsel
Of course
mtr_test_61QNYPhe3PVm6agEK41Btu9lUy7zyD1k
this is my meter
cus_Py1iM9zjERh34m
this is my customer
sub_1P85fWBtu9lUy7zyjkSxJ4pK
fathom gale
Thanks, looking
marble tinsel
is my subscription
Also as I try to gather this info for you, one other question
is there a way to see all meter events?
vs just the live meter events (which only shows a handful)
fathom gale
No you can only list meter event summaries: https://docs.stripe.com/api/billing/meter-event_summary/list
If you want each individual Event you would need to store that on your end
marble tinsel
even through API , i cannot fetch entire list of meter events?
fathom gale
Correct. That is the same as how the Usage API worked (and works)
marble tinsel
with an idempotency key, can i fetch an individual record?
fathom gale
Not sure what you mean by that
There is no way to retrieve an individual Meter Event via the API
Okay so for your Sub example it looks like you updated the Sub and reported usage but an Invoice has not been cut yet to charge that usage
So you would need to advance time using the test clock and I do believe you should see that usage charged
marble tinsel
Uhhh
so for old usage right,
it would say "next invoice for x amount"
which would be all the usage records recorded so far in the billing period
so that the customer would be able to see real time, what their current usage is
marble tinsel
if my customer goes into the portal mid month
i would expect them to see how much they have used alreaedy this month
fathom gale
Yep me too
I do see you cleared usage on update but that shouldn't matter here as you reported usage after that
Can you advance time just so we can rule out there being a preview bug ?
fathom gale
Thx
fathom gale
Nope
marble tinsel
in_1PEY3jBtu9lUy7zybTE49Spa
fathom gale
K thanks. I'm still looking
fathom gale
Going to need a few mins to determine whether expected for some reason or not.
marble tinsel
sure. take your time
fathom gale
Okay just tested myself and does seem to work on my end so need to find out what we are doing differently
marble tinsel
sure, im glad to know thats the case.
price_1PEKx9Btu9lUy7zy2euvo5vB
this is the price
i see it linked to meter
mtr_test_61QNYPhe3PVm6agEK41Btu9lUy7zyD1k
which has a ton of usage
fathom gale
Yep I'm seeing the same, and you reported that usage during that current period for the Sub (after update) so it does seem like it should apply.
marble tinsel
and product prod_Py0TOKjhpec4ie in the pricing table
shows the price, with 1 active sub (which is my customer)
fathom gale
Yeah very weird -- it is all working fine fo rme. Each time I update and then report usage it shows on the preview.
What if you report usage now for that Sub you are testing with
During this next period (between May 21 - Jun 21)
Can we see if it correctly adds that if you report another meter event for that time period?
marble tinsel
OK, let me see what I can do
marble tinsel
we have multiple customer IDs hitting that meter
fathom gale
So when I look at your Meter Event request it is for cus_Py1kSSYgKKJvgG so that usage should only apply for that Customer
marble tinsel
cus_Py1iM9zjERh34m is what i have updated
it has usage from yesterday against the same meter
but the subscription changed yesterday evening
because basically what was happening was the product price was pointing to a different (test meter) meter name.
So i was reporting usage to a meter, that the subscription for the customer wasnt there for
(hence my question #1) about not preventing this
So then i did a change to the subscription, hitting the same product, but a new price which should of pointed to the correct meter (that usage was being reported against)
i expected it to now show me a balance for that user, because usage was reported for that customer.
are we saying that old usage, is in fact not going to ever show
and instead it will only show usage in the future ?
let me try and send 1 agains thtis customer right now.
FYI i sent more usage
to this customer
0927cfb4-0360-4649-ab9b-b1aea35aa20f
is the identifier
still i see no balance
fathom gale
A Meter is associated to a Price and that Meter charges based on an event name. A Meter Event gets associated to a Customer and also specifies the Event name. For the Metered usage to apply there must be a Subscription for that Customer with the Price associated to the Meter and the Meter Events must specify that Customer.
So https://dashboard.stripe.com/test/logs/req_44RtXAtLNLAEvg looks to be the requst you just made
Let's step through it
It applies the Meter Event with Event name page_processing to cus_Py1iM9zjERh34m
That Customer has a Subscription currently: sub_1P85fWBtu9lUy7zyjkSxJ4pK
That Subscription is using price_1PEKx9Btu9lUy7zy2euvo5vB
fathom gale
That Price has mtr_test_61QNYPhe3PVm6agEK41Btu9lUy7zyD1k
Yep stepping through slowly to make sure I don't make a mistake
marble tinsel
and event page_processing
fathom gale
Hmm yep. However that Meter Event you just created is not showing up on that Meter...
Okay let me grab a colleague for a second pair of eyes.
marble tinsel
really?
i saw that meter event very clearly
it is now off the screen because more load has come
(why i was was asking if theres any place to see more meter events than just the 10)
fathom gale
Ah
marble tinsel
i can send another and show you screenshot
fathom gale
Wait wait wait
That Customer does have a test clock that is set fro May 31
The usage you just reported is not within the current billing period
You would need to create a new Meter Event with a timestamp in that actual period
marble tinsel
can i undo the test clock to pre may 31?
fathom gale
No unfortunately can't go backward
marble tinsel
can i cancel the test clock?
fathom gale
No
marble tinsel
or is this customer forever a month ahead?
fathom gale
Yes
marble tinsel
thats kinda funny
fathom gale
You can delete that Customer
And/or create a new one
Or pass a timestamp to your Meter Creation that is within the current period based on the clock
marble tinsel
I can send a timestamp for that period
fathom gale
Yeah
marble tinsel
may 21st is the alst invoice date
fathom gale
That is 6/1/2024
fathom gale
I believe so, yes, as it is within the current billing period
Needs to be between 5/21 - 6/21
For this Sub to pick it up
fathom gale
👍
marble tinsel
fathom gale
Yeah that's the wrong Customer ID
That Customer doesn't have a clock
So you can't set it to the future
I think this has been the problem all along
But we will find out in a sec
You need to be using cus_Py1iM9zjERh34m here
Okay yeah so I was also wrong
You can't put it in the future
marble tinsel
that was what i used right?
marble tinsel
fathom gale
I gave you a bad timestamp
Yep sorry, I was looking at https://dashboard.stripe.com/test/logs/req_aGQiiRvO2ao5p6 before
Which was your first attempt
Which used cus_Q4IukWt60QeK2G
But yeah sorry, I shouldn't have given you a June 1st timestamp
I was focused on the billing period
marble tinsel
np at all
fathom gale
Not the test clock's timing
marble tinsel
let me send a new one for may 30th
fathom gale
So you need a timestamp equal to or before the test clock, but during this billing period for the Sub
Yep that sounds good
marble tinsel
ok
fathom gale
Yep looks like it worked
marble tinsel
that seems to have worked
fathom gale
Yeah so I think the problem all along was a mix up of Customer IDs
marble tinsel
so generally, speaking
the "issue" from my perspective is
the new metered billing does not make sure a subscription is enabled, before allowing usage to be reported for a customer
thats not a big deal
but then after you have sent usage to a meter, for which a customer didnt have a valid subscription
there is no way to retrieve that usage, as you have no way to see usage events
fathom gale
You would look at the summary if you need to understand the usage that will/would have applied.
marble tinsel
nor, will those past usage events, get billed for, even though usage was reported during the billing period
fathom gale
Also you can backdate Subscriptions
Which is why I think we do allow for usage without an active Sub
marble tinsel
but in this case
the subscription date didnt really change
what changed was the price against which the product was being charged
fathom gale
Sure but that just means that the metered usage for that Price has to be within the billing period
fathom gale
For a different Price though
That Price is no longer applied to the Subscription at that point of update.
So the usage doesn't "carry over"
Is that what you are expecting?
marble tinsel
well that usage didnt get tagged to any price
fathom gale
If so, you shouldn't update the Price but instead add the new Price as a second item
marble tinsel
even though it was metered
marble tinsel
If so, you shouldn't update the Price but instead add the new Price as a second ...
from a product perspective or from a subscription perspective?
on the product to this day, there is old and new price
fathom gale
From a Subscription perspective
The Subscription only cares about the Price
That is what it will charge based on
Maybe it would help if we discuss what you are trying to solve for?
Like what is the actual scenario here?
In what case are you applying usage to a Meter that is not yet associated to a Price that is not yet associated to a Subscription ?
marble tinsel
Yea for sure.
This isnt an "on purpose case"
this happened because our product/price/subscription was not correctly set
in this case the event name on our original price
was abcd
when it whould of been abcz
should*
but we started sending usage through
now the quesiton is how to recover
i switched the event name, which required me to create a new price
for the product
wet timberBOT
marble tinsel
then i changed the subscriptions to point to the new price
but those meter events, the usage that happened
while the wrong price was configured
are now "gone" from a stripe perspective
yes i have logging on my end
fathom gale
They aren't "gone"
You should still be able to list out the summaries, no?
To see the aggregate and then you could apply that usage to your new Meter
fathom gale
That's fine, you would need to create corresponding Meter Events for the Customer for the current period with the new Price.
However, imo it would be cleaner to just create a new Meter
But that would likely also require changing the event_name which you may not want to do
marble tinsel
yea, i dont want to change event_name for sure
so I would need to resend the same events to the meter
but now the meter metrics/summaries would be out of wack numbers wise
because i would be 2xing this traffic against the same meter
marble tinsel
🙂
fathom gale
Hmm yeah if it has already been >24 hours then you are indeed going to have bad metrics for that Meter. So only way to get that clean would be to create a new Meter
marble tinsel
yea... thats gonna make things hard
fathom gale
I think the other option you could explore is trying to create a new Sub that is backdated with the "wrong" Price
Then charge that
Then update to the "right" Price
You would need to test that out in test mode
I've not tested that so don't know 100% if that works
fathom gale
Believe API-only
marble tinsel
basically how would I know the difference between something that has been correctly send to meter and billed vs something correctly sent to meter, but not billed
because no subscription was there
fathom gale
I can't tell you that -- you know what is "correct" and "incorrect" and you would have to evaluate what you have charged your Customers so far versus what they should be charged
Likely it looks like listing Subscriptions/Invoices
To see what has been charged. And listing out Meter Summaries
marble tinsel
uhh, but im hands off once i send to a meter
fathom gale
To understand what kind of Usage you reported
marble tinsel
i expect everything sent to a meter
is going to get billed
but now we are saying, even if u have sent to a meter
fathom gale
Right so you would need to look at what was actually billed
marble tinsel
its not necessarily billed
fathom gale
That is possible, yes.
I'm happy to file feedback about this internally
Not sure if we could send some kind of warning or something
marble tinsel
please do
yea, something
cause last thing we want to do is say we reported usage to stripe meter
but we didnt actually bill the customer
fathom gale
Yeah that's fair -- I think there are legitimate use-cases where we want to allow this which is why it isn't blocked.
marble tinsel
it would also be super helpful to be able to send the unique identifier of the meter event
and get some sort of status about it
fathom gale
But I'll certainly report feedback to see if we can find a happy medium
fathom gale
it would also be super helpful to be able to send the unique identifier of the m...
I'll include that as well
marble tinsel
great
I guess for now i need to play some more with this
so if i do in fact want a price change
your suggestion is
keep the existing subscription
with the product with old price
and add a new line to the subscription
with product with the new price
correct?
i guess i am asking how real price changes work with meters
fathom gale
So mostly it depends.
You don't want to update the Price and remove the previous Price if that Price currently has reported usage.
marble tinsel
reported usage for the current customer or for any customer
I guess maybe its better if i give u the scenario and you tell me how it should be done?
fathom gale
Yeah that is easiest.
marble tinsel
Lets say i am charging my customer per page to read a book (not actual use case, but should simplify)
today i charge them .02 a page
so i have a customer, product is book reading, my customer is subscribed to book reading, the price is .02 cents per page and i have a meter where i send an event everytime i read a page of the book
its mid month, my eyes are tired from all the reading
i want to now charge .03 a page
what do i do
fathom gale
Okay and what is the goal? Charge them for the amount of pages they have read so far at $0.02 and then charge for remaining pages this period with $0.03 ?
marble tinsel
correcet
fathom gale
And then going forward charge all at $0.03
marble tinsel
yes
fathom gale
Okay in that case then yes you would just add another Subscription item with the Price for $0.03
So the Sub now has 2 Prices with 2 Meters
You then stop reporting to Meter 1 (the $0.02 Price) and start reporting to Meter 2 (associated to the $0.03 Price)
marble tinsel
hmm 2 meters?
fathom gale
Then at the end of the period you can update the Sub to remove Price 1
marble tinsel
why would the meter change
fathom gale
Whoops sorry
Meter doesn't need to change, the Event name
(Still on old usage-based concept)
So just one Meter but different Event names for your Meter event reporting
marble tinsel
but event name to meter is 1 to 1
you can only have 1 event name on a meter
also the event didnt really change, its still " i read a page"
fathom gale
Yep yep yep right. So back to what I said before, you do need 2 meters here.
And the event is technically different if they have different costs, right?
marble tinsel
the event is the same, they read a book
the price is different
the price should be derived
by what subscription is active against that customer
for that product, that the meter is collecting usage on
fathom gale
Ah yeah okay okay I see what you are saying
One min
Okay yeah I was telling you the way we used to recommend handling this with the legacy flow
But you are right, that doesn't work with Meters API
Since you associate one Meter to multiple Prices here
So instead what you would do is you would check the current usage just before update and you would create an Invoice Item for the amount that corresponds with that usage
That Invoice Item will get picked up by the next Invoice for the Sub
Then you update the Sub to the new Price (and delete the previous Sub Item and use clear_usage: true -- https://docs.stripe.com/api/subscriptions/update#update_subscription-items-clear_usage)
marble tinsel
OK, so you are recommending a clearing line basically
im doing a 1 time invoice line item
for the usage against old price
i guess my question is, how do i add a invoice line item mid month
my understanding was invoice line items could be altered/edited during draft invoice time period
which is like the last 3 days of the month
marble tinsel
OK
fathom gale
You can do that at any time, it creates an Invoice Item that is then picked up by the next finalized Invoice
marble tinsel
so this is basically a one time charge
fathom gale
Yeah pretty much.
fathom gale
You can write a corresponding description to have the item represent the metered usage
marble tinsel
im sure its possible
yea
it just seems like price should be based on dates "active"
fathom gale
Why do you update from $0.02 to $0.03 for the same Product?
fathom gale
Yeah okay so this is more like a one-time migration then, yes?
marble tinsel
not really
this is like inflaiton hitting the book reading
it can happen 3x a year possibly
maybe tomorrow we need to charge .05 a page
fathom gale
Yeah I understand, but more inquiring whether it is a customer-driven update for some reason.
marble tinsel
no its not customer driven update
this is us saying you were paying .02 per book reading
now we are charging you more
fathom gale
Why not just charge them at time of update in that case?
Instead of keeping the billing period the same
Especially if you control this, you could just update at the end of the natural billing cycle
That would work too
marble tinsel
yea, it is a potential option
fathom gale
Doesn't really seem like there is much reason to update mid-cycle for something like this?
marble tinsel
we have no business reason to time it aligned with billing cycles
in that our CEO tomorrow can decide that starting monday prices change
but im sure if this is some limitation
we can say it is
it just seems weird, that a mid cycle price change is so hard to handle
i would think that the price for the first part of the cycle
would be based on your usage during that time period
fathom gale
It is because proration doesn't exist with metered billing
marble tinsel
and what the active subscription was
yea, but this is less about proration from a standard proations sense right
you already are doing some math
to come with the "next invoice will be this dollar amount"
you have that number from calculations being done in stripe
based on usage and current subscription
when that price is then changed you would think it would be able to collect that number, and say this is the number until this point
fathom gale
I hear you, but that just isn't how it works. I don't have the design docs in front of me but there are an extremely wide variety of use-cases here.
marble tinsel
oh i am certain there are wide use cases
this just seems like it is one thats missed
in that it doesnt seem all that complicated of a scenario
marble tinsel
un opinionated is great
fathom gale
But yes, does mean sometimes more handling on your end.
marble tinsel
yea, but then usually some options /flags to enable certain opinions
🙂
thats ok
I think i got what I needed from you today, ill start coding and see where I get
fathom gale
Yep, don't know the exact history here for the metered billing design
Sounds good
Best of luck, pop back in if we can help further
fathom gale
Haha sounds good