#dailyphil - metered billing
warped minnow
Good question, let me look in to this. I think there is a way to configure that otherwise
prisma heron
Thank you!
warped minnow
Have you tried doing this with graduated pricing?
Dashboard let me create that price. Happy to figure out how to do that via the API if you want to create it there
prisma heron
I need volume for all subsequent tiers though
I literally just need the standard volume tier pricing but with a 10k "free trial"
hybrid fulcrum
👋 Just hopping in since @warped minnow needs to head out soon
Just to make sure I have a firm handle on your ask, can you clarify the following:
So from my understnading you want to create a metered billing subscription and be able to offer the first 10k units free. When they hit 10,0001 units do you want to:
- charge them for all 10,0001 units
- or charge them for the 1 unit that has come after the 10,000 free units.
prisma heron
#2, but with more than 2 tiers of course
I can zero rate the first tier (ending at 10k) but of course 10001 means they would be charged the tier 2 rate for all 10001
if it were only 2 tiers graduated would make sense, but it's many more than that. I suppose I could price the graduated tiers such that the rates would come out the same as a volume strategy but that seems sort of hacky
hybrid fulcrum
From what you're describing you want volume-based tiers, right? We also offer that, and go into a bit more detail in our docs: https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/examples#volume-based-pricing
prisma heron
Yeah I've read the docs many times. I'm just asking if the only way to effectively zero rate the first tier and use volume tiers would be via a per-tier discount code
(since the discount rate for the 10k would change as the volume tier rate changes)
hybrid fulcrum
Ahhhhh I see what you're saying- it finally clicked. The issue with the volume-based tiers is that as soon as you hit 10,001 units of usage it's categorize that into a higher tier and charge all that usage at that tier's pricing
prisma heron
yeah exactly! what would also work is allowing the first tier to start at something other than 0
sort of like how you do threshold invoices but instead of generating an invoice at the threshold starting to charge at the threshold
I could certainly work around this on the application side and only report usage past 10k, but there are some advantages to having "true" usage data in Stripe
hybrid fulcrum
Yeah I was just about to suggest that - the simplest solution would be for you to keep track of usage up to 10k, and only report any usage past that threshold. Another alternative would be for you to create two prices:
- One $0 price that you'd only report usage to up to 10,000
- A second price that you report usage to after the 10,000
prisma heron
ok yeah that makes sense, would the "dynamic discounting" work too? I'd prefer not to have to have two sets of prices for ever "set" of prices
it will also complicate things when usage crosses that 10k boundary in a single "report"
hybrid fulcrum
What do you mean by dynamic discounting? As far as I know there isn't really a way to specify a coupon based on usage - it would have to be based on an actual price amount (or percentage)
prisma heron
well I since I know the rate per tier I could just create a coupon that is effectively tier_rate*10k and dynamically apply that when the invoice is created, right?
the coupons could be created ahead of time
that has the added benefit of showing the customer they are getting the 10k units for free on the invoice
hybrid fulcrum
Got it! Yes, that approach would work where you check each Invoice draft for the tier that was used and then apply the appropriate coupon base on the tier.
prisma heron
ok thank you for letting me talk that through!
hybrid fulcrum
👍 happy to help!
prisma heron
have a great weekend!