Usage

Usage types are categories of usage-based services, such as cell phone minute usage or email storage, you offer your customers via plans or subscriptions in your product catalog. Aria bills your customers in arrears for usage-based services based on their measured consumption, during a usage billing interval you specify during plan creation, of that service that you report via API calls.

Usage covers usage-based billing, i.e. services metered by consumption (call minutes, storage, etc.) rather than by a flat recurring fee. Aria bills these in arrears, over a usage billing interval set at plan creation, based on usage records the client reports via API. Usage is excluded from the first invoice by default. The basic concepts of each page are as follows:

• Usage Concepts: lays out foundational building blocks such as defining a usage type (the category a usage-based service belongs to), rating usage per-record vs. aggregated, setting a high-water mark (charge on peak incremental consumption rather than total), uploading bulk usage via CSV, discarding (not deleting) erroneous usage records for audit purposes, and including usage on a first invoice.
• Configure Usage: client-level settings governing unbilled usage such as setting an unbilled-usage threshold percentage, enabling management of unbilled balances, enabling the security module that controls user access to rated/unbilled usage, and managing unbilled balances via API.
• Usage Records Best Practices: recommended patterns for submitting and notifying on usage records, including notification best practices when new usage records post to an account.
• Usage Monitoring: tracking consumption against expectations after usage records are loaded, with associated best practices.
• Usage Pooling and Accumulation: Usage Pooling combines usage across multiple services within one plan instance to determine a shared billing rate. Usage Accumulation lets consumption roll up beyond a normal billing period to unlock lower per-unit rates at higher volume tiers.
• Usage Tier Multiplier: a pricing mechanism that scales rates by tier as usage volume increases.
• Usage Unit Thresholding: setting and subscribing to usage-based event thresholds (e.g. trigger a notification or action when a customer crosses a defined unit count). Thresholding is configurable via API.

Use Cases:

Consumption tracking → Usage Monitoring.

Uploading/reporting consumption data → Usage Concepts (bulk upload, per-record rating) or Configure_Usage (unbilled balance API).

Pricing/rate structure questions (discounts at volume, combined services, etc.) → Usage Pooling and Accumulation or Usage Tier Multiplier. 

Alerting on consumption crossing a limit → Usage Unit Thresholding.

Setting up a new billable usage-based service → Usage Concepts/Create a Usage Type.