Simplify Events-Based Billing Product Catalog Management with the New API Capabilities

In 2020, we launched Events-Based Billing, an out-of-the-box rating engine that makes it easy to offer multi-attribute pricing like the industry titans (Think: AWS, Twilio, Datadog). Now, we’re excited to announce API enhancements that simplify product catalog management for Events-Based Billing models!

The API updates enable you to programmatically:

Create Events-Based components and price points
Assign a billable metric to a component (e.g. sum of emails sent)
Build your rating table with hundreds of rows using bulk segments (e.g. Data transferred from U.S. East to EU (London) using AWS is $30/GB)
Fetch hundreds of segments, filter results by up to 4 attribute values, and apply bulk edits for a given price point.
Delete a specified segment that is no longer needed or was created in error

This new capability enables you to quickly and easily implement multi-attribute, pay-as-you-go pricing models like the example below, resulting in lower customer acquisition costs and higher net dollar retention.

Cloud Data Storage - GB of Data Transferred

For more information on Events-Based Billing, head to our documentation here >

New feature: Chargify + Airbyte: Connect Your Data for Billing and Analytics

Over the past 2 years, we released Events-Based Billing, an out-of-the-box rating engine for multi-attribute pricing, and Business Intelligence, a custom analytics suite for Chargify and third-party data. These products empower our customers to price like the industry titans (Think: Snowflake, Twilio, Datadog) and make data-driven business decisions.

Now, we’re thrilled to announce that streaming data to Chargify from your product database and favorite SaaS applications just got a whole lot easier! Airbyte.io, a no-code data integration platform, offers hundreds of source connectors that allow you to quickly and easily sync your data to Chargify.

See this new capability in action by watching the 6-minute video below and learn how to easily deploy highly-tailored pricing models used by fast growing companies like Snowflake and AWS.

For more information on the Airbyte integration, head to our documentation here >

New Filter Options via API for Invoicing

Last month we released a new endpoint to send invoices via API to mimic the behavior of the "Send Invoice" button within the UI. This endpoint enables you to programmatically deliver ad-hoc invoices as well as the re-send of auto-generated invoices, thus giving you control of when to send out an invoice.

As we continue adding new API endpoints, we are excited to announce new filter options on exposed event types on an invoice. You can now filter for multiple event types on an invoice (e.g. issue_invoice, apply_credit_note, refund_invoice) using a comma separated list. Previously, you were able to filter by only 1 invoice event.

For more information, see our documentation here>

Backdating Issue Date on Ad-hoc Invoices

We understand that charges can occur outside of a normal billing cycle and therefore provide the functionality for you to send ad-hoc or one-time invoices. Many customers utilize ad-hoc invoices to sell services or items on a non-recurring basis to their customer base. We are excited to announce that our Product Team has made some exciting developments to these types of invoices! You can now backdate ad-hoc invoices using both the UI and API.

If performing this in the UI, you go under Subscriptions > Invoices > Create an Invoice. There is a new input field for Issue Date in the top right of the ad-hoc invoice within the UI. The issue date will be set by default to the current date. In order to back date the issue date, you will use the date selector functionality by clicking into the Issue Date input field.

Alternatively, you can also backdate the issue date via the API with the "Create an Invoice Endpoint". If no issue date parameter is passed, then the issue date will default to the current date. If you desire to back date, you can simply pass an issue_date parameter of any date in the past.

The primary use case for backdating ad-hoc invoices is when you experience a delay in issuing an ad-hoc invoice but would still like for the invoice to be due at the same time it would have been had there been no delay. As an example, one-off usage is incurred but not charged until 7 days later and you want the due_date to reflect your standard net terms of 15 days. In this case, you could back date the ad-hoc invoice to the day the usage was incurred and set the due_date to Day 15.

For more information on backdating the issue date on ad-hoc invoices, see our documentation here>

Importing of Cancelled Subscriptions

Having the continuity with your historical data for your customers in a single system makes your life easier by providing "the big picture" on your subscriber base. Because of this, we are excited to announce that we have hit another milestone on our product roadmap to import your historical data into Chargify.

You now have the ability to import cancelled subscriptions. Importing cancelled subscriptions can be done either through the UI with a CSV or via the API. Once imported, you will be able to see all of the historic cancelled subscriptions on the Subscriptions Page (Billing > Subscriptions).

For more information on the minimum requirements for creating cancelled subscriptions, see our documentation here>

For our API documentation on importing cancelled subscription, please click here>

Happy 1 Year Anniversary! Events-Based Billing at Chargify

It’s time to celebrate! Events-Based Billing was launched one year ago, and we are thrilled to see the value it is bringing many of our customers. Events-Based Billing is the future of usage-based and metered billing, allowing for the most complex SaaS billing models to take form.Since its initial launch, we have received lots of feedback and have made enhancements:

Introduced Multi-Attribute Rating
Invoice Template Updates

Multi-Attribute Rating allows you to dynamically create segments from your events and define targeted pricing for each segment. This enables increased price flexibility and invoice clarity, which in turn, prevents catalog bloat.

The invoice template was updated to clearly outline how your customers are charged for the value they receive. A new “Usage Details” section is included at the bottom of the invoice detailing both the amount consumed and unique price for each applied rate.

With Events-Based Billing, your customers see exactly what they’re being billed for, even in the most complex pricing scenarios. Your applications’ usage data is ingested by Chargify in real time, allowing you to offer the ultimate customer-centric billing model. To learn how to start using Events-Based Billing today, please contact Chargify Support or your Customer Success Manager.

For more information on Events-Based Billing, see our documentation here>

New Way to Stream Data into Chargify for Events-Based Billing

Event-driven architectures are crucial for enabling real-time, personalized product experiences and we believe they are the future of modern B2B SaaS applications. For organizations that are already events-based, we’ve introduced a simpler method to send data to Chargify via our Kafka Inbound Cluster. From there, you can use this data to build complex, value-based pricing models which charge your customers for exactly what they use—linking the value you provide to the invoice they receive.

For more information on streaming data from Kafka-based event pipelines to Chargify for Events-Based Billing, see our documentation here>

Multi-Attribute Pricing on Events-Based Billing

Charging based on value is something we believe strongly in and are excited to announce that you can get even more granular with how you price and bill based on events. Previously, it was possible to bill on events and then vary the price based on 2 additional pieces of data (or attributes). This has now been updated to 4.

For example, if you were billing based on messages sent through your platform, you could track "origin", "destination", "message type", and "data size" in addition to configuring different rates for every permutation of those attributes.

Try Events-Based Billing today and see for yourself the sophisticated granularity you can achieve with it. For more information on Events-Based Billing, see our documentation here>

Create One-Off Invoice via the API

We are excited to continually provide you new API endpoints that surface our core functionality outside of our UI, allowing for full flexibility of how you bill your customers. Our latest API endpoint is creating ad-hoc invoices for one-off services or products, separate from your recurring charges. With these one-off invoices you can directly feed in everything that will be charged including the price, description and item being sold and you can set these invoices to be paid either by remittance or automatic payment collections. They can have multiple line items, a custom memo, and all other basic attributes you get when you create the one-time invoice in the UI.

For more information on how to create a one-off invoice via the API, see our documentation here>

Subscription Migration Preview Available via the API

As customers upgrade or change their subscriptions with you, providing a preview of their updated charges is a great way to mitigate surprises and keep customers happy! Chargify's latest API enhancement enables you to do just that. The 'Preview Migration' API call allows you to pull the prorated new charge amount based on a specified date (within the current billing period). Simply pass in the future date and get the corresponding prorated adjustment, charge, payment and credit applied values.

For more information on product migrations via the API, see our API documentation here>

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