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Build your first usage-based pricing model in Orb. This quickstart walks through event ingestion, metric definition, pricing configuration, and invoice generation—showing how Orb’s query-based architecture supports flexible, auditable billing.

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What you’ll build

A complete usage-based billing workflow:
  • Ingest raw usage events (API calls, compute hours, or any measurable activity from your product)
  • Define a billable metric as a query over your events
  • Configure pricing using the metric (per-unit, tiered, or volume-based)
  • Create a customer subscription linking them to your pricing
  • Generate an invoice calculated from actual usage

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Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have:
  • Orb account — Test mode recommended for this quickstart. Sign up if you don’t have an account.
  • API token — Generate from Connections → API tokens. Required for API requests.
  • Your usage data schema — Understand what events you’ll send and what properties they’ll include.
  • 30 minutes — Estimated time to complete all steps.

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The implementation path

This quickstart follows the natural data flow in Orb’s query-based architecture:

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1. Ingest events

Send raw usage data to Orb. Events are stored immutably as the foundation for all billing calculations.

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2. Create metrics

Define billable metrics as queries over your events. See how metrics can be changed without re-ingesting data.

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3. Configure pricing

Build your pricing model using metrics—per-unit rates, volume tiers, or custom structures.

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4. Create subscriptions

Link a customer to your pricing. Orb begins tracking usage and calculating charges in real-time.

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5. Set up invoicing

Generate your first invoice from actual usage. Understand how invoices are deterministic queries, not side effects.

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6. (Optional) Explore simulations

Run “what-if” scenarios to test pricing changes against historical usage before deploying them.

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What you’ll learn

  • Why sending raw events once lets you change billing metrics anytime without re-instrumentation
  • How to test pricing changes against real usage data before deploying them to customers
  • Why late-arriving data and backfills work without manual reconciliation or invoice corrections
  • How to trace every invoice charge back to its source events for complete audit trails
  • The foundation for Revenue Design workflows that eliminate cross-functional coordination

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Success criteria

By the end of this quickstart, you’ll have:
  • Events flowing into Orb via API
  • A billable metric calculating in real-time
  • A pricing plan using your metric
  • A customer subscription tracking usage
  • An invoice generated from actual usage data
  • Understanding of how query-based architecture supports this workflow

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Ready to start?

Begin with event ingestion: Ingest events →
Use test mode for this quickstart. Test mode is completely isolated from production and safe for experimentation. You can always promote configurations to live mode later.