Volume

Concepts

What volume pricing is

Volume pricing is a pricing model where one single rate applies to all units, determined by which bracket the total quantity falls into. The total quantity picks a bracket, and every unit, including the very first one, is charged at that bracket’s rate.

VOLUME PRICING:
  Customer uses 150 units
  Brackets: [100, 200, inf] @ [$3, $2.50, $2]
  → 150 falls in bracket 2
  → all 150 × $2.50 = $375

TIERED PRICING (same brackets):
  → first 100 × $3 = $300
  → next 50 × $2.50 = $125
  → total = $425

This is fundamentally different from tiered pricing, where each portion of usage gets its own rate. Volume pricing creates a price cliff at bracket boundaries: buying one more unit can dramatically reduce total cost (for example, 99 units at

5 each is

495, while 100 units at

4 each is

400). This incentivizes customers to commit to higher volumes.

Aspect	Volume pricing	Tiered pricing
Rate determination	Total quantity picks one rate for all units	Each portion gets its own rate
Price cliff at boundaries?	Yes, crossing a boundary changes the rate for every unit	No, smooth progression
Invoice display	Single line item (one rate)	Multiple line items (one per tier)
Best for	Bulk discounts, committed volume deals	Progressive rates, usage-based incentives

Brackets can run in two directions: descending prices (standard: higher volume means a lower per-unit price) or ascending prices (overage or penalty pricing: higher volume means a higher per-unit price).

Tier boundaries: inclusive and exclusive

Every bracket boundary in volume pricing is set to be either inclusive or exclusive, and this choice decides which side of the line a boundary value falls on. This toggle is specific to volume pricing; tiered pricing always treats boundaries as inclusive (see tiered: tier boundaries).

Inclusive (default): the tier boundary includes the value, shown as ≤ in the UI. A boundary of 100 means usage up to and including 100 belongs to that bracket.
Exclusive: the tier boundary excludes the value, shown as < in the UI. A boundary of 100 means usage up to but not including 100 belongs to that bracket; 100 itself falls into the next bracket.

Setting	Boundary = 100	Meaning
Inclusive (default)	100 is in bracket 1	Bracket 1: 0-100, bracket 2: 101-200
Exclusive	100 is in bracket 2	Bracket 1: 0-99, bracket 2: 100-200

How accumulation differs by product type

Point in time (PIT) and period of time (POT) products both support volume pricing, but “quantity” means something different for each, so accumulation and bracket changes behave differently.

Aspect	PIT volume	POT volume
Quantity nature	Cumulative consumption	Current snapshot
Price expression	Per unit	Per unit per pricing period
Tier reset period	Required config for cross-period accumulation	Not applicable
Bracket change trigger	Cumulative usage crossing a boundary	An amendment (adding or removing units) crossing a boundary
Retroactive reconciliation	Yes, when tier reset exceeds billing period	Not applicable, amendments use a forward split instead

For PIT products, usage can accumulate across billing periods within a tier reset window. The tier reset period controls how long cumulative usage builds up before resetting back to zero, and it always anchors to the product’s anchor date.

Scenario	Behavior	Retroactive reconciliation?
Tier reset = billing period (both monthly)	Each billing period is independent	No
Tier reset > billing period (annual reset, monthly billing)	Usage accumulates across billing periods; the bracket may change as cumulative usage grows	Yes
Tier reset < billing period (weekly reset, monthly billing)	Each reset period is shown as a separate calculation on the invoice	No

When tier reset is longer than the billing period and cumulative usage crosses a bracket boundary in a later period, prior periods are reconciled: because volume pricing promises all units get the same rate, once cumulative usage settles into a new bracket, previously billed units are reconciled against that bracket’s rate as part of the automatic calculation for the current tier reset window. This happens automatically and can’t be turned off for PIT volume pricing. Which direction the correction runs, and how it reaches the customer, depends on whether the brackets are descending or ascending. Descending brackets: a correction that lowers what’s owed An API-access product billed monthly, with volume brackets that reset annually: 0 to 1,000,000 cumulative calls at

0.004/call, 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 at

0.003/call, 5,000,000+ at $0.002/call.

January: 600,000 calls. Cumulative: 600,000 → bracket 1 → invoice: 600,000 × $0.004 = $2,400.00

February: 700,000 calls. Cumulative: 1,300,000 → crosses into bracket 2 ($0.003/call).
  January's 600,000 calls are reconciled at $0.003: 600,000 × $0.003 = $1,800.00
    (originally billed $2,400.00, a $600.00 correction in the customer's favor)
  February's own 700,000 calls: 700,000 × $0.003 = $2,100.00

Running total: $1,800.00 + $2,100.00 = $3,900.00 → matches 1,300,000 × $0.003 ✓

Ascending brackets: a correction that raises what’s owed A data-transfer product with overage pricing, billed monthly, brackets resetting annually: 0 to 500 GB at

0.10/GB, 500 to 2,000 GB at

0.15/GB, 2,000 GB+ at $0.25/GB.

January: 300 GB. Cumulative: 300 GB → bracket 1 → invoice: 300 × $0.10 = $30.00

February: 250 GB. Cumulative: 550 GB → crosses into bracket 2 ($0.15/GB).
  January's 300 GB are reconciled at $0.15: 300 × $0.15 = $45.00
    (originally billed $30.00, a $15.00 correction owed by the customer)
  February's own 250 GB: 250 × $0.15 = $37.50

Running total: $45.00 + $37.50 = $82.50 → matches 550 × $0.15 ✓

How the correction is delivered A correction never changes an invoice that’s already been issued. Instead, it’s delivered separately, and how depends on its direction:

Direction	What happens
Correction raises what’s owed (ascending brackets)	By default, a separate invoice, dated back to the original period, is raised for just the increase. A contract can instead be set up to add the increase to the customer’s next regular invoice rather than raising a separate one
Correction lowers what’s owed (descending brackets)	The reduction is carried forward and offsets the customer’s upcoming invoices, appearing as smaller future invoices rather than a separate document

Corrections that lower what’s owed are always delivered by offsetting future invoices. Delivering that kind of correction as a standalone credit note isn’t supported yet.

For POT products, quantity is a snapshot rather than an accumulating total, so there’s no accumulation to reset in the first place: a tier reset period isn’t a concept that applies here. Quantity changes through amendments rather than usage events, and each amendment is billed from a fresh snapshot: if quantity changes three times within a billing period, that’s three segments, each priced independently, shown as three line items on the invoice. When an amendment crosses a bracket boundary mid-period, POT performs a forward split rather than a retroactive correction: the period before the amendment stays at the old bracket rate for its remaining days, and the period after the amendment is charged at the new bracket rate for all units, old and new combined. The pre-amendment portion is never retroactively repriced.

Proration

Proration works differently depending on whether the product is PIT or POT, and which axis it applies to.

Scenario	What’s prorated	Bracket based on
POT: mid-period start or end	Per-unit price (by days), then × quantity	Full quantity, not prorated
POT: mid-period amendment	Per-unit price per segment (by days), then × segment quantity	The segment’s quantity
PIT: prepaid, fixed quantity, mid-period start	The quantity grant itself (by days)	The prorated quantity
PIT: postpaid, metered, mid-period start	Nothing, actual usage is used	Actual usage

For POT, the bracket is always determined by the full, un-prorated quantity: it’s the per-unit price that gets scaled down for a partial period, not the quantity used to pick the bracket. For PIT, it’s the reverse in the prepaid case: the quantity grant itself shrinks for a partial period (or is charged in full, if partial period handling is set to full rather than the default prorate), and that quantity is what determines the bracket.

How it interacts with other pricing features

Volume pricing can be combined with other features, and the order they’re applied in matters. Raw usage is first floored by any minimum quantity commitment, then reduced by any quantity discount, and only that effective quantity is used to find the bracket and calculate the amount. Retroactive reconciliation (PIT only) is applied next, followed by any minimum spend commitment, and finally any percentage or fixed discount. A quantity discount applied before bracket determination can shift which bracket the customer lands in, sometimes into a higher rate, which is correct behavior but can be surprising to a customer reading their invoice. A minimum quantity commitment, if usage falls short of it, sets the floor used for both the bracket lookup and the billing calculation, not just the final amount. The full calculation stack is laid out step by step in the reference section below.

How-to guides

How to configure volume pricing for a metered PIT product

Open the price editor and set the pricing model to Volume, with currency set to the currency you’re billing in.
Set the Tier boundary to Inclusive or Exclusive. Inclusive is the default, and means a boundary of 100 belongs to the bracket below it.
Add tiers as a list of upper bounds and rates, for example 0 up to 100 at $3.00, 100 up to 200 at$ 2.50, and 200 and above at $2.00.
Set the Tier Reset Period, for example Monthly to match the billing period. This is the simplest configuration: each billing period starts its cumulative count from zero, so no reconciliation against a prior period is possible.
Leave Usage is metered checked and select the usage aggregate that supplies the quantity.
Save. A customer using 150 units in a month falls entirely into bracket 2, and is billed 150 × $2.50 =$ 375 for the month, in a single line item.

If you instead set the tier reset period to a window longer than the billing period, for example annual with monthly billing, cumulative usage carries over from one billing period to the next, and a bracket change partway through the year is reconciled automatically against what was already invoiced in that tier reset window.

How to configure volume pricing for a seat-based POT product

Open the price editor and set the pricing model to Volume, with currency set to the currency you’re billing in.
Set the Tier boundary to Inclusive or Exclusive.
Add tiers, for example 0 up to 10 seats at $25.00, 10 up to 50 at$ 20.00, and 50 and above at $15.00.
Set the Pricing Period the volume rate applies over, for example Monthly. There’s no tier reset period to set: quantity is a snapshot recalculated on each amendment, not an accumulating total.
Leave Usage is metered unchecked if quantity is a fixed count you set directly rather than derived from usage events.
Save. A customer starting the month with 30 seats lands in bracket 2 at $20 per seat. If the customer amends the contract mid-period to cross into a higher bracket, that segment closes and a new one opens at the new bracket’s rate for all units, a forward split rather than a retroactive correction.

How to change tier boundaries or rates on an existing price

A pricing preset can’t be edited or removed once created, only added to. To change the bracket structure, the inclusive/exclusive setting, or any tier’s rate:

Create a new pricing preset on the product with the updated tiers or boundary setting.
Mark the new preset as default if it should apply to new contracts going forward, or select it explicitly on the contracts that should use it.
Contracts already referencing the previous preset keep billing against the tiers they were set up with.

How to reason about a quantity discount shifting the bracket

Before saving a quantity discount alongside volume pricing, check the resulting adjusted quantity against the tier boundaries.
Run the numbers both with and without the discount to confirm the resulting bracket and total. A quantity discount can push a customer into a lower bracket with a higher rate, increasing the invoice relative to the undiscounted quantity, even though fewer units are being billed.
If that outcome isn’t intended, consider tiered pricing instead, where a quantity discount never produces a higher total than the undiscounted quantity would.

How to read the volume calculation on an invoice

Open the invoice and find the product’s line item. Volume pricing produces a single line item at one rate, unlike tiered pricing’s multiple lines.
For a PIT product with a tier reset period longer than the billing period, compare the cumulative quantity for the tier reset window against the tier boundaries to see which bracket applies, and check whether the amount reflects a reconciliation against a bracket change earlier in that window.
For a POT product, each amendment within the period produces its own line item at its own bracket’s rate.

Reference

Bracket configuration

Tiers are configured as an ordered list, each entry specifying the upper bound of that tier (up_to) and the rate applied to all units when the total quantity falls into it (unit_amount). The last tier’s up_to is unbounded (inf). Validation rules

Rule	Valid example	Invalid example
Last tier must be unbounded	`up_to: inf` on the last tier	Last tier has a finite `up_to`
At least 2 tiers	2 or more tiers	A single tier (use per-unit pricing instead)
`up_to` strictly ascending, no duplicates	`100, 200, inf`	`200, 100, inf` or `100, 100, inf`
`unit_amount` non-negative	`$0.10`, `$0` (a valid free tier)	`-$0.05`

Input format: brackets are defined by end-point boundaries; each value is the upper limit of a bracket, and the last bracket must be unbounded.

INPUT:
  tiers: [
    { up_to: 100,   unit_amount: 3.00 },
    { up_to: 200,   unit_amount: 2.50 },
    { up_to: "inf", unit_amount: 2.00 }
  ]

INTERPRETED AS (inclusive boundaries):
  Bracket 1:  0 to 100    @ $3.00/unit
  Bracket 2:  101 to 200  @ $2.50/unit
  Bracket 3:  201+        @ $2.00/unit

Optional configuration

Field	Description	Default
Tier boundary	Inclusive or exclusive, see tier boundaries	Inclusive
Tier reset period	When cumulative usage resets. PIT only, not applicable to POT	Billing period
Billing offset	Prepaid or postpaid	System default
Usage aggregate	Links metered quantity to the volume bracket	Default per pricing model

Invoice breakdown granularity (how usage within a period is grouped for display) is configured separately from the pricing model itself and doesn’t change the calculation, only how it’s presented.

Order of operations (full calculation stack)

Raw usage, quantity from aggregate or fixed input
Minimum quantity commitment (if configured): effective quantity = max(raw usage, minimum quantity)
Quantity discount (if configured): adjusted quantity = effective quantity − quantity discount
Bracket lookup: adjusted quantity determines the single rate applied to all units
Retroactive reconciliation (PIT only, when tier reset > billing period): prior periods in the same tier reset window are reconciled if the bracket changed
Minimum spend commitment (if configured): amount = max(volume amount, minimum spend)
Percentage / fixed discount (if configured):
   fixed: amount − discount (floored at $0)
   percentage: amount × (1 − discount%)
Final product total, ready for invoice

Glossary

Term	Definition
Bracket (tier)	A range within which a specific rate applies; in volume pricing, all units get the bracket’s rate
Tier reset period	The window over which PIT cumulative usage accumulates before resetting. Not applicable to POT, whose quantity is a snapshot recalculated at each amendment rather than an accumulating count
Pricing period	For a POT price, the recurring window (for example, monthly) the volume rate is expressed over
Retroactive reconciliation	Automatic correction of prior billing periods when a bracket changes within a tier reset window (PIT only, when tier reset > billing period)
Forward split	POT behavior where an amendment creates two segments: pre-amendment at the old rate, post-amendment at the new rate, with no repricing of the prior segment
Price cliff	The phenomenon where crossing a bracket boundary causes a large change in total cost

Getting started

Product modules

Security

Model context protocol (MCP)

Pricing models

Third-party integrations

Roadmap

Concepts

What volume pricing is

Tier boundaries: inclusive and exclusive

How accumulation differs by product type

Proration

How it interacts with other pricing features

How-to guides

How to configure volume pricing for a metered PIT product

How to configure volume pricing for a seat-based POT product

How to change tier boundaries or rates on an existing price

How to reason about a quantity discount shifting the bracket

How to read the volume calculation on an invoice

Reference

Bracket configuration

Order of operations (full calculation stack)

Glossary

​Concepts

​What volume pricing is

​Tier boundaries: inclusive and exclusive

​How accumulation differs by product type

​Proration

​How it interacts with other pricing features

​How-to guides

​How to configure volume pricing for a metered PIT product

​How to configure volume pricing for a seat-based POT product

​How to change tier boundaries or rates on an existing price

​How to reason about a quantity discount shifting the bracket

​How to read the volume calculation on an invoice

​Reference

​Bracket configuration

​Order of operations (full calculation stack)

​Glossary

Concepts

What volume pricing is

Tier boundaries: inclusive and exclusive

How accumulation differs by product type

Proration

How it interacts with other pricing features

How-to guides

How to configure volume pricing for a metered PIT product

How to configure volume pricing for a seat-based POT product

How to change tier boundaries or rates on an existing price

How to reason about a quantity discount shifting the bracket

How to read the volume calculation on an invoice

Reference

Bracket configuration

Order of operations (full calculation stack)

Glossary