ISVs leverage cloud marketplaces (AWS, Azure, GCP) to reach a broader audience, with consumption-based pricing models, real-time data on customer usage is essential for accurate billing. However, manual billing processes and fragmented subscription management often hold teams back. 

At Suger, we solve this challenge with end-to-end automated usage metering—directly integrating Stripe with AWS, Azure, and GCP marketplaces to eliminate manual reconciliation and ensure accurate, real-time billing. Here’s how we empower enterprises to turn usage data into actionable insights—without the headaches.

Why Manual Usage Metering Fails?

For ISVs selling on AWS, Azure, or GCP, consumption-based pricing unlocks growth—but only if billing keeps pace. Without automation, ISVs face:

❌ Delayed & Inaccurate Billing

Usage fluctuates constantly for on-demand compute, storage, and SaaS services. Without automated syncing, discrepancies between Stripe billing records and cloud marketplace reports cause revenue delays and disputes.

❌ Manual Effort & Operational Overload

Engineers spend 15+ hours per week manually mapping Stripe usage records to cloud marketplace dimensions (e.g., converting “API Calls” to AWS’s APIGW-RequestUnits).

❌ Subscription & Entitlement Mapping Complexity

Each system uses different metering dimensions, requiring ISVs to export usage logs, manually map them to AWS/Azure/GCP metering units (e.g., vCPU-hours), and generate invoices—wasting hundreds of hours annually.

❌ Buyer Distrust Due to Billing Errors

Inconsistent invoices lead to billing disputes and customer frustration. Buyers lose trust in a vendor after just one billing error.

Suger-Stripe Integration: Turn Usage Data into Revenue, Automatically

Many ISVs already use Stripe Subscriptions for billing but struggle to maintain accurate usage-based records across multiple marketplaces. Suger solves this by automating the entire lifecycle:

Buyer Signup → Subscription Activation → Usage Collection → Billing Sync → Revenue Reporting

1. Seamless Buyer Onboarding and Activate PLG

• Dedicated Signup Pages: Suger provides each ISV with a unique self-service sign-up flow, embedding cloud billing from the moment a buyer arrives.
• Automated Stripe Subscriptions: When a buyer discovers your solution on AWS, Azure, or GCP, Suger creates a Stripe customer and subscription, populating metadata (like Domain ID) for straightforward Stripe-to-marketplace mapping.

2. Automated Marketplace Sync – Reduce 90% of Billing Work

To streamline subscription and entitlement management, Suger provides a workflow that automatically syncs Stripe subscription data to the Suger Console, eliminating manual data reconciliation and ensuring real-time updates.

• Hourly Sync from Stripe → AWS, Azure, GCP – No CSV uploads or manual intervention required.
• Entitlement Auto-Updates – Suger automatically updates entitlements and subscription states, keeping Stripe and cloud marketplace records in sync.

3. Real-Time Usage Tracking & Key Metrics Reporting

• Incremental Usage Reporting: ISVs send data (e.g., VM uptime, storage consumed) to Stripe on an hourly basis (or preferred interval).
• Automated Dimension Mapping: Suger instantly converts Stripe usage records (e.g., product_id=XYZ) to marketplace billing dimensions (e.g., “AWS vCPU-Hours”), guaranteeing accurate cloud billing.

How It Works: Quick Setup in Suger Console

Implementing automated usage-based billing with Suger is straightforward:

• Within the Suger Console, integrate your Stripe account.
• Enable Auto Report Usage and set Billing Mode to a quantity-based model.

• Map Source Dimensions (Stripe Product IDs) to Target Dimensions (AWS, Azure, or GCP units).
• No custom scripts required—just a few clicks in the console.

• Suger starts pulling usage records from Stripe at your chosen interval and pushes the data to each marketplace.
• For more details, see Suger’s Usage Metering Guide.

4. Enhanced Workflow Automation

Once Stripe is integrated with Suger, you can automate workflows to streamline operations. For example, you can trigger a workflow to automatically create a new subscription in the Stripe account after receiving a marketplace subscription notification, reducing duplicate manual work and ensuring accuracy.

Customer Success: From Chaos to Clarity

Challenge: 

A leading provider of virtualized mobile device relied on Stripe Subscription for billing but struggled with usage metering automation across AWS, Azure, and GCP marketplaces.

🚨 300% usage spikes caused manual reconciliation failures between Stripe and AWS.

🚨 15% of monthly invoices were delayed due to billing discrepancies.

Suger Solution:

By integrating with Suger, the company:

✅ Automated hourly usage sync from Stripe to AWS Marketplace.

✅ Enabled real-time entitlement mapping for seamless subscription tracking.

✅ Eliminated manual reconciliation, cutting operational costs.

Results: 

📉 35% cost reduction during low-usage periods.

✅ 100% billing accuracy despite 10x usage fluctuations.

🔄 100% automated usage tracking.

⏳ Finance team cut invoice processing time from 2 weeks to 2 hours.

Ready to Streamline Your Cloud Marketplace Billing?

By automating usage-based billing with Suger, ISVs slash operational overhead, minimize billing disputes, and provide a more transparent experience for buyers—no more manual CSVs or confusing invoices.

Want to learn more or get started? Check out Suger Usage Metering Guide or Contact us to see how easy it is to automate your Stripe-to-cloud marketplace metering.