Consumption of a billable service or resource (such as database storage space or bundles of emails sent) provides the basis for some charge models - simple usage, tiered pricing, or volume pricing. To make this work, usage must be tracked in the system and usage charges must be calculated and invoiced. Usage is always billed in arrears - for example, you might bill customers in February for their January usage. Usage can be billed on a recurring monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis.
Legacy Billing Usage APIs (for example, "Upload a usage file" and the "CRUD: Create/Update/Delete a usage record" operations) do not support usage records that are associated with a dynamic pricing usage charge. When a usage record is associated with a product rate plan charge that is configured for dynamic pricing, these endpoints reject the request and do not create, update, or delete the record. For dynamic pricing usage charges, usage events must be ingested through Mediation (for example, via Meters and the Rating processor) rather than through the legacy Billing usage upload APIs.
For more information about working with usage data, see Usage.