How You Get Paid (and What You Pay For)

The word “billing” covers two completely separate money flows in Suger, and mixing them up is the most common source of confusion for new customers. This page explains both in plain language.

The two money flows

Flow A — marketplace revenue (the cloud pays you)

When a buyer purchases your product on a cloud marketplace, the cloud provider collects the payment, keeps its marketplace fee, and disburses the rest to you. Suger records the transaction so you can see and reconcile it, but the money moves from the cloud to your bank — not through Suger.

A key timing detail: revenue is recognized when the cloud disburses it, which can be a different period than when the sale closed.

→ Track this in Multi-Channel Revenue, and read Cloud Commits and Drawdown for how enterprise cloud commitments interact with marketplace purchases.

Flow B — AI-feature usage (you pay Suger)

If you use Suger’s AI features, that usage is metered per model and provider and billed to you on a monthly Stripe invoice — with monthly free credits applied automatically. A customer who doesn’t use AI features owes nothing here. This is money you pay to Suger, and it is entirely separate from the marketplace revenue above.

→ See Billing for how AI usage is metered, credited, and invoiced.

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