B2B SaaS · Usage based
A billing config gap left usage overages uncharged.
This marketing & margin audit surfaced $70k in recurring annual margin in a B2B SaaS business, evidenced, senior reviewed, and delivered in 6 days.
The business
A usage based SaaS business charged customers for consumption above their plan limits, with overages calculated and billed automatically by its metering system. Because the billing ran automatically and revenue kept growing, the accuracy of the metering configuration was assumed rather than checked, and nobody reconciled billed usage against what customers were actually consuming.
What triggered the audit
Revenue per account looked lower than the consumption data suggested it should be, a gap that points at the billing layer rather than the product. The audit reconciled metered usage against what customers were actually invoiced, testing whether every unit of billable overage was genuinely being captured and charged.
What the audit found
The metering system was underbilling because of a configuration gap nobody had caught. A misconfigured usage rule meant a whole category of billable overage was being recorded for product analytics but never passed through to invoicing, so customers were consuming above their limits and simply not being charged for a portion of it. Because the billing ran automatically and total revenue kept rising, the shortfall was invisible. There was no error and no complaint, just quietly uncollected revenue on usage the customers themselves fully expected to pay for. The longer it ran, the more it compounded across a growing base. Reconciled against actual consumption, the uncaptured overage came to roughly $70k a year of revenue the company had genuinely earned but never billed.
What we changed
Fixed the metering configuration so every category of billable overage flows correctly from consumption through to the customer invoice, with nothing recorded for analytics but never charged.
Reconciled historical usage against billing to size the gap precisely and correct the underlying rule at its source rather than patching symptoms.
Introduced a monthly usage to billing reconciliation, so any future metering drift is caught within the period before it compounds across the base.
Added alerting on all billable usage categories, so a configuration change can never silently switch off revenue again.
The result
The outcomes were measured for three months after a 90 day implementation period. The published chart shows billable usage invoiced rising from 92% to 99%, a 7 percentage point increase. The annual figure describes earned usage that had gone unbilled; future capture after the configuration fix is a separate outcome. $70k a year of earned but unbilled revenue recovered, an annual figure equal to 12× the $5,950 Audit + Sprint fee, with no price change and no customer pushback, since it was usage they expected to pay for. For any usage based business, the risk is quiet: automatic billing looks healthy while a config gap leaks revenue with zero visible error. If you’ve never reconciled metered usage to invoices, you may be undercharging a growing base every month. A fixed fee audit reconciles it in days and closes the gap for good.
From kickoff to signed off findings: 6 days.
What the client said
$70k a year found in 6 days
Billable usage actually invoiced: 92% → 99%
“I expected a slide deck. Alex reconciled metered usage against invoices and found a whole category of overages recorded for analytics but never billed. A config fix, no price change, and customers expected to pay for it anyway.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off