In today’s fast-paced software economy, product development no longer ends at feature delivery—it now extends into how those features are packaged, priced, and monetized. 66% of developers report spending significant time managing billing logic, pricing models, and payment integration—a staggering stat that signals just how deeply monetization has become embedded into the development lifecycle.
In this episode of AppDevANGLE, I spoke with Cosmo Wolfe, Head of Technology at Metronome, to unpack how modern SaaS teams are adapting to this shift—and why billing is no longer just a finance problem. From usage-based pricing to FinDevOps, this conversation underscores how billing strategy is now an engineering challenge, a product decision, and a competitive differentiator.
Monetization is Product Strategy
The rise of usage-based models—championed by companies like Snowflake, Stripe, and OpenAI—is reshaping expectations. These models are more dynamic, more granular, and ultimately more complex than traditional seat-based or flat-rate pricing. But they’re also better aligned with the way customers want to buy: pay-as-you-go, driven by outcomes or usage.
“The business model is now part of the product,” Cosmo said. “And developers are on the front lines of implementing it.”
With zero-interest capital in the rearview, companies are under more pressure than ever to align value delivery with revenue. That means pricing must be flexible, experimental, and responsive to customer behavior—something legacy billing systems weren’t built for.
Real-Time Billing Requires Real-Time Infrastructure
Traditional billing systems operated on a monthly cadence. But in a usage-based world, that no longer works. Customers expect to see what they’re spending as they spend it, with real-time dashboards, usage alerts, and clear SKU-level granularity.
“If you delay visibility, it’s a customer support issue. If you over-bill, it’s a retention issue. And if you under-bill, it’s a revenue leak,” Cosmo explained.
That burden now falls on engineering. From real-time metering to usage analytics and spend controls, developers must build infrastructure that’s accurate, scalable, and integrated into product workflows. According to our research, developers and SREs are increasingly responsible for FinOps-like decisions, especially in early-stage or product-led growth companies.
Data as a Strategic Asset
Usage data isn’t just for billing—it’s strategic input for product and growth teams. Feature adoption, upsell potential, and pricing tier optimization all stem from understanding how users interact with your software. But too often, the telemetry needed to power these insights is locked behind brittle systems or retroactive spreadsheets.
“Every company is becoming a data company whether they like it or not,” Cosmo said. “You need granular usage analytics not just to bill—but to compete.”
With AI-infused products on the rise, usage variability is growing rapidly, breaking brittle billing models and creating demand for flexible, usage-aware architectures. Product managers need to be able to experiment with pricing just like they do with features—and without asking engineering to rebuild billing every time.
Treat Billing as a Growth Lever—Not a Roadblock
The bottom line? Pricing and packaging must be fluid, not fixed. Teams that treat billing as an immutable system risk slowing down innovation and sales momentum.
“If your pricing assumptions are hardcoded into your infrastructure, you’ve created a drag on growth,” Cosmo warned. “Billing needs to be a lever, not a limiter.”
Forward-looking teams are turning to platforms like Metronome to abstract billing complexity, streamline integration, and enable iterative monetization strategies. Whether through custom pricing engines, real-time metering, or usage-based experimentation, the shift is clear: pricing is now a feature—and one that spans engineering, product, and go-to-market.
As software products become more intelligent, interconnected, and usage-driven, monetization infrastructure must evolve in lockstep. Developers can no longer afford to treat billing as an afterthought. It’s now central to how applications are designed, shipped, and scaled.
For more on how Metronome is enabling this transformation, visit metronome.com. And for continued coverage of the tools, trends, and teams shaping application development, stay with us at theCUBE Research.
Modern app dev isn’t just about code. It’s about commerce. And the best teams are building both in parallel.
