Tiered costs
When a price uses tiered pricing, ProTally lets you record a cost for each tier — so your profit stays accurate no matter how volume affects your costs.
When you'll use tiered costs
If a Stripe price uses a tiered billing scheme, the Add Cost form shows a tier table instead of a single unit-cost field. ProTally automatically reads the tier structure from your Stripe price, so the tiers you cost line up exactly with the tiers you charge.
Stripe supports two tier modes, and ProTally mirrors whichever your price uses:
- Graduated — units are charged (and costed) progressively across tiers, like tax bands. The first units fall in tier 1, the next in tier 2, and so on.
- Volume — the total quantity determines a single tier, and that tier's rate applies to all units.
The form labels which mode the price uses next to the Tiered Costs heading.
The tier table
Each row in the table represents one tier and shows:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| First unit | The first unit number covered by this tier (filled in for you). |
| Last unit | The last unit number in this tier — the final tier shows ∞ for unlimited. |
| Per unit | The cost you pay per unit in this tier. Enter it here. |
| Flat fee | A fixed cost that applies to this tier, regardless of quantity. Enter it here. |
For each tier you can set a per-unit cost, a flat fee, or both — matching however your real costs behave. You only need to fill in the tiers that actually have a cost; leave the rest blank.
At least one value required
ProTally needs at least one tier to have a per-unit or flat cost before it will save. Empty tiers are treated as zero cost.
A worked example
Suppose you sell API calls with graduated pricing and your supplier costs work the same way:
| Tier | First unit | Last unit | Per unit | Flat fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 1,000 | 0.002 | — |
| 2 | 1,001 | 10,000 | 0.0015 | — |
| 3 | 10,001 | ∞ | 0.001 | 50.00 |
A customer using 12,000 calls in a graduated scheme would be costed across all three tiers, and the £50 flat fee in tier 3 would apply once the customer reaches that tier. ProTally does this calculation for you whenever a matching payment completes.
Saving and history
Set a Start Date for when these tier costs take effect and click Save Cost. As with per-unit costs, tiered costs are versioned — see Cost history — so past sales remain costed against the tiers that were active at the time.
Where to go next
- Configuring product costs — the full cost workflow.
- Cost history — manage tiered costs over time.