# 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

```d2
direction: right
flowA: "Flow A — marketplace revenue (money paid TO you)" {
  buyer: "Your buyer"
  cloud: "Cloud marketplace\nAWS / Azure / GCP"
  you: "You / your bank"
  suger1: Suger
  buyer -> cloud: pays
  cloud -> you: "disburses, minus marketplace fee"
  cloud -> suger1: "records the transaction" { style.stroke-dash: 4 }
}
flowB: "Flow B — AI-feature usage (money you pay Suger)" {
  you2: You
  suger2: "Suger AI"
  stripe: "Stripe invoice\nfree credits applied"
  you2 -> suger2: "use AI features"
  suger2 -> stripe: "metered per model, monthly invoice"
}
```

## 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 — **cash timing is not accounting timing.** Your proceeds become payable when the cloud
provider collects the buyer's payment and disburses them to you, which can fall in a different period than
when the sale closed. When you *recognize* that revenue in your books is a separate question, answered by
your contract and by when you satisfy your performance obligations — not by the disbursement date. Suger
reports the cash stages separately so you can reconcile them against your own revenue-recognition schedule:
**Bookings → Billings → Cash Collected → Disbursed**. See
[Key Terms](/get-started/glossary/#selling-and-billing) for the definitions and the
[revenue lifecycle stage cards](/revenue/overview/#revenue-lifecycle-stage-cards) for where they appear in
the product.

→ Track this in [Multi-Channel Revenue](/revenue/), and read
[Cloud Commits and Drawdown](/get-started/commit-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 — model tokens, sandbox runtime and stored
files — priced by Suger, and taken off a credit balance, with **$100 of free credit each month** 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](/insulin/billing/) for how AI usage is metered, credited, and charged.

---

## Quick comparison

| | Flow A — Marketplace revenue | Flow B — AI-feature usage |
|---|---|---|
| **Who pays whom** | Cloud marketplace pays **you** | **You** pay Suger |
| **What it's for** | Your customers' purchases of your product | Your usage of Suger's AI features |
| **How it's collected** | Cloud disburses to your bank | Taken off a credit balance; invoiced to the payment method on file |
| **Where to look** | [Multi-Channel Revenue](/revenue/) | [Billing](/insulin/billing/) |