## Overview

The platform measures the account's **monthly consumption** across five metrics: messages,
conversations, contacts, AI requests and AI tokens. Totals are available to the account, to the
operator and via API — the foundation for consumption-based plans and limit alerts.

## Prerequisites

- Metering enabled on the account by the operator (usage metering capability).
- Monthly limits are optional and defined by the operator per account.

## Step by step

1. **In the account**: follow the month's totals and recent history in the account usage area.
2. **As operator**: check any account's consumption in the admin console or via the platform API
   (`GET /platform/api/v1/accounts/{id}/usage`).
3. **Limits**: the operator sets monthly ceilings per metric (e.g. messages per month) on the
   account's limits.

## Settings & options

- **Metrics**: `messages`, `conversations`, `contacts`, `ai_requests`, `ai_tokens` — aggregated per
  calendar month.
- **Monthly limits**: configured per metric (`<metric>_monthly`). Without a limit, metering only
  accumulates.
- **Alerts**: crossing **80%** and **100%** of a limit sends an installation webhook event — once
  per metric, per month.

## Use cases

- Sell plans with a monthly message allowance and get an automatic alert at the ceiling.
- Track AI cost per account before defining consumption-based pricing.

## Tips, limits & best practices

- Metering is fail-safe: it never blocks the message flow — even if the counter storage fails,
  support keeps working.
- The 80%/100% alerts are informational: this version has no automatic consumption blocking.
- No retroactive counting: measurement starts when metering is enabled.

## Troubleshooting

- **Usage doesn't show in the account**: the metering capability is off for the account.
- **Alert didn't arrive**: confirm the installation events webhook URL and that the metric's
  monthly limit is configured.

## See also

- Maestro & AI: configuration and integration health
- AI tokens per account (BYOK)
- Super Admin: accounts, plans and license