What It Is
Billable items are the products and services you charge for in Edge. Every invoice line item, subscription plan entry, and trigger charge references a billable item. Define a product or service once — name, price, currency, tax settings — and reuse it everywhere.
There are three billing types:
One-off items are single charges added to invoices. Create the item, add it to an invoice as a line item, and you are done.
Recurring items are included in subscription plans with billing intervals. The plan defines when the customer is billed; the item defines what they pay for.
Trigger items are condition-driven charges — and this is where it gets interesting. When you select trigger as the billing type, the form transforms to show additional fields: trigger mode (how the condition and amount work), capture mode (charge immediately or send invoice), condition operator, threshold, and more. The trigger billable item IS the trigger definition. Every field you configure on it becomes a billing rule that Edge enforces automatically.
Why It Matters
Billable items are your pricing catalog. By defining items once, you reuse them across all billing modes without re-entering prices or descriptions each time. This keeps pricing consistent — the same item at the same price whether it appears on an invoice, in a subscription, or as a trigger charge.
For trigger items specifically, the billable item defines your entire billing rule: when to charge, how much, whether to charge automatically or wait for client approval, and what limits apply. Your billing logic lives in your billing system, not scattered across application code.
How It Works
Each billing type uses items differently.
One-off items are added as line items to invoices. Select the item, set the quantity, and the name and price populate from the catalog. The invoice total is calculated from all line items.
Recurring items are added to subscription plans. The plan defines the billing interval (weekly, monthly, or yearly), and the items define what the subscriber pays for. Multiple recurring items can be grouped into a single plan.
Trigger items define condition-driven charges. They specify the trigger mode (`fixed`, `variable`, `event`, or `threshold`), capture mode (`off_session` or `client_confirm`), condition (`lte`, `gte`, or `eq`), threshold value, whether amount overrides are allowed, and the maximum capture amount.
When you save a trigger item, an API Sample panel appears showing the exact API call to fire that trigger, with the `billable_item_id` pre-filled. This panel includes the correct endpoint, required parameters for the selected trigger mode, and a ready-to-copy code snippet.
Examples
A SaaS company creates a trigger billable item for API overage
They create a trigger item named 'API Overage Fee' with threshold mode, condition gte (>=), threshold 10000, and unit price $50. When their platform detects a customer has exceeded 10,000 API calls, it fires the trigger via the API. Edge evaluates the condition and charges $50. The API Sample panel shows the exact curl command to fire this trigger.
A web agency uses all three item types for one client
They create a one-off item 'Website Design' at $5,000 for the initial project invoice. A recurring item 'Monthly Hosting' at $49 for the subscription plan. And a trigger item 'Content Update' at $200 with event mode and client_confirm, fired whenever a content milestone is delivered. Three items, three billing modes, one client.
