---
title: Quick Start
slug: quick-start
docTags: 
createdAt: 2025-11-20T15:52:35.742Z
---

Get up and running with **Amberflo** by focusing on a single outcome first.

Amberflo is a platform for **usage metering, cost visibility, and customer billing**. It connects these into a single system so you can track usage, understand cost, and generate accurate billing from the same data.

The fastest way to understand how the platform works is to pick one path and follow it end-to-end.



## Why This Approach

Amberflo is a full platform with a wide range of capabilities. If you try to configure everything at once, you will slow yourself down.

Instead, this quick start gives you two focused paths:

- One for **customer billing**
- One for **internal cost visibility**

Both paths use the same underlying concepts. The goal is to get one working system in place quickly, then expand from there.



## Choose Your Starting Point

### 1. Customer Billing

This path is for teams that want to charge customers based on usage.

You will go from raw usage data to generating invoices.

**What you will do:**

1. **Meter usage: **Capture usage events from your application, APIs, or services.
2. **Define pricing: **Configure how that usage is priced (per unit, tiered, volume, or hybrid models).
3. **Generate billing: **Produce invoices and usage reports for your customers.

**Outcome:**

You have a working usage-based billing system aligned with how your product operates.



### 2. Cost Visibility

This path is for teams that want to understand how usage translates into cost.

You will go from raw usage data to structured cost insights.

**What you will do:**

1. **Meter usage: **Capture usage across services, environments, or workloads.
2. **Apply cost rates: **Map usage to cost using your underlying pricing sources.
3. **Analyze and attribute: **Break down costs by team, product, workload, or customer.

**Outcome:**

You understand where your costs are coming from and how they change over time.



## What These Paths Have in Common

Both paths rely on the same foundation:

- **Metering** is the source of truth for all usage
- **Rating** converts usage into cost or revenue
- **Attribution** determines how usage is grouped and analyzed



The difference is what you do with that data:

- Billing focuses on **charging customers**
- Cost visibility focuses on **understanding spend**

Most teams eventually use both.

## What to Do Next

Pick one path and follow its step-by-step guide:

- **Customer Billing Quick Start**
  - Meter → Pricing → Billing
- **Cost Visibility Quick Start**
  - Meter → Cost → Analysis

Once you complete one path, extending to the other is straightforward since both are built on the same usage data.

## Important Context

Amberflo is not a single-purpose tool. It supports:

- Multiple pricing models
- Flexible cost attribution
- Real-time usage and billing workflows
- Multi-tenant and multi-product systems

The goal of this quick start is simple:

**Get one real use case working end-to-end.**

After that, you can expand into the rest of the platform with a clear foundation in place.