Getting Started

Your First 10 Minutes with Paid: From Signup to First Invoice

Introduction

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to:

  1. Define your first AI Agents (the AI-driven entities you plan to monetize).
  2. Configure Signals (the units of activity that capture your agents’ activities and value).
  3. Set up pricing that map signals to revenue.
  4. Integrate Paid’s API so your agents can send signals in real time.
  5. Create an Order to tie everything together and trigger automatic invoicing for a customer.

By the end of this guide, you’ll have a functioning billing workflow that collects signals from your agents and automatically invoices your customers based on usage.

Before you begin, check that you have

  • A Paid account: Sign up and get access to the Paid dashboard.
  • API Credentials: You’ll need an API key or similar credentials to integrate your AI application with Paid.
  • Basic Understanding of Agents & Signals: Familiarize yourself with how Paid tracks AI activities (Signals) and ties them to billing.

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Create Your First Agent

  1. Go to ‘Agents’.
  2. Click ‘Add Agent’: Give your Agent a name that you’d recognize (e.g., “AI SDR Agent”). This name will appear on invoices.
  3. Describe the Agent’s Purpose: Provide a short description of what this Agent does (e.g., “Automates SDR activities”).
  4. Click ‘Add Signals’

Tip: If you have multiple Agents (sales chatbot, analytics engine, etc.), create each one here so they can be tracked and billed separately.

Step 2: Configure Signals

Signals represent the individual activities or events you want to track and monetize.

  1. Click ‘Add Signals’ and fill the details
    • Name: Name of your signal (e.g., Send an email or Book a Meeting ).
    • Value (optional): The approximate human-equivalent cost or effort (e.g., $150 to book a meeting).
    • Type: Choose ‘Activity’ or ‘Outcome’. For example, Send an email might be an Activity, while Book a Meeting is an Outcome.
  2. Click ‘Pricing’

Tip: Keep Signals granular enough to capture precise usage but not so granular that they become cumbersome to track.

Step 3: Set Up Pricing Rules

After defining your Signals, you can configure various billing options in Paid. In the Pricing section, you’ll see multiple toggles to combine different fee structures:

  • Setup Fee (Fixed, One-Time)

    A one-time charge for onboarding or initial configuration.

  • Platform Fee (Fixed, Recurring)

    A recurring flat fee for ongoing platform access or maintenance.

  • Seat-Based (Variable, Recurring)

    A per-user or “seat” cost that recurs regularly (e.g., monthly).

  • Activity-Based (Usage, Variable, Recurring)

    A usage-based fee tied to activity Signals (e.g., each email sent, each message processed).

  • Outcome-Based (Usage, Variable, Recurring)

    A usage-based fee tied to outcome Signals (e.g., each booked meeting or qualified lead).

Enable the relevant toggles, configure the pricing when prompted, and click ‘Save’.

4. Integrate Paid’s API

To record Signals in real time, integrate your AI application with Paid’s API:

  1. Obtain API Key: Go to your Paid account’s API Credentials page, and copy the key for your project.

  2. Send Signals: Whenever your Agent performs an action (e.g., chatbot receives a message), make a request to Paid’s endpoint. Typical payload format includes:

    1{
    2  "agent_id": "AGENT_ID_VALUE",
    3  "signal_type": "chat_message",
    4  "timestamp": 1678977337,
    5  "metadata": {
    6    "message_id": "XYZ123",
    7    "sender": "customer"
    8  }
    9}

  3. Verify Response: Paid will respond with a status code indicating success or failure. Store this for debugging or logging purposes.

Tip: Batch Signals for high-volume workloads to optimize performance, but ensure each Signal still has a unique identifier for accurate tracking.

5. Create an Order

Now that your Agents and Signals are set up—and you’ve defined how you want to bill for them—you need to create an Order. An Order represents the agreement or subscription your customer has with your service, specifying which Agents they have access to and under what pricing conditions.

  1. Go to ‘Orders’: In your Paid dashboard, navigate to the Orders section.
  2. Click ‘Create New Order’: Assign this Order to the customer you wish to bill.
  3. Add Agent(s) to the Order: Select the Agent(s) that the customer will be using.
  4. Review Pricing: The pricing configuration you set up in the previous steps will automatically apply here.
  5. Save: Once saved, Paid knows which customer, Agent, and pricing rules to use for generating invoices.

Tip: If you’re testing, you can create a dummy customer to verify that the Order captures your signals correctly.

5. Testing Your Billing Workflow

Before going live, confirm that your workflow is functioning as expected:

  1. Generate Test Signals: Use a sandbox or staging environment to trigger a few signals (e.g., send 10 chatbot messages).
  2. Check Paid Dashboard: Verify the Signal count under your Agent. Make sure it matches the test messages you sent.
  3. Review Invoices: Head to the Billing & Invoices section to see if the invoice reflects your pricing model.
  4. Adjust Pricing if Needed: If the invoice doesn’t look right (e.g., rate too high/low), revisit Pricing & Plans to update.

Tip: Send a mix of signals to test different scenarios—high volume, different types of signals, etc.