Aggregation examples - Lago

Imagine you are a Tracking API company (such as Segment.com). For the same events received, each aggregation type returns a different result, and that result is what you charge your customers for.

Example of events received

You decided to charge the Tracked Pages. This is your Billable metric. Here are the 2 events sent by your backend to Lago, based on the consumption of a customer:

Event received n°1

{
  "transaction_id": "1111-1111-1111-1111",
  "external_customer_id": "1",
  "timestamp": "2022-03-16T00:00:00Z",
  "code": "tracked_pages",
  "properties": {
    "tracked_user_id": "1234-5678-9098-7654",
    "pageviews": 10
  }
}

Event received n°2

{
  "transaction_id": "2222-2222-2222-2222",
  "external_customer_id": "1",
  "timestamp": "2022-03-17T00:00:00Z",
  "code": "tracked_pages",
  "properties": {
    "tracked_user_id": "1234-5678-9098-7654",
    "pageviews": 20
  }
}

Differences between the aggregation types

Aggregation	Code	Units to be charged
COUNT	`COUNT(tracked_pages)`	2
SUM	`SUM(tracked_pages.properties.pageviews)`	30
MAX	`MAX(tracked_pages.properties.pageviews)`	20
COUNT UNIQUE	`COUNT_DISTINCT(tracked_pages.properties.tracked_user_id)`	1

The amount charged to your customer depends entirely on the aggregation type you defined for the Tracked Pages billable metric. Choose the right aggregation type for each of your billable metrics. If you need help, contact the Lago team.