Monitor when a user exceeds the usage limit for your Python service

These days, a lot of services are moving to a pay-as-you-go model. This model is either based on a monthly usage limit or metered usage. This is especially common for cloud, software, and other online services. So, chances are that if you're building a service with Python, you'll have to roll your usage model and limits.

No matter your implementation, you will be required to set up an internal system to track usage and notify yourself and your team when a user has reached their limit. This is a common enough problem as it helps you understand how your users use your service, and you can improve your product based on that.

LogSnag is a service that helps you monitor your important events in real-time. It's an excellent tool for this problem and works seamlessly with Python. In addition, LogSnag makes it trivial to send events to your dashboard and receive push notifications when something important happens.

For example, let's say you're building a service with Python that allows users to upload files. However, you want to limit the number of files a user can upload to 10. You can use LogSnag to send an event to your dashboard when a user uploads a file. You can then set up a rule to notify you when a user has uploaded ten files. This way, you will know when a user has reached their limit, allowing you to take further action if needed.

Setting up LogSnag

1. Sign up for a free LogSnag account.
2. Create your first project from the dashboard.
3. Head to settings and copy your API token.

Python code snippets

Copy the following code snippet to your Python project. Please note that you will need to replace the API token with your own.

import http.client
import json

conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection("api.logsnag.com")
payload = json.dumps({
  "project": "my-saas",
  "channel": "limits",
  "event": "Usage Limit Exceeded",
  "description": "The user has exceeded the usage limit for the service.",
  "icon": "🚨",
  "notify": True
})
headers = {
  'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN'
}
conn.request("POST", "/v1/log", payload, headers)
res = conn.getresponse()
data = res.read()
print(data.decode("utf-8"))

import requests
import json

url = "https://api.logsnag.com/v1/log"

payload = json.dumps({
  "project": "my-saas",
  "channel": "limits",
  "event": "Usage Limit Exceeded",
  "description": "The user has exceeded the usage limit for the service.",
  "icon": "🚨",
  "notify": True
})
headers = {
  'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN'
}

response = requests.request("POST", url, headers=headers, data=payload)

print(response.text)

Python integration details

LogSnag is a flexible and easy-to-use event tracking service that works excellently with Python. In addition to real-time event tracking and cross-platform push notifications, LogSnag provides powerful user journey tracking, simple event filtering, search, and analytic tools such as charts.

In addition to tracking usage events, you can also use LogSnag to track other important events such as errors, user sign-ups, user logins, payments, or anything else you can think of.

Setting up LogSnag with your Python application takes a few minutes, and you can start tracking events in no time.

Other use-cases for LogSnag

1. Monitor your CI/CD build status for your Python application
2. Monitor your CPU usage in your Python application
3. Monitor when database goes down in your Python application
4. Monitor high disk usage in your Python application
5. Monitor when a user changes their email address in your Python application
6. Monitor failed logins in your Python application
7. Monitor failed payments for your Python application
8. Monitor memory usage in your Python application
9. Monitor MySQL downtime in your Python application
10. Monitor when a new feature is used in your Python application
11. Monitor your Postgres downtime in your Python application
12. Monitor Redis downtime in your Python application
13. Monitor suspicious activity in your Python application
14. Monitor when a user is being rate limited in your Python application
15. Get a notification when your Python code is done executing
16. Send push notifications to your phone or desktop using Python
17. Track canceled subscriptions in your Python application
18. Track your Python cron jobs
19. Track when a file is uploaded to your Python application
20. Track when a form is submitted to your Python application
21. Track payment events via Python
22. Track user sign in events in Python
23. Track user signup events via Python
24. Track waitlist signup events via Python