How quickly can your business turn usage into revenue? For modern software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, speed is a competitive advantage. @getmetronome is redefining what’s possible with a real-time monetization engine that scales to billions of events per day—all powered by Confluent’s data streaming platform and Apache Kafka®.
In this episode, Cosmo Wolfe, CTO at Metronome, joins Joseph Morais to discuss how real-time data streaming enables everything from sub-second billing and fraud prevention to new pricing models and product-led growth. He explains how Metronome processes tens of thousands of invoices per second and billions of events per day, all while keeping 90% of their engineering team focused on building features, not managing operations.
You’ll learn:
- How Metronome achieves second-level latency for billing and fraud detection
Why real-time monetization requires a data streaming foundation
- How Confluent’s managed data streaming platform lets engineering teams focused on innovation, not infrastructure
- What “time to revenue” means—and why it’s the new north star for SaaS growth
If your business depends on billing, pricing, or product usage data, this episode shows how to turn streaming into a strategic advantage.
ABOUT THE GUEST:
Cosmo Wolfe is the Chief Technology Officer at Metronome. He is interested in using technology to unlock data, and is experienced in building and managing web, security and identity systems and teams. Cosmo is currently reinventing billing at Metronome.
GUEST HIGHLIGHTS:
“We are processing events on a second-level latency end to end. So if an event occurs in your business, it’ll show up on your end customer’s invoice in sub-seconds.”
“We think of the core data infrastructure at Metronome as having two axes—time to revenue, which is basically that second-level latency, and the cardinality of data we can support.”
“When you’re making monetization a core part of your product experience, it requires really up-to-date data. And so it requires Metronome, and thus requires Confluent.”
EPISODE TIMESTAMPS:
00:45 -  Metronome and the Importance of Real-Time Data
05:45 - Data Streaming Goodness
25:25 - Beyond the Stream
38:00 - Quick Bytes
42:35 - Joseph’s Top 3 Takeaways
DIVER DEEPER INTO DATA STREAMING:
► EP1—Stream On: Unleashing Innovation with Data Streaming: https://youtu.be/Y-J_J75H0MU
► EP2—Processing Without Pause: Continuous Stream Processing and Apache Flink®: https://youtu.be/fxrcg9vNOfM
► EP3—The Connective Tissue: Shift Left to turn Data Chaos to Clarity: https://youtu.be/gDl2-DEuKkk
LINKS & RESOURCES:
► Connect with Joseph: @thedatagiant
► Metronome: @getmetronome
► Joseph’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thedatagiant
► Cosmo’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/cosmowolfe
► How Cursor and WarpStream Power AI Productivity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGkadWLPORs
► Learn more: https://cnfl.io/40rKeSD
► Register now for Current NOLA 2025: https://current.confluent.io/new-orleans?utm_source=simplecast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=tm.content_life-is-but-a-stream
OUR SPONSOR:
Your data shouldn’t be a problem to manage. It should be your superpower. The Confluent data streaming platform transforms organizations with trustworthy, real-time data that seamlessly spans your entire environment and powers innovation across every use case. Create smarter, deploy faster, and maximize efficiency with a true data streaming platform from the pioneers in data streaming. Learn more at confluent.io.
#apachekafka #kafka #datastreaming #confluent