What is metered billing?
Metered billing charges customers for measured usage, not flat fees. See how metering works, five pricing models, and which platforms fit your product.
Usage-based billing guides
Blog
AI monetization & billing insights
Guides, architecture deep-dives, and platform comparisons for AI founders and engineers building monetization infrastructure.
How to connect a PSP to your AI billing system
Connect your PSP to an AI billing system via a push model: your PSP processes top-ups, your backend creates a balance adjustment. See the 5 steps and pitfalls.
Engineering
Credyt vs Lago
Lago offers open-source usage billing with paid premium features. Credyt provides real-time wallet billing with a portal included. When does it make sense to build vs buy?
Billing platform comparisons
Credyt vs Stigg
Stigg controls access and monetizes across your billing system. Credyt adds margin observability and ships with AI tools like Claude Code and Lovable. Compare fit.
Billing platform comparisons
How to implement consumption based pricing
Consumption based pricing requires more than code. Covers billing architecture trade-offs, the observability step most teams skip, and how to launch or migrate.
Usage-based billing guides
What is usage-based billing?
Usage-based billing charges customers by actual consumption, not flat fees. See how it works, compare five pricing models, and why AI products need a fundamentally different approach.
Usage-based billing guides
Common issues with Stripe metered billing for AI products (and how to solve them)
Four places where fraud and revenue leakage hit AI products using Stripe metered billing. Practical fixes from Radar to prepaid wallets.
Usage-based billing guides
How Stripe's usage-based billing actually works (with code)
Step-by-step breakdown of Stripe's metered billing: object chain, meter events, webhooks, pricing changes, and customer portal. With working code examples.
Usage-based billing guides
Rapid pricing iteration: why early-stage products have pricing advantages (and when they fade)
Early-stage founders often see their small customer base as something to overcome. But when it comes to pricing decisions, having fewer customers creates specific advantages that become harder to maintain as you grow.
AI monetization insights
Why AI companies need real-time economic control
AI products incur real costs in real time, but most billing systems were built to record what happened. They can't control what happens next. As of Q1 2026, the gap between infrastructure costs and billing capabilities is one of the most common unit economics problems that AI companies discover too late. This article explains why billing and economic control are separate problems, and what it looks like when both are solved.
AI monetization insights
On MPP, wallets, and what agents actually need
Stripe and Tempo launched the Machine Payments Protocol yesterday. The scope is deliberately narrow. Understanding precisely what it covers makes the adjacent problem more visible. This piece covers what MPP doesn't solve: wallet management, real-time balance tracking, and margin observability, and how the billing layer above the protocol needs to work.
AI monetization insights
How AI companies adopt real-time billing without replacing their stack
Most companies don't replace their billing infrastructure. They evolve toward it. Shadow Mode, Hybrid Mode, and Full Wallet Control are three stages that let AI companies gain real-time economic control without the risk of a billing migration.
AI monetization insights
Clay just rewired its pricing. Here's what it means.
Clay overhauled its pricing model this week, cutting data costs by 50–90% and introducing a two-meter system that separates enrichment costs from platform work. The changes materially lower the barrier to entry and signal a deliberate bet on volume over margin. Here's the full breakdown.
AI monetization insights
Vibe coders can build apps in hours but billing takes them months
AI coding tools created a new class of builders. They ship functional apps without engineering backgrounds. Then they hit a wall the moment they try to charge for what they've built.
AI monetization insights
Revenue Recognition for Usage-Based Billing: When Credits Become Revenue
Usage-based billing changes when revenue is recognized. Credits may look identical in product UI but behave differently under ASC 606 and IFRS 15 depending on whether they represent entitlements, commitments, or prepaid usage. This matters more for AI products where usage is spiky, costs are real, and regulators scrutinize when value is actually delivered.
AI monetization insights
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