Best Usage-Based & AI Billing in 2026.

Metering and usage-based pricing for AI products and modern SaaS

Lago

Self-hosted: free. Cloud: from $100/month

Open-source metering and usage-based billing

Open source Stripe Billing alternative with powerful metering and usage-based pricing. Self-hostable (free) or cloud. Built for AI apps and SaaS with complex pricing models.

Ease 2/5 · Fees 5/5 · Conversion 1/5

Orb

Custom pricing (contact sales)

Usage-based billing for AI and SaaS

Purpose-built for usage-based billing. Handles credits, seats, metered usage, and hybrid pricing. Designed specifically for AI products and modern SaaS.

Ease 2/5 · Fees 3/5 · Conversion 1/5

Metronome

Custom pricing (enterprise)

Usage-based billing for enterprise

Enterprise usage-based billing with real-time metering. Used by Databricks, Notion, and similar scale companies. Not for early-stage.

Ease 2/5 · Fees 2/5 · Conversion 1/5

Amberflo

From $500/month

Real-time metering and usage-based billing

Real-time metering and usage-based billing platform. Strong in consumption pricing and real-time analytics for SaaS and AI products.

Ease 2/5 · Fees 2/5 · Conversion 1/5

Stripe Billing

Pay-as-you-go: 0.7% of billing volume. Or from €500/month (pay monthly, up to €80k volume/mo, 1-year contract, 0.67% beyond). Plus standard Stripe payment processing (1.5%+€0.25 EU cards).

Subscription billing with full developer control

Maximum flexibility and lowest fees at scale. You own tax compliance. Best for technical teams building complex billing.

Ease 2/5 · Fees 4/5 · Conversion 2/5

Kill Bill

Open source: free (self-hosted). Cloud: from $250/month.

Open-source subscription billing and payments

Battle-tested open source billing platform. More complex than Lago but more mature. Requires significant technical resources to set up and maintain. Free if self-hosted.

Ease 1/5 · Fees 5/5 · Conversion 1/5

How to choose

Match the tool's category and best-for tags to your stack.
Decide if you need a merchant of record (global tax handled) or DIY billing.
Weigh paywall and A/B testing capabilities against fee competitiveness.
Compare ease of setup against the depth of advanced billing you need.

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