How do I meter API usage and turn it into billing events?
Turn API Usage into Revenue — Without Custom Billing Logic
Built for Monetizing APIs
Perfect for compute heavy, AI-based services.
Convert Usage to Revenue
Quickly meter usage, track entitlements, and drive revenue.
Focus on Your Product
Avoid the "infinite roadmap" of billing related work.
The Old Way (a mess)
Most teams try to bolt this together:
- Write custom middleware to log API usage
- Store usage data in a separate service
- Periodically batch usage into Stripe or a spreadsheet
- Sync pricing logic across code, support, and finance
- Pray it doesn’t break
This takes weeks to build. And longer to debug when usage explodes.
The Schematic Way
How it Works with Schematic:
- Instrument usage at your API layer (e.g., /v1/generate, /v1/upload)
- Define how each event maps to pricing (e.g., per token, per second, per image)
- Schematic meters usage in real time and updates customer entitlements
- Billing events are synced to Stripe or your payment processor
- GTM teams get visibility and control — no dev bottlenecks
Capability
| Capability | Stripe | Orb | Metronome | Schematic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real-time usage tracking from API calls | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Easy metering by endpoint, token, time | ❌ | ⚠️ | ⚠️ | ✅ |
| Usage-to-invoice pipeline | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Throttle, cap, or upgrade via flags | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Built-in credit support | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Code-light config for product & GTM teams | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
Use Cases We Support
- Token-based LLM usage (OpenAI, Anthropic wrappers)
- Time-based metering (compute, GPU, inference duration)
- Event-based analytics or API limits
- Tiered plans with usage thresholds and overage alerts
Outcomes
- Bill accurately and transparently
- Launch usage-based pricing without backend rewrites
- Empower non-devs to control pricing logic
- Avoid billing bugs and lost revenue
Built for
AI Founders
Balancing infra costs with monetization
Product Managers
Managing usage-based pricing without dev bottlenecks
Engineers
Engineers who want billing to “just work” — especially at scale