## 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