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Payments

Usage-Based Billing

Choose the billing-grade event, meter, aggregation, rating, correction, and invoice-handoff system for usage charges.

Recommendation

Choose the billing source of truth, not an analytics pipeline.

Managed billing infrastructure, enterprise usage billing, open-source control, and processor-native meters create different ownership boundaries.12

For: Software teams charging for measured product or infrastructure usage

Main trade-off

Billing-grade usage pipelines improve auditability while making event identity, deduplication, aggregation, rating, correction, retention, invoice handoff, and migration production responsibilities.1234

Four usage-billing routes

Every route must preserve auditable event identity, meter versions, corrections, and invoice outcomes.

  1. Event contract

    Define customer, event ID, time, dimensions, unit, idempotency, deduplication, lateness, and prohibited data.12

  2. Meter and rating

    Version aggregation, windows, tiers, credits, minimums, commitments, corrections, backfill, and effective dates.14

  3. Financial handoff

    Define draft, preview, invoice line, credit, adjustment, reconciliation, audit, and subscription ownership.14

  4. Scale and cost

    Model raw events, billings, meters, dimensions, retention, reprocessing, support, deployment, contracts, and migration.13

Usage-based billing routes

Product analytics and observability events are not automatically safe billing records.

A dedicated managed billing system is required

Evaluate Orb.

Orb can own catalog, usage, rating, and invoice handoff as billing infrastructure.

Verify: Validate event scale, corrections, accounting, invoice providers, contracts, retention, and migration.1

Enterprise usage billing is the primary workflow

Evaluate Metronome.

Metronome provides a high-scale usage-billing route.

Verify: Disclose current Stripe ownership and packaging; verify events, billing volume, contract, data, and exit.2

Open-source and deployment control matter

Evaluate Lago.

Lago provides open-source and managed routes for usage-based charges.

Verify: Self-hosting transfers security, upgrades, capacity, reliability, retention, and billing correctness to the team.3

Usage should stay inside Stripe subscriptions

Evaluate Stripe Billing.

Stripe meters can connect usage to Stripe prices, subscriptions, and invoices.

Verify: Provider independence, non-Stripe invoicing, or more complex rating and correction requirements may point elsewhere.4

Boundary: Usage-Based Billing owns billable event truth and rating. Subscription Billing owns recurring lifecycle; Invoicing owns receivables; analytics and observability serve different evidence purposes.

What actually differs

Event correctness, rating flexibility, financial handoff, deployment, and commercial units determine fit.

Event truth
Idempotency, deduplication, lateness, correction, retention, and replay affect bill correctness.12
Rating
Aggregation, tiers, credits, commitments, dimensions, and versions vary.12
Handoff
Subscription, invoice, accounting, preview, adjustment, and reconciliation ownership differ.14
Economics
Events, billings, meters, contracts, platform fees, support, and self-hosting operations shape cost.3

Official resources

Verify current product scope, eligibility, pricing, policy, data, payout, and contractual boundaries in first-party material before implementation.

DocumentationOrb product catalog

Sources

Official product and policy sources supporting the bounded routes on this page.

  1. 1
    Orb product catalog

    Orb · Accessed Official

  2. 2
    Metronome documentation

    Metronome · Accessed Official

  3. 3
    Lago usage-based charges

    Lago · Accessed Official

  4. 4
    Stripe usage-based billing

    Stripe · Accessed Official