Building usage-based billing on Stripe alone breaks at scale and forces every SaaS to rebuild metering infrastructure from scratch
AI-native SaaS, API companies, and any product with consumption or outcome pricing all need usage metering, event aggregation, and credit systems that Stripe does not provide out of the box. Every team ends up building the same metering infra from scratch: event ingestion, real-time aggregation, credit ledgers, overage alerts, invoicing. Launch HN: Lago (YC S21) got 442 points and 141 comments in February 2023 showing massive developer appetite for an open-source alternative. OpenMeter (YC W23) got 174 points building real-time open-source usage metering. The pain is acute in 2026 as AI products with per-token or per-action pricing need sub-second event counting and accurate billing that no managed SaaS billing tool handles natively. Founders routinely spend 2-3 months on billing infrastructure before shipping a single product feature.
A web app that provides a real-time usage metering and billing layer for SaaS teams who have outgrown raw Stripe
799 ▲Score Breakdown
Social Proof 2 sources
Gap Assessment
Lago open-source, OpenMeter, Paigo, and Orb exist. Stripe Billing itself added usage metering. But all require significant integration work; no zero-config plug-in solution for small AI SaaS products.