openmeter: Meter Usage and Bill Usage-Based Products

Overview

OpenMeter is a Go-based monetization platform for products that charge based on consumption. It ingests usage events, aggregates them into customer-level metrics, and connects those metrics to access decisions and billing workflows.

It is a fit for teams that need more than metering alone, but want to choose which parts of pricing, entitlements, invoicing, and payment-provider integration OpenMeter handles. It is not a payment processor, tax engine, or general-purpose accounting system.

Key Features

• Ingests CloudEvents and aggregates usage in real time for querying by time window or dimension.
• Models products, plans, features, add-ons, subscriptions, and several pricing approaches, including per-unit, tiered, and package pricing.
• Calculates entitlements and usage-limit balances for applications to enforce.
• Supports usage rating, customer credit balances, subscription changes, and invoice lifecycle workflows.
• Provides a REST API and JavaScript, Python, and Go SDKs, plus webhooks and external invoicing integrations.
• Can be used for the full path from usage events to invoices or for selected parts of a monetization stack.

Use Cases

• AI product teams can track model or feature consumption and connect it to customer limits, credits, or usage-based charges.
• API providers can meter requests by customer and use those totals for access limits and billing.
• SaaS teams with hybrid or usage-based pricing can manage product plans, subscriptions, and metered charges in one system.
• FinOps and platform teams can build a source of truth for consumption across products that need usage attribution and querying.

Getting Started

For a local evaluation, clone the repository and start the Compose stack:

git clone https://github.com/openmeterio/openmeter.git
cd openmeter/quickstart && docker compose up -d --wait

See the README for event-ingestion examples and the documentation for setup and architecture details.

Alternatives

• Lago: Lago is a broader billing and revenue-management platform, while OpenMeter focuses on real-time event metering, usage data, and access limits.

Considerations

• Releases are beta and may include breaking changes. Check release notes and migration guides when upgrading.
• The local quickstart requires Git and Docker with Compose. Its stack includes Kafka, ClickHouse, PostgreSQL, Redis, and Svix, and is intended for evaluation rather than production.
• The official Kubernetes Helm chart is intended for development deployments, not production.
• OpenMeter does not replace a payment processor, tax engine, or accounting system. Teams that only need fixed recurring subscriptions may find a direct payment-provider integration simpler.