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Pricing Models

Beta
Beta

OpenMeter Billing is currently in Beta.

With OpenMeter, you can implement various pricing strategies to meet your business needs. In this guide, we'll cover some common pricing models.

Flat Fees

Flat fee pricing is a simple pricing model where you charge a fixed amount for a product or service. This model is easy to understand and implement, making it a popular choice for many businesses.

One-Time Fee

One-time fee pricing is a model where you charge customers a fixed amount for a product or service. Typically used as installment fees or setup fees.

You can create a plan with a one-time fee as:

Recurring Fee

Recurring fee pricing is a model where you charge customers a fixed amount at regular intervals, such as monthly or annually.

You can create a plan with a recurring fee as:

With Usage Limits

You can also set usage limits for recurring fees. For example, you can allow one million monthly token usage for a monthly $199 recurring charge.

You can create a plan with a recurring fee and usage limits as:

Usage-Based Pricing

Usage-based Pricing is a model where you charge customers based on their usage of a product or service.

Per-Unit Pricing

Per-unit Pricing or Pay-As-You-Go is a model where you charge customers based on the number of units they use, as reported by the meter. For example, you can charge customers $0.01 per AI token used. If this customer uses 10,000 tokens, they will be charged $0.01 * 10,000 = $100.

You can create a plan with per-unit Pricing as:

Tiered Pricing

Tiered Pricing is a model where fees vary between usage levels. OpenMeter supports two types of tiered pricing:

  • Graduated Pricing: Charge each unit according to the tier it falls into.
  • Volume Pricing: Charge customers based on the highest achieved tier.

Graduated Pricing

Graduated Pricing or tiered Pricing is a model where you charge each unit according to the tier it falls into.

First UnitLast UnitUnit PriceFlat Price
01000$0.3$0
10015000$0.2$0
5001$0.1$0

For example, a customer with 6,000 units will be charged as:

(1000 * $0.3) + (4000 * $0.2) + (1000 * $0.1) = $300 + $800 + $100 = $1,200

as each unit is charged according to the tier it falls into.

You can create a plan with graduated Pricing as:

Volume Pricing

Volume pricing is a model where you charge customers based on the highest achieved tier.

First UnitLast UnitUnit PriceFlat Price
01000$0.3$0
10015000$0.2$0
5001$0.1$0

For example, a customer with 6,000 units will be charged as 6,000 * $0.1 = $600 as the highest achived tier is $0.1.

You can create a plan with volume pricing as:

Flat Prices in Tiers

In OpenMeter you can define per unit or flat fees in each tier. For example, you can charge $500 for the first tier and $0.1 per unit for the rest. This is useful to define overage charges or to bill a flat fee regardless of usage.

First UnitLast UnitUnit PriceFlat Price
01000$0$500
1001$0.1$0

For example, if this customer uses 2,000 units, they will be charged as:

(1000 * $0 + $500) + (1000 * $0.1 + $0) = $500 + $100 = $600

Note

Defining a flat fee in the first tier, will be always be billed regardless of usage, as tiers start from zero.

For example, if you have a flat fee of $500 in the first tier, the total amount will be $500 when the quantity is 0.

To bill $0 when there's no usage, set the unit price for the first tier and omit the flat price. Let's see the previous example with a $500 flat fee for the first tier and $0.1 per unit for the rest:

First UnitLast UnitUnit PriceFlat Price
01$500$0
21000$0$0
1001$0.1$0

For example, if this customer uses 2,000 units, they will be charged as:

(1 * $500 + $0) + (999 * $0 + $0) + (1000 * $0.1 + $0) = $500 + $0 + $100 = $600

but if this customer uses 0 units, they will be charged as:

(0 * $500 + $0) + (0 * $0 + $0) + (0 * $0.1 + $0) = $0 + $0 + $0 = $0

Overage Fees

Overages are additional charges that customers incur when they exceed their usage limits. We can model overages with graduated pricing as:

First UnitLast UnitUnit PriceFlat Price
01000$0$0
1001$0.01$0

Where the first 1,000 units are free, and the rest are $0.01 per unit.

For example, if this customer uses 2,000 units, they will be charged as:

(1000 * $0) + (1000 * $0.01) = $0 + $100 = $100

If you want a flat $500 fee for the first tier, you can set the flat price as follows:

First UnitLast UnitUnit PriceFlat Price
01000$0$500
1001$0.01$0

For example, if this customer uses 2,000 units, they will be charged as:

(1000 * $0 + $500) + (1000 * $0.01) = $0 + $500 + $100 = $600

See the graduated pricing example above for more details.