Rate Card
OpenMeter Billing is currently in Beta.
A rate card describes a price and usage limits or access control for a feature or item. Each rate card consists of the following components:
- Details: A key and name for the rate card.
- Feature: An optional feature.
- Price: The price of the rate card.
- Entitlement: Optional usage limits or access control for the feature.
Rate Cards Without Feature
Rate cards without features can only have a flat-fee price. When there is no a
feature associated with the rate card, the key and name of the rate cards
must be manually defined by the user and will appear on the invoice.
Rate cards without features don't have an entitlement to control access.
Rate Cards With Feature
Rate cards with features can be priced as recurring, one-time flat, or
usage-based. When a feature is associated with the rate card, the key and
name of the rate cards will be prefilled with the feature.
Rate cards with features can have an entitlement to control access. When the the associated feature has a meter; the rate card can describe usage limits.
Invoicing details
Billing Cadence
Rate cards include a billingCadence property that determines the billing
frequency for the associated Feature. For instance, when a Usage-Based rate card
specifies a billing cadence of one month (P1M), the system generates monthly
invoices reflecting that period's usage.
For Flat Fee rate cards, the billing cadence may be omitted. In such cases, the specified fee is charged once per subscription phase rather than recurring at regular intervals.
Price
The Price property defines the price the feature is sold at. Pricing models are detailed in the Pricing Models page.
Free items can be implemented using three distinct approaches:
- Omitting the price setting entirely
- Setting an explicit price of $0
- Applying a 100% discount to the standard price
Each approach has different implications:
When no price is set across all rate cards, subscriptions can be initiated without payment method information, making it suitable for free plans.
If any rate card has an explicit $0 price, payment method information is still required during subscription setup.
Using a 100% discount on the standard price provides transparency to users by displaying the original value of the feature before the discount.
Discounts and commitments
Rate cards support two distinct types of discounts that can be applied to charges. The first type is percentage discounts, which allow you to reduce the price by a fixed percentage across all usage. The second type is usage discounts, which enable you to provide disconts on the actual metered value.
Additionally, rate cards can have two types of spending commitments to help manage billing expectations. Minimum spend commitments ensure customers are billed at least a specified amount, regardless of their actual usage. Maximum spend commitments, on the other hand, cap the total amount that can be charged, protecting customers from unexpected overages.
For a detailed explanation of how discounts and commitments work, including configuration examples and best practices, please refer to our Discounts and Commitments documentation.