Set up usage-based pricing models
Set up usage-based pricing models for your subscriptions.
Usage-based pricing enables you to charge based on a customer’s usage of your product or service. Usage-based pricing includes models such as:
Fixed fee and overage
Use the fixed fee and overage model to charge a flat rate per month for your service at the beginning of the period. The flat rate has some included usage entitlement, and any additional usage (overage) charges at the end of the period.
You can use the Stripe Dashboard or API to set this up with two prices within the same product. For example, imagine an AI business called Hypernian introduces an advanced model called Hypernian Pro. Priced at 200 USD per month, this model includes 100,000 tokens. They charge any usage above the included tokens at an additional rate of 0.001 USD per token.
Pay as you go
The pay as you go model (also called “in arrears billing”) lets you track usage incurred over a determined period, then charge the customer at the end of the period.
You can use any of the following pricing strategies:
- Per unit: Charge the same amount for each unit.
- Per package: Charge an amount for a package or bundle of units or usage.
- Volume-based pricing: Charge the subscription item at the tier that corresponds to the usage amount at the end of the period.
- Graduated pricing: Charge for the usage in each tier instead of applying a single price to all usage.
This model might cause customers to accumulate significant usage, and affect their payment method status at the end of the month.
Credit burndown
The credit burndown model lets you collect prepayment for usage-based products and services. Customers can use billing credits to pay an initial amount, and then apply their billing credits as they use the product.
For example, Hypernian wants to sell a large enterprise contract to an existing self-serve customer for their new Hypernian Model. The customer commits to pay 100000 USD up front for Hypernian, so they can get 120000 USD of billing credit usage to use within 1 year.