Compare basic usage-based billing and Metronome
Understand the differences between basic usage-based billing and Metronome.
Learn if you need to stay on basic usage-based billing or migrate to Metronome. The choice depends on the complexity of your pricing model.
Stay on basic usage-based billing
If you already have a basic usage-based billing integration, you don’t need to migrate to Metronome unless you want to increase the complexity of your pricing models.
Stripe will continue to fully support basic usage-based billing for existing users. Basic usage-based billing works best for businesses with pay-as-you-go pricing models. For example, your customers use your service, and your business bills them based on usage thresholds.
Migrate to Metronome
Migrate to Metronome if you need any of the following:
- Prepaid credits or credit burndown
- Enterprise contracts, commits, or ramp schedules
- Dimensional or composite pricing
- Real-time usage visibility
To learn more, review the Metronome docs, contact your Stripe representative, and create a Metronome sandbox. After you create a sandbox, see Migrate to Metronome.
Metronome is Stripe’s primary usage-based billing platform for all new integrations. Metronome handles metering, rating, and billing, while Stripe handles payment collection, tax calculation, and revenue recognition. Metronome supports:
- High-volume event ingestion
- Real-time usage tracking
- Advanced pricing configurations, including:
- Prepaid credit drawdowns
- Enterprise contracts with commits and minimum spend requirements
- Ramp schedules
- Dimensional pricing
Decide if Metronome is right for you
Learn about the differences between basic usage-based billing and Metronome. You can also review How Metronome works with Stripe for more details.
Pricing models
| Basic usage-based billing | Metronome | |
|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go | ||
| Flat fee and overages | ||
| Credit based pricing | (invoice time 1) | (real-time) |
| Prepaid credits and drawdown | — | |
| Enterprise contracts, commits, minimums | — | |
| Ramp schedules | — | |
| Dimensional pricing | — |
1 Credits are only reconciled at invoice time. Customers can exceed their balance during the cycle.
Metering and usage
Metering and usage capabilities determine how you record, track, and manage customer usage.
| Basic usage-based billing | Metronome | |
|---|---|---|
| Usage recording | ||
| Real-time usage visibility | — | |
| Usage alerts and thresholds | ||
| High-volume event ingestion | Limited 2 | |
| Multi-dimensional metering | — |
2 For enterprise-level businesses that need to manage high-volume event ingestion, we recommend you use Metronome.
Billing and invoicing
| Basic usage-based billing | Metronome | |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice generation | ||
| Payment collection | ||
| Revenue recognition | ||
| Real-time credit burndown | — |
Stripe products compatibility
There are interoperability gaps between some Stripe products and Metronome.
| Basic usage-based billing | Metronome | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic Tax | ||
| Checkout | Limited 3 | |
| Connect | — | |
| Adaptive Pricing | — | |
| Workflows | — | |
| Stripe Dashboard | — |
3 Requires custom API calls and webhook configuration.