If you're pricing an AI or infrastructure product by consumption — per token, per API call, per GB — you need a metering-and-billing engine that can ingest millions of events and turn them into correct invoices. The three names in this space both had a big 2026: Stripe completed its acquisition of Metronome on January 14, 2026, and Adyen closed its acquisition of Orb on July 1, 2026. Lago is now the notable independent.
| Model | Pricing | Ownership | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lago | open-source core, self-host or cloud | no per-transaction fee; cloud historically from ~$3,000/mo at scale | independent |
| Orb | usage-based billing platform | not published | Adyen (as of Jul 2026) |
| Metronome | high-scale infra billing | not published | Stripe (as of Jan 2026) |
Lago is the open-source choice — you self-host the billing engine (event ingestion, flexible pricing models, credits, invoicing) with no per-transaction cut, or use their cloud. For teams that want full control of billing logic and data, or that are wary of building on a platform another company just bought, it's the safe long-term bet.
Orb has the best developer experience for iterating on usage-based pricing — changing your pricing model, running experiments, handling credits and prepaid commitments — without re-plumbing everything. Now part of Adyen; Orb says existing customers see no immediate changes. Good fit for a growth-stage company still figuring out its pricing.
Metronome is aimed at large infrastructure companies with complex enterprise contracts — pre-aggregated metering at massive scale, commit-and-drawdown deals, custom rate cards. Now part of Stripe, which for many will be a plus (tighter Stripe integration) and for some a reason to look elsewhere.
Want control and independence: Lago. Growth-stage, still iterating on pricing: Orb. Large infra company with enterprise contracts, comfortable in the Stripe ecosystem: Metronome.