The 10 best Metronome alternatives for usage billing

Metronome is a popular choice for usage-based billing, but it doesn't fit every team. As Metronome is a metering point solution, rather than a full usage-based billing platform,some users will face pricing limits, product constraints, or gaps in billing control.

This guide highlights 10 Metronome alternatives that solve those issues and stand out in 2025.

Why people look for Metronome alternatives

Metronome is built for products that charge for consumption, whether that’s API calls, data processed, user actions, or other metrics.

Metronome provides usage metering, postpaid usage billing support, and integrations with other systems. For companies scaling up, especially those in infrastructure or devtools, Metronome billing can handle the core task of tracking usage and turning it into revenue.

But Metronome isn’t the right fit for every company. As a metering point solution, Metronome is best for engineering teams that need to build billing logic into their product. Metronome also requires data to be aggregated first before it can be ingested.

This prevents real-time reporting and limits pricing flexibility, as engineering work is needed every time you update your pricing. If your business needs real-time billing, easy pricing experimentation, or full control over usage data, you'll need a flexible, full-stack billing solution.

Problem 1: Pricing changes are slow and risky

Rolling out a new pricing model in Metronome requires engineering, which slows down experimentation and pulls engineers away from focusing on the product. This can be a frustrating blocker for product, finance, and RevOps teams that need to figure out the best monetization strategy and continually optimize pricing and packaging.

If a mistake is made or a new pricing model doesn’t perform as expected, this also makes it difficult to revert back.

Alternative: Orb was built for pricing agility. You can simulate pricing changes, preview their effects on usage and revenue, and choose to only roll out the ones that have the desired impact — all without engineering. All current and previous pricing plans are managed in Orb, making it easy to migrate customers and stay on top of which pricing plan each customer is on. Teams like Vercel and Supabase use Orb for these very reasons; it lets them experiment with confidence and ease.

Note: SaaS teams encounter these billing challenges as they grow and expand beyond simple invoicing. If you're charging by API call, storage used, seats provisioned, or anything consumption-based, then you're already dealing with usage-based billing.

As your pricing evolves (maybe to include prepaid credits, volume discounts, or enterprise contracts with custom terms), you’re also dealing with hybrid pricing and enterprise billing, whether you planned for it or not.

Problem 2: Limited support for billing workflows

Metronome lacks detailed reporting and revenue forecasting tools, and it requires additional integrations for invoicing. It falls short for companies that are looking for a complete billing solution or want to minimize the number of tools they have to manage.You’ll need to bring your own tools for these workflows and integrate them with Metronome.

Alternative: Orb shines in this area with its robust tools that support other areas of billing aside from metering. Invoice customers from within Orb and provide them with clear, detailed breakdowns of their bill. Align product, finance, and leadership teams with transparent reporting and real-time insight into usage and revenue. Simulate pricing changes before launch to decrease risk and maximize revenue.

Orb’s modular platform means you can adopt these tools as needed or use Orb’s integrations to combine them with any existing tools you use.

Problem 3: Lack of out-of-the-box customer-facing dashboards

While Metronome provides some simple out-of-the-box dashboards for customers to see their usage and invoices, they still put the onus on you to provide detailed reporting to customers. To give your customers a more granular view of their usage or insight into their credits, your team has to build and maintain these reports yourself.

Alternative: Kable offers a ready-made usage dashboard for your customers, plus API key tracking and analytics if you're selling an API. For a broader solution, Orb includes both admin and customer-facing dashboards, so users always know what their usage and costs are in real time.

The top 10 Metronome alternatives in 2025

We’ve selected ten standout Metronome alternatives that solve real billing problems in 2025. Some are open source. Some are ideal for APIs. Others offer enterprise-level support or free startup tiers. Here’s how they compare side by side.

1. Orb: The most complete Metronome alternative

Orb is a modern usage-based billing engine built for SaaS and GenAI companies. It gives you real-time metering, flexible pricing logic, robust dashboards to track usage and revenue, and a full suite of tools for billing workflows.

Advantages over Metronome:

• Pricing simulations (Orb Simulations) let you test before deploying
• Built-in dashboards for both internal and customer-facing views
• Configure multidimensional, hybrid, or other pricing models without engineering
• Built-in invoicing with detailed, clear line items for customers

Who is it best for?

SaaS and GenAI teams that are scaling fast and need pricing agility, especially those in developer tools, infrastructure, AI, or any service priced by usage volume.

Pricing: Custom quotes only. No public pricing or free tier, but startup-friendly options are available by request.

Bottom line

Orb offers a real edge for companies that treat pricing as a strategic growth lever. If you're looking for a serious Metronome replacement with better UX and flexibility, Orb is your best bet.

2. Togai: Best for teams needing configurable pricing logic

Togai, now part of Zuora, supports highly customizable billing models like postpaid, prepaid, hybrid, and contract-specific pricing.

Advantages over Metronome:

• Flexible billing primitives that go beyond templates
• Easy to set up prepaid credits, usage tiers, and custom contracts
• Developer-friendly APIs and no-code pricing configuration
• Backed by Zuora for enterprise-grade infrastructure
  
  

Who is it best for?

SaaS companies with multiple product lines, custom contracts, or pricing experimentation needs.

Pricing: Available through Zuora's sales team. No self-serve option or public pricing.

Bottom line

If your pricing logic can't be contained in a spreadsheet and Metronome feels too rigid, Togai offers the flexibility to build what you actually need.

3. Amberflo: Best for SaaS companies handling high usage volumes

Former AWS leaders designed Amberflo to manage billing at cloud scale. It excels in high-throughput environments with real-time metering and strong usage analytics.

Advantages over Metronome:

• Purpose-built for scale: Billions of events handled per month
• Strong forecasting and cost allocation tools
• Transparent usage dashboards to reduce billing disputes
• Usage insights that tie into pricing and margin strategy

Who is it best for?

Companies offering infrastructure, cloud tools, AI inference APIs, or anything with high event volume.

Pricing: No public pricing. Custom quotes based on scale and volume.

Bottom line

Amberflo is ideal when usage tracking isn’t just billing; it’s part of your product. If you’ve outgrown Metronome’s throughput or reporting, start here.

4. m3ter: Best for hybrid SaaS billing

m3ter helps B2B SaaS companies automate revenue from hybrid models, whether it’s subscriptions, usage tiers, or overages.

Advantages over Metronome:

• Automated hybrid billing and revenue logic
• Clear business dashboards for finance and sales teams
• Dedicated onboarding support for pricing design
• Handles discounts, customer-specific pricing, and forecasts

Who is it best for?

This option suits mid-market SaaS companies selling per-seat licenses plus usage-based components.

Pricing: Custom pricing only. Typically geared toward scale-ups and Series B+ teams.

Bottom line

If you're managing custom contracts or have mixed pricing models that Metronome can't automate, m3ter helps you close that operational gap.

5. Lago: Best open-source Metronome alternative

Lago is a self-hosted, open-source billing engine built for teams that want more control and transparency over billing logic.

Advantages over Metronome:

• Self-hostable and free under AGPL license
• Built-in support for hybrid pricing and prepaid usage
• API-first design with flexible integrations
• No revenue-based pricing or vendor lock-in

Who is it best for?

Engineering-first companies that want full ownership of their billing system.

Pricing: Free for self-hosted. Hosted version available via SaaS pricing (not public).

Bottom line

Lago is the strongest choice for companies that want usage billing and full control. If you're tired of closed SaaS systems like Metronome, this is your exit ramp.

6. Lotus: Best for startups testing usage-based pricing

Lotus is a lightweight, open-source billing engine designed for fast-moving SaaS teams who want flexibility without a heavy platform.

Advantages over Metronome:

• Simple to deploy and modify, with no vendor overhead
• MIT license allows commercial use and full customization
• Built-in pricing editor lets you test changes instantly
• Supports usage, per-seat, and hybrid pricing from day one

Who is it best for?

Founders, devs, and early-stage startups who want billing that evolves with the product.

Pricing: Free to self-host under MIT license. Hosted and support options likely available.

Bottom line

Lotus is a strong Metronome alternative for teams who’d rather build than buy, but don’t want to start from scratch.

7. Kable: Best for API-first products

Kable is built specifically for companies selling APIs. It offers usage billing, key management, and dashboards in one bundle.

Advantages over Metronome:

• Quick setup: Live billing in under an hour
• Built-in customer usage dashboards and API key auth
• No need to integrate a separate metering system
• Reduces custom engineering time by bundling auth + billing

Who is it best for?

API-first startups, developer platforms, and microservices that sell their services on a usage basis.

Pricing: Not public. Likely startup-friendly tiers based on usage or API call volume.

Bottom line

If you're building a usage-priced API and want to skip Metronome’s setup headaches, Kable gets you live faster, with much less engineering hassle.

8. Chargebee: Best all-in-one billing for startups

Chargebee offers subscription billing with built-in support for usage charges. It's a full billing suite that works for startups and mid-market SaaS.

Advantages over Metronome:

• Free plan up to $250K in annual revenue
• Easy metered usage add-ons for subscription products
• Support for taxes, proration, and customer portals
• Business-user-friendly UI for managing plans and revenue

Who is it best for?

SaaS teams that charge monthly and add usage on top. Perfect for subscription-first businesses.

Pricing: Free up to $250K/year. Paid plans start at $599/month with 0.75% overage.

Bottom line

Chargebee is a better fit than Metronome for startups that need both subscriptions and usage support, without committing to an expensive annual plan.

9. Maxio: Best for SaaS finance and revenue teams

Maxio offers billing, revenue recognition, and financial reporting, all in one system.

Advantages over Metronome:

• In-depth revenue analytics and forecasting tools
• Handles usage billing and multi-currency invoicing
• Built-in revenue recognition workflows for finance teams
• Includes dashboards for ARR, churn, cash flow, and more

Who is it best for?

Growth-stage SaaS with an expanding finance team or audit requirements.

Pricing: Starts at $599/month. Enterprise plans are custom quoted.

Bottom line

Maxio gives you more than billing; it supports your full SaaS finance stack. If Metronome lacks the financial controls you need, Maxio fills that gap.

10. Stripe Billing: Best for Stripe-native startups

Stripe Billing extends Stripe’s payment tools with basic metered billing. It's the easiest way to start if you're already using Stripe.

Advantages over Metronome:

• Pay-as-you-go pricing with no platform fees
• Easy metered billing for API calls or units used
• Built-in portal and checkout pages
• Integrates directly with Stripe Payments, Tax, and Revenue Recognition

Who is it best for?

Early-stage startups or small teams already using Stripe for payments.

Pricing: 0.5% on recurring volume billed. Add-ons like tax or revenue recognition cost more.

Bottom line

Stripe Billing isn’t designed for advanced usage pricing, but it gets the job done early on. When you're ready to grow, platforms like Orb offer a smoother path forward.

How we chose the best Metronome alternatives

We evaluated each tool on how well it solves real issues SaaS teams face with Metronome usage-based billing. They’re on this list because they fix specific pain points that come up when using Metronome SaaS billing. Here’s what we considered.

What we prioritized

1. Real-time metering and billing accuracy

Usage-based pricing only works if your data is fresh and accurate. We looked for platforms that track usage in real time and calculate charges with zero margin for error.

2. Support for hybrid pricing models

Many teams need more than just pay-as-you-go billing. We favored tools that can handle flat fees, volume tiers, prepaid credits, and per-seat charges without manual workarounds.

3. Integration with existing systems

A good billing platform fits into your stack, not the other way around. Whether it’s Stripe, Salesforce, or your data warehouse, integration matters. We prioritized tools with open APIs and clean data flows.

4. Scale and reliability

Billing breaks are not an option. We looked for platforms that already serve high-growth or enterprise-level SaaS, where Metronome usage might hit limits.

Secondary features we considered

While secondary, we also took these into account:

• UI for internal teams and customer-facing dashboards
• Open-source option or vendor-neutral architecture
• Pricing transparency and startup-friendly tiers
• Strong support and implementation guidance
• Forecasting, analytics, and reporting tools
• Built-in support for usage audit trails and revenue recognition

FAQs

Which Metronome alternative is best for small SaaS startups?

The best Metronome alternative for small SaaS startups is Chargebee. Its generous free tier and hybrid billing support help early-stage teams start quickly. Lotus and Lago offer open-source control, while Orb fits scaling teams that need advanced usage billing.

Can these platforms handle hybrid subscription + usage billing?

Yes, nearly all the listed platforms support hybrid billing models out of the box. Orb, m3ter, and Chargebee are strong here, letting you combine flat fees, overages, and per-unit usage. Look for tools that support plan-based and usage-based logic in the same invoice.

How do I migrate existing usage data to a new billing system?

You can import historical usage data via API or CSV in most billing platforms. Tools like Orb and m3ter offer onboarding support to help map old events to new pricing models. It’s important to define billable metrics and event structure before importing.

Are there open-source usage-based billing solutions?

Yes, both Lago and Lotus are open-source billing platforms that support usage-based pricing. Lago is AGPL-licensed and more feature-rich, while Lotus is MIT-licensed and ideal for startups. They’re self-hostable and let you customize billing logic fully.

Start smarter usage billing with Orb today

If you're hitting limits with Metronome usage-based billing, you're not alone. Whether it's flexibility, lack of billing tools, or speed of iteration, there's a better solution out there, and in most cases, that Metronome alternative is Orb.

Orb gives you real-time usage-based billing, support for complex pricing models, and the confidence to launch changes without risk. It's built for teams who treat pricing like a product and want billing that grows with them.

Ready to take control of your billing?Check out Orb’s flexible pricing plans and find one that fits your specific needs.