Before
Authorize the expensive action.
Read the active plan and policy at call start so the application knows whether to continue, downgrade, or stop.
Founding-user pilot · Teams already using Stripe
Keep Stripe. Add the AI usage controls that need to happen before the invoice.
Stripe can remain your source for subscriptions, invoices, and payments. UsageTap adds the product-side loop: identify the customer, check policy before expensive work, record actual usage, forecast runout, and send validated meter events downstream.
Stripe remains the billing source
Policy before the vendor call
Retry-safe usage events
Embedded usage and forecast
The immediate problem
Billing knows the result after usage. Your product needs to decide before usage.
A Stripe meter can receive a quantity, but your application still needs customer attribution, allowance decisions, rolling limits, usage visibility, and a reliable handoff from the expensive operation to its billable result.
During
Keep one customer usage record.
Connect the begin and end of a call or custom product event with idempotency, feature context, and the actual units consumed.
After
Send a trusted quantity to Stripe.
Synchronize configured meter events while showing customers current usage and likely runout inside the product.
The pilot
Connect one Stripe customer and one AI usage path.
The goal is a traceable first event, not a billing migration. We work with the subscription and payment setup you already have.
- 01
Map one UsageTap customer to the existing Stripe customer.
- 02
Choose one Stripe meter and the corresponding customer-facing value unit.
- 03
Add the begin → work → end lifecycle or a custom meter event.
- 04
Verify policy behavior, customer visibility, and the downstream Stripe meter event.
Strong fit
This is worth a conversation if…
- ✓Stripe already owns your subscriptions or customer billing relationship.
- ✓An AI feature, API, or workflow has variable customer-level usage.
- ✓You need a decision before provider cost occurs, not only a total afterward.
- ✓You want a small product-side layer instead of a full finance-stack migration.
Probably too early or the wrong tool
Wait if…
- ×You need UsageTap to generate invoices, calculate tax, or collect payment.
- ×Usage does not need to be attributed to a customer or tenant.
- ×A simple monthly aggregate sent directly to Stripe already meets every need.
- ×There is no engineering owner for the application-side policy check.
Clear product boundary
This is a control-and-metering bridge, not a replacement billing suite.
UsageTap sends configured, validated usage into Stripe. Stripe continues to own subscriptions, invoice construction, tax, payment, and collections. The separation is intentional.
- UsageTap stores the customer, feature, policy decision, and usage lifecycle.
- Stripe receives the meter event configured for the commercial plan.
- Reconciliation and complex contract operations should stay explicit, not implied.
Put policy in front of the call and keep Stripe behind it.
Start with one customer, one meter, and one expensive workflow. If the handoff is trustworthy, expand from there.