Stripe Thinks the Subscription Model Needs a Usage-Based Upgrade

Stripe has introduced new artificial intelligence (AI)-focused metering and billing capabilities inside Stripe Billing, giving software companies infrastructure to charge for AI consumption the way cloud providers charge for compute: by the unit, in real time.

The update allows developers to send granular usage data including tokens processed, model API calls, agent tasks and automated workflows to Stripe, which meters that activity and converts it into billable charges.

According to Stripe, companies can structure that consumption as pay-as-you-go services, usage tiers or metered add-ons, replacing or layering on top of the flat monthly subscriptions that have defined SaaS economics for two decades.

The move reflects a growing challenge for software vendors. AI-powered products often generate variable inference costs from model providers while revenue remains tied to flat seat-based pricing. Stripe’s approach turns AI activity into billable financial events, helping companies align revenue with the underlying compute costs required to run those systems.

Measuring AI Consumption

For software companies building AI-powered products, this provides a way to structure pricing around consumption rather than fixed subscriptions. Companies can introduce usage tiers, overage fees or metered AI add-ons layered onto standard SaaS plans.

According to TechCrunch, the new billing capabilities go further than cost passthrough. Stripe allows companies to apply a markup percentage on top of raw model usage, so a vendor can automatically charge a 30% margin above what it pays the underlying model provider across multiple AI providers simultaneously. The billing tool tracks API prices for whatever models a company selects, records customer-level token consumption and applies the configured markup automatically. It also works with third-party AI gateways including Vercel and OpenRouter, in addition to Stripe’s own LLM proxy.

AI Is Reshaping the Economics of SaaS

The rise of AI copilots and automated workflows is forcing a broader rethink of the SaaS pricing model that has dominated the industry for more than a decade. Most platforms historically relied on seat-based subscriptions, where customers pay a fixed monthly fee based on the number of users. That model works well when software usage is largely tied to human activity.

AI systems operate differently. Automated agents can execute hundreds or thousands of actions in the background, analyzing data, generating content or completing workflows without requiring direct user interaction, and each of those tasks consumes compute resources.

According to PYMNTS, many technology companies are exploring consumption-based pricing models. In this environment, billing systems capable of measuring AI activity become a critical part of the software stack.

Turning AI Costs Into Revenue

Stripe’s approach effectively creates a financial layer for AI consumption by translating computational activity into measurable economic units. By turning actions such as model inference, automated document processing or agent workflows into billable events, developers can align product pricing with the actual resources required to operate AI systems.

Without a mechanism to track and charge for those activities, companies risk seeing margins erode as customers increase their use of AI-powered features. That risk is steepest for agentic products, where the more customers use AI agents, the more tokens they consume from underlying model providers, making pricing discipline critical at scale.

According to PYMNTS, embedded payments and billing platforms are increasingly acting as operational layers that help companies adapt as AI reshapes digital workflows and business models. Stripe’s billing infrastructure offers a way to capture AI value as revenue instead of cost, treating AI features as premium capabilities that scale financially with demand. The feature remains in private preview via waitlist.

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