OpenMeter pricing

About

OpenMeter is an open-source usage metering and billing platform aimed at AI, agentic, and developer-tool monetization. The project (Apache-2.0 licensed, source on GitHub) lets teams meter real-time AI and API usage, govern access and cost, and build a no-code product catalog for rapid pricing iterations. It launched on Hacker News in June 2023 (174 points) as a Y Combinator W23 company and raised a $3 million seed round in March 2024 from Y Combinator, Haystack, and Sunflower Capital. The operating company behind it is Tailfin Cloud Inc., co-founded by Peter Marton and András Tóth.

OpenMeter follows an open-core / freemium model: a free self-hosted edition that anyone can run via Docker Compose or Kubernetes Helm charts, plus a commercial managed cloud service for teams that prefer a hosted offering. The platform sits in the same category as other usage-metering and billing infrastructure providers such as Lago, competing on the metering and rating layer rather than with full subscription-management suites. Its own packaging is a self-serve, product-led open-source funnel feeding a sales-led managed offering.

On September 3, 2025, Kong Inc. acquired OpenMeter to bring usage-based monetization into Kong Konnect; the co-founders joined Kong and the repositories moved under the Kong umbrella while staying open source. The managed product was rebranded — OpenMeter Cloud is now Kong Metering & Billing (“same team, same product, same mission”). By early 2026 the standalone openmeter.io/pricing page had been reduced to a migration announcement that no longer publishes any plan grid or dollar figures; managed pricing is now gated behind Contact Sales.

Pricing summary : open-core, with managed cloud now gated under Kong

OpenMeter runs an open-core / freemium model: the open-source edition is free and the managed cloud is commercial. As of the 2026-06-03 capture, the public pricing page carries no dollar amounts and no plan grid — it is a migration announcement directing managed users to Kong Metering & Billing, with everything else routed through Contact Sales. This is a recent change: as recently as October 2025, the page still published a full Free / Pro / Enterprise grid with a usage-based Pro plan (the archived dollar figures are documented under Pricing evolution).

The two dimensions a buyer chooses between:

• Open-source edition — Apache-2.0, free to self-host indefinitely (Docker Compose for local, Kubernetes Helm charts for production). You pay only for your own infrastructure.
• Managed cloud (now Kong Metering & Billing) — a hosted service for teams that don’t want to run the stack. No public price is disclosed today; pricing is quoted via Contact Sales. The historical value metrics were ingested events and a percentage of billing volume processed through the platform.

What makes this different: the entire managed offering changed hands mid-life via the Kong acquisition, and the company chose to strip its own pricing page down to a migration notice rather than maintain a public grid — an unusually clean example of a contact-sales gate replacing a previously self-serve cloud surface. It is also a rare case of a billing-infrastructure vendor visibly oscillating between metered and flat pricing on its own product.

Pricing by product

Today OpenMeter publishes no priced tiers. The two real options on the captured page are the free open-source edition and a managed cloud that now lives under Kong and is contact-sales gated. (For the last public managed grid — the self-serve Free/Pro/Enterprise pricing that was live until late 2025 — see the Pricing evolution section below, where the archived dollar figures are documented.)

OpenMeter (open-source edition)

OpenMeter Cloud — now Kong Metering & Billing (managed, current)

Sales motions across products: self-serve / PLG for the free open-source edition (clone, deploy, run); sales-led for the managed Kong Metering & Billing cloud today (Contact Sales, no public pricing).

Hidden costs : What OpenMeter users actually pay

OpenMeter’s managed cloud is now contact-sales gated, so there is no live public bill to construct. The figures below reconstruct what a customer would have paid on the archived 2025 Pro plan — the most recent public rates — to illustrate where the two usage dimensions (events and billing volume) created hidden cost. These are historical, not current, numbers.

Archetype A — a mid-stage AI startup metering 8M events/mo and billing $120K/mo through OpenMeter (Pro plan, 2025 rates):

The lesson: the 0.4% billing-volume fee — not the events — dominates the bill once a customer pushes meaningful revenue through the platform. At $120K/mo billing volume the percentage fee was roughly 5× the base subscription, so OpenMeter’s own cost scaled with its customers’ revenue, much like a usage-based pricing model layered on top of a flat floor. Volume discounts (unpriced publicly) were the negotiation lever at higher tiers.

Want to estimate your own OpenMeter / Kong Metering & Billing cost? Use the OpenMeter pricing calculator to model your monthly cost based on ingested events and billing volume. For background on picking the right meter, see choosing the right usage metric.

Pricing evolution : OpenMeter pricing history and changes

Cadence

Tracked range: 2023 Q4 – 2026 Q2 (Wayback CDX, monthly-sampled). Quarters not listed were verified stable (0 price changes, 0 SKU additions). The 2024-06 and 2024-08 archives failed to render and are recorded as unknown.

Notable changes

• 2023-12 — Earliest archived pricing: metered cloud with Pro from $30/mo plus $0.00002/event and $0.001/report; Free up to 500K events; self-service signup and subscription management via Stripe.
• March 2024 — $3M seed round announced (TechCrunch, 2024-03-12; investors Y Combinator, Haystack, Sunflower Capital). By the April archive, Pro was repackaged to a flat $249/mo Professional Cloud plan.
• 2025-01 — Pro raised to $349/mo (25M events included) and Entitlements / usage-limit enforcement became a headline capability.
• 2025-08 — Pro returned to usage-based pricing (from $249/mo + $10 per additional million events + 0.4% of billing volume), introducing the billing-volume value metric and a public cost calculator; tier marked “MOST POPULAR.”
• 2025-09-03 — Kong Inc. acquired OpenMeter (YC W23); co-founders Peter Marton and András Tóth joined Kong (konghq.com/blog/news/kong-acquires-openmeter; openmeter.io/blog/openmeter-is-joining-kong). The public grid stayed live through at least October 2025 with an acquisition banner.
• Early 2026 — The pricing page was reduced to a migration announcement (“OpenMeter is now Konnect Metering & Billing,” later “OpenMeter Cloud is now Kong Metering & Billing”); the plan grid and all dollar amounts were removed and managed pricing became contact-sales gated.

Last public managed grid (archived 2025-10, pre-migration)

The most useful pricing signal for buyers comparing metering-and-billing vendors is the final self-serve grid OpenMeter published before the page became a migration notice. These figures are historical (Wayback, August–October 2025), not current:

Pro plan usage rates (archived 2025-08 / 2025-10):

The Kong acquisition in detail

Kong Inc. — the API-platform company behind Kong Konnect — announced on September 3, 2025 that it had acquired OpenMeter to add usage-based monetization (metering, rating, and billing) to Konnect for APIs, AI agents, and data streams. OpenMeter’s engineering and design team joined Kong, including co-founders Peter Marton (product) and András Tóth (engineering). Kong stated that OpenMeter Cloud would “continue to operate as usual,” that the project would “remain open source under an Apache 2.0 license” with repos moving under Kong, and that integration into Konnect was targeted for early 2026 with customer migration by mid-2026.

The Wayback record corroborates the timeline cleanly: the October 2025 archive still shows the full self-serve Free/Pro/Enterprise grid plus an “OpenMeter is now part of Kong” banner, while the February 2026 archive has collapsed to a bare migration notice. So the pricing-page teardown (and the move to a contact-sales gate) happened in the months after the September 2025 acquisition, not on the announcement date itself — which is why this page dates the acquisition event to 2025-09-03 and the page-teardown observation to the 2026 captures.

What’s unique : OpenMeter’s distinctive pricing mechanics

1. Two value metrics on one plan — events plus a percentage of billing volume. OpenMeter’s pre-acquisition Pro plan billed on ingested events ($10 per million over 1M) and a 0.4% cut of the customer’s billing volume above $25K. That second dimension is unusual for an infrastructure tool: it ties OpenMeter’s own revenue to the dollars its customers monetize, more like a payment processor than a metering library. See the value-metric problem in AI pricing for why picking the right meter is hard.

2. The vendor dogfooded — and visibly second-guessed — its own pricing model. As a metering-and-billing company, OpenMeter changed its own packaging three times in two years: per-event metered (2023) → flat $249–$349 fixed (2024–early 2025) → usage-based with a billing-volume fee (mid-2025). Few companies expose their own pricing indecision this clearly in the archive, and it doubles as a live case study in why SaaS teams migrate to usage-based pricing.

3. Open-core with a genuinely free, production-grade self-host path. The Apache-2.0 edition is not a crippled demo — it is the same real-time metering engine (Kafka/ClickHouse-backed) you can run on Kubernetes Helm charts forever at zero license cost. The commercial pull is the managed SLA, SOC2, and the no-code product catalog, not gated core features — a textbook freemium / open-core funnel.

4. Entitlements as a first-class billing primitive. From early 2025 the platform packaged not just metering but entitlements — grants, usage limits, and access checks — letting customers enforce plan limits at runtime. This positions OpenMeter against the rating/entitlement layer of billing suites; see from entitlements to credits for how this maps to modern AI billing.

5. A mid-life vendor migration baked into the pricing surface. Rather than maintain a public grid post-acquisition, OpenMeter turned its pricing page into a redirect to Kong Metering & Billing — a rare, clean example of an open-source startup’s commercial surface being absorbed into an acquirer’s platform while the OSS core stays put.

Strengths & weaknesses

Billing UX : a redirect page, a Start-for-free CTA, and Contact Sales

Observed controls and surfaces on the captured pricing page (2026-06-03):

• “Start for free” CTA — the page’s primary action; routes users into the managed onboarding flow (now Kong Metering & Billing) rather than to a checkout or plan selector.
• “Contact Sales” card — under a “Do you have questions?” block, the only path to managed pricing; the copy explicitly says to contact sales “to get more information on OpenMeter pricing.”
• “Documentation” card — paired with Contact Sales, links to the docs for self-hosting and integration.
• No-code product catalog — named feature for building and iterating on pricing/packaging without code (a billing-config surface for OpenMeter’s own customers).
• GitHub / Source Code access — the open-source edition is installed and operated by the user; billing UX for self-hosters is “run your own infrastructure,” with no OpenMeter-issued invoice.
• AICPA SOC badge — displayed in the footer as a trust/compliance signal for the managed service.

Strategic wins : Why OpenMeter’s pricing decisions worked

1. Open-core funnel that built genuine developer trust

By shipping a real, production-grade Apache-2.0 metering engine — not a teaser — OpenMeter earned credibility (174-point Launch HN, YC W23, $3M seed) before asking anyone to pay. The free self-host path is the top of a freemium / open-core funnel that feeds the managed cloud, the same playbook covered in why SaaS teams move to usage-based pricing.

2. Adding billing volume as a second value metric tied revenue to customer success

Layering a 0.4% billing-volume fee on top of event metering meant OpenMeter grew when its customers grew, not just when they ingested more data. It’s a defensible alignment of price to value — the central idea in choosing the right usage metric — even if it risked taxing customers on their own revenue.

3. Entitlements turned a metering tool into a billing platform

Promoting entitlements and usage-limit enforcement to a headline feature in early 2025 moved OpenMeter up-stack from “counts events” to “enforces plans and bills for them,” expanding willingness-to-pay. The mechanics mirror the shift from entitlements to credits in LLM billing and the understanding entitlements guide.

4. A clean acquisition outcome that preserved the open-source core

Selling the commercial cloud into Kong’s Konnect platform while keeping the project Apache-2.0 gave the team distribution and capital without burning the community goodwill that made OpenMeter credible in the first place — a notable win for an infrastructure startup competing against incumbents like Lago.

Areas to improve : Gaps in OpenMeter’s pricing approach

1. Restore a public price (or at least a starting price) post-migration

Replacing a full grid with a Contact-Sales migration notice removes the single most useful signal a buyer evaluating metering vendors needs. Even a “from $X/mo” anchor or a retained calculator would keep OpenMeter / Kong Metering & Billing in self-serve consideration sets; today it disappears from any comparison that requires a number. See usage-based pricing for SaaS and AI for why transparency aids adoption.

2. Stabilize the pricing model — stop oscillating between metered and flat

Three model changes in two years (per-event → flat $249–$349 → usage + billing-volume %) make it hard for prospects to forecast cost or trust that this quarter’s structure will survive. A committed, documented model with a clear migration policy — informed by usage-invoicing and billing cycles — would reduce churn risk during the Kong transition.

3. Cap or clarify the billing-volume fee to avoid revenue anxiety

A 0.4% cut of billing volume is simple but uncapped on the public grid, so a high-revenue customer could see fees vastly exceed the base subscription. Publishing the volume-discount schedule or a fee cap — the kind of guardrail discussed in thresholding and alerting — would defuse the “you’re taxing my revenue” objection.

Key takeaways

1. Open-core only works when the free tier is genuinely useful. OpenMeter shipped its real metering engine under Apache-2.0, not a crippled demo, and that credibility (174-point Launch HN, YC W23) was the foundation the paid cloud sold against. Don’t gate the core to force upgrades.
2. A second value metric can align price to value — but pick carefully. Adding a 0.4% billing-volume fee tied OpenMeter’s revenue to customer success, yet an uncapped percentage of revenue is exactly the objection that makes buyers nervous. Align with value, then cap the downside.
3. Frequent pricing-model changes erode trust even when each change is defensible. Three structural shifts in two years made cost forecasting unreliable; the lesson is to change packaging deliberately and communicate a migration policy, not to A/B your way through public grids.
4. Entitlements are where metering becomes a billing platform. Promoting grants and usage-limit enforcement to a headline feature expanded willingness-to-pay beyond raw event counts — the up-stack move that justifies a higher price.
5. An acquisition can preserve community goodwill if the OSS core survives. OpenMeter sold its commercial cloud into Kong while keeping the project Apache-2.0, capturing distribution without alienating the developers who made it credible.

UBP implications

1. Metering vendors are themselves a UBP test case. OpenMeter’s own oscillation between metered, flat, and hybrid pricing shows that even the companies building usage-based billing find the model hard to settle — proof that value-metric selection is a genuinely unsolved design problem, not a solved best practice.
2. Billing-volume (revenue-share) is an emerging value metric for infrastructure. Charging a percentage of the dollars a platform helps monetize, on top of per-event fees, blurs the line between metering tooling and payment processing — a pattern UBP strategists should watch as agentic and AI-monetization platforms mature.
3. Open-core + managed-cloud remains the dominant go-to-market for UBP infrastructure. Free self-host for adoption and trust, paid managed service for monetization — the same structure used across the billing-and-metering category — and acquisitions (here, by Kong) are increasingly the liquidity path for these tools.

Sources

• OpenMeter official website (accessed 2026-06-03)
• OpenMeter pricing page (accessed 2026-06-03)
• OpenMeter documentation (accessed 2026-06-03)
• OpenMeter source code (GitHub, Apache-2.0) (accessed 2026-06-03)
• OpenMeter blog: “OpenMeter is Joining Kong” (accessed 2026-06-03)
• OpenMeter pricing page — archived 2025-08-07 (Wayback Machine) (accessed 2026-06-03)
• OpenMeter pricing page — archived 2024-04-19 (Wayback Machine) (accessed 2026-06-03)
• OpenMeter pricing page — archived 2023-12-06 (Wayback Machine) (accessed 2026-06-03)

Bottom line

OpenMeter is a textbook open-core metering-and-billing platform: a genuinely free Apache-2.0 self-host edition feeding a commercial managed cloud, built by a YC W23 team that raised $3M before being acquired by Kong on September 3, 2025. Its pricing story is unusually candid — three model changes in two years, ending with a usage-based Pro plan (from $249/mo + events + a 0.4% billing-volume fee) that has now vanished behind a Contact-Sales migration notice as OpenMeter Cloud becomes Kong Metering & Billing. For buyers, the open-source core is the durable, free option; the managed service is now a sales-led conversation with no public price.

Want to compare OpenMeter against other billing and metering infrastructure companies like Lago? Browse the pricing blueprint.

Pricing timeline : Major events on a vertical axis

Each milestone below corresponds to a public pricing change, product launch, or material adjustment. Major events use a filled marker; minor adjustments use a faded one.

Pricing page becomes a migration notice; managed product is Kong Metering & Billing

Jun 2026

By the 2026-02 archive the pricing page was reduced to a migration announcement ('OpenMeter is now Konnect Metering & Billing'); the 2026-06-03 capture reads 'OpenMeter Cloud is now Kong Metering & Billing.' No plan grid or dollar amounts remain; managed onboarding routes to Kong and pricing is contact-sales gated. The Apache-2.0 self-hosted edition remains free.

Kong acquires OpenMeter (YC W23)

Sep 2025

Kong Inc. announced the acquisition of OpenMeter on 2025-09-03 (konghq.com/blog/news/kong-acquires-openmeter; openmeter.io/blog/openmeter-is-joining-kong). Co-founders Peter Marton and András Tóth joined Kong. OpenMeter Cloud kept operating with its public Free/Pro/Enterprise grid (the 2025-10 archive still shows it, with an 'OpenMeter is now part of Kong' banner); the project stayed Apache-2.0 open source.

Pro returns to usage-based: from $249/mo + events + billing-volume %

Aug 2025

Wayback 2025-08-07 shows a full metering-and-billing platform: Free ($0; 100K events, $10K billing volume), Pro (from $249/mo; 1M events then $10 per additional million, $25K billing volume included then 0.4% of billing volume, all with volume discounts; marked MOST POPULAR), and Enterprise (Get a Demo). A new 'billing volume' value metric was added alongside events, and a public cost calculator returned.

Pro raised to $349/mo; Entitlements added; richer Free tier

Jan 2025

Wayback 2025-01-24 shows Free ($0/mo, 1M events, 100K entitlement access checks, 90-day retention), Pro ($349/mo fixed, 25M events, 10M entitlement access checks, 99.99% SLA, SOC2 Type 2), and Enterprise (Custom). Pro rose from $249 to $349/mo and Entitlements / usage-limit enforcement became a headline feature.

Repackaged to flat Professional plan ($249/mo) after $3M seed

Apr 2024

By Wayback 2024-04-19 the cloud was restructured to Open Source (Apache-2.0, free) / Professional Cloud ($249/mo fixed, 5M events included, 99.99% SLA, 5 seats, 3 environments) / Enterprise (Custom). A site banner announced the $3M seed round (Y Combinator, Haystack, Sunflower Capital; TechCrunch, March 2024). The per-event metered Pro tier was replaced with flat fixed pricing.

Metered OpenMeter Cloud: Free / Pro (from $30) / Enterprise

Dec 2023

Earliest archived pricing page (Wayback 2023-12-06) shows a self-serve, Stripe-billed cloud: Free at $0/mo (up to 500K events, 1K reports, 90-day retention, 2 meters), Pro from $30/mo (1M events included then $0.00002/event; 10K reports then $0.001/report; 3-year retention), and Enterprise (Contact us). Pricing was purely metered with a live cost estimator.