# Flexprice Vs. Stripe

Stripe was built for seat-based SaaS. But AI and agentic products need workflow and outcome-based pricing. Stripe doesn't support that natively.

## In this section
### Comparison Table
SaaS companies started with seat-based pricing, and Stripe Billing was built to support that. But with AI, infra costs became variable and pricing shifted to usage-based pricing models.

Now, AI and agentic products are evolving towards more predictable models like credit-based, workflow-based, and outcome-based pricing.

Stripe has expanded beyond seat-based billing to support usage and credits.

While its support is still basic, it works well for early-stage AI teams. And you should stick with Stripe if:

- If you’re getting started and have 2–3 simple plans and don’t have to work with multiple LLM models, Stripe is a great choice for you
- If you're already aware of the Stripe ecosystem and comfortable with workarounds, stay with it
- If you don’t mind maintaining multiple contracts manually in spreadsheets or across multiple tools

### Category
**Stripe**

- **Basic usage base pricing**  
✅ Supports basic usage-based pricing and advanced workflows like hybrid plans, committed usage, and multi-metric billing.  
✅ Stripe supports simple usage-based billing. Works well for early-stage or low-complexity pricing.

- **Basic credit based workflows**  
✅ Covers all basic credit use cases plus recurring grants, rollover logic, real-time wallet sync, and auto top-ups.  
✅ Stripe handles simple one-time and promotional credit use cases.

- **Ramped Contracts**  
✅ Native support for ramped contracts, define custom price timelines that auto-update without manual work.  
❌ No native support for contract ramping. You need to manually create multiple plans or build logic in your backend.

- **Quotes & Renewals**  
✅ Built-in quote system with pricing lock-ins, approvals, and automatic sync with billing and revenue workflows.  
❌ No support for sending or managing quotes. Negotiated deals are tracked manually in Notion or PDFs.

- **Committed Usage & Credit Pooling**  
✅ Define org-level usage commitments and pooled usage across accounts/teams—track and bill accurately without backend hacks.  
❌ No support for pooled usage across users or committed volumes (e.g. 1M API calls/month).

- **Parent-Child Accounts**  
✅ Supports org-level billing, credit sharing, and unified usage across teams—ideal for cross-department expansion.  
❌ Stripe treats all subscriptions as standalone. No account hierarchy or shared billing.

- **Granular Usage Filtering**  
✅ Flexprice supports filtering within usage events. You can define pricing per model, token type, or any metadata in a single stream.  
❌ You can’t apply pricing logic based on usage metadata (e.g., model: GPT-4 vs GPT-4o). Must create separate schemas.

- **Feature Entitlements**  
✅ Fully integrated entitlement management. Set plan-based feature limits with usage tracking and reset logic.  
❌ No way to assign or enforce per-plan limits like 50 video mins, 10 credits, 30 sec of AI output.

- **Recurring & Rollover Credits**  
✅ Natively define recurring credits with rollover caps, auto top-ups, and balance thresholds. Real-time wallet sync and credit types supported.  
❌ Supports only one-time/promo credits. No recurring, rollover, or top-up logic.

- **Custom Credit Values by Feature**  
✅ You can assign dynamic credit values to features based on internal cost metrics. Control margins while keeping billing understandable.  
❌ Can’t assign different credit values to actions based on backend cost (e.g., GPU-heavy actions).

- **Contract Amendments**  
✅ Full contract history with versioning. See upgrades, downgrades, and renegotiations over time—crucial for revenue accuracy and trust.  
❌ Stripe doesn’t store historical contract versions. Only shows the current subscription config.

### Why Teams Choose Flexprice Over Stripe?
1. **Handle hybrid pricing automatically**  
   Hybrid pricing, where a customer pays a base fee and then usage-based overages, works out of the box with Flexprice.  
   You can define a plan like: $99/month for 5,000 API calls, with $0.01 per extra call. Flexprice tracks both the base quota and overages automatically.  
2. **Integrated Feature Entitlements**  
   Flexprice lets you define what a user gets with each plan like credits, video minutes, or access to premium features, all in one place. You can set usage limits for each of these, track them automatically, and even control how they reset (monthly, per billing cycle, or custom).  
3. **Native support for credit and one-time credits**  
   Flexprice gives you native support for all types of credits; sign-up, promotional, and paid. You can set recurring monthly or annual credit grants as part of any plan.

### Conclusion
Launch usage-based billing this week, not next quarter.  
[Try for Free](https://admin.flexprice.io/auth?tab=signup&utm_source=website&utm_medium=compare&utm_campaign=stripe)  
[Watch Demo](https://www.loom.com/share/60d8308781254fe0bc5be341501f9fd5)