Autumn

Autumn is a billing layer on top of Stripe, for products that need subscriptions, usage tracking and paywalls without maintaining the metering and reconciliation code that comes with them. The pitch is a small surface: three functions, no webhooks. It is Y Combinator-backed and aimed at AI startups, where pricing is usage-shaped rather than a flat seat.

We track it rather than run it. The job it would do here is metered billing, where a bill depends on tokens, minutes or runs and the counting is the hard part. We list it as the option for teams already on Stripe who want the billing logic above it to be someone else's problem.

Stripe Billing alone is the first alternative — pick it if your pricing is simple and stable, since a wrapper adds a dependency you do not need. Orb and Metronome are the serious usage-based engines, worth it when metering accuracy is a real requirement. Lago is the open-source route if you want to run the ledger yourself. Polar and Paddle differ in kind: they act as merchant of record and take tax liability off you, which a billing layer does not. Autumn suits a small team shipping usage-based pricing fast on Stripe. It is wrong if you are enterprise-shaped and need custom contracts, or cannot accept another company between you and your revenue data.