Who autumn is for#
AI products that charge by usage
Track token or request usage per customer, enforce limits with check, and bill overages or draw down prepaid credits.
Skip if:
Your product has a single flat subscription price and no metering.
Frequent pricing experiments
Change plans, add credits, or grandfather customers on old pricing from the dashboard without rewriting billing code.
Skip if:
Your pricing is fixed and you already have stable billing code.
Custom enterprise contracts
Create custom plans for large customers without building internal dashboards for one-off pricing.
Skip if:
You do not sell negotiated contracts and want a plain checkout page.
The problem it solves#
Billing is more than taking payments. Teams end up building permission management, metering, and usage limits driven by cron jobs, then wiring all of it to upgrade, downgrade, cancellation and failed-payment states. Race conditions and edge cases in that code cost time. Pricing also changes often, and tying it to application logic means database migrations, rebuilt in-app flows, internal dashboards for custom pricing, and awkward grandfathering of users on old plans. Commercial tools such as Orb and Metronome cover this ground, but they are closed services.
How it solves it#
Three-call billing API
The attach call handles every purchase flow and returns a Stripe Checkout URL or processes an upgrade or downgrade. Check tests access to a product, feature or remaining usage, and track records a usage event.
Flexible pricing models
Build subscriptions, credit systems with top ups, usage-based models with overages, seat-based plans with per-seat limits, and pay-upfront quantities that are used over time.
Real-time usage limits
Set usage limits on a feature, choose when they reset, and charge customers who go over. Your app asks check before allowing an action such as an AI token request.
Pricing in config, not code
Products and plans are created on the dashboard, so changing prices or adding a credit system does not need a migration or a rebuilt billing flow in your app.
Stripe webhooks handled for you
Autumn takes care of webhooks, upgrades and downgrades, cancellations and failed payments so you do not write that state handling yourself.
Strengths and trade-offs#
Strengths
- Apache-2.0 licensedThe source is open under Apache-2.0, so you can inspect how billing decisions are made, fork it, and self-host without a vendor contract.
- Small integration surfaceThree functions cover purchasing, access checks and usage recording, with React hooks shown in the README for the client side.
- Built for changing pricesCustom plans for large customers and pricing experiments are configuration changes, which suits companies that revisit pricing often.
Trade-offs
- -Self-hosting has many moving partsThe README says Autumn depends on a bunch of services and points people to Discord for help running a local instance. Expect more setup than a single container.
- -Stripe is the payment layerAutumn is described as a layer between Stripe and your application, so it fits teams already using or willing to use Stripe.
- -Login needs configurationLocally, the sign-in one-time password appears in the terminal. Real email delivery through Resend or Google OAuth needs credentials in server/.env.
- -Large open issue countThe repository lists 217 open issues, which is worth a look before you depend on a self-hosted deployment for revenue.
autumn vs alternatives#
Autumn vs Orb
Orb is a commercial billing service for usage-based pricing. Autumn covers similar ground for usage limits, credits and overages, but its code is Apache-2.0 and can be self-hosted.
Autumn sits between Stripe and your app, so Stripe still handles payment processing. Pick Autumn if you want to read and run the billing layer yourself. Pick Orb if you want a vendor to operate it and you do not need source access.
Autumn vs Metronome
Metronome is a paid metering and billing product. Autumn takes a developer-first route: define plans on a dashboard and call attach, check and track from your app.
Autumn's self-hosting depends on several services and the team offers help on Discord. A managed cloud service is available if you prefer not to run it.
Choosing between them
Autumn suits AI and usage-based startups that iterate on pricing, want credits and limits without building metering, and value open source code. The paid tools may fit better if you want a fully vendor-run setup.
Quick start#
Self-hosting needs bun installed, plus the backing services Autumn depends on, with an optional Postgres connection string in server/.env.
```bash
git clone https://github.com/useautumn/autumn
bun install
bun dev
```What it's built on#
- Languages
- PythonTypeScript
- Frameworks
- ExpressReact
- Databases
- PostgreSQL
- Infrastructure
- AWS
- Messaging
- Kafka
- Cache
- Redis
FAQ#
What license does Autumn use?
Autumn is licensed under Apache-2.0, according to the GitHub repository metadata.
Can I self-host Autumn?
Yes. Install bun, run bun install, then bun dev, and the dashboard appears on http://localhost:3000. The README notes Autumn depends on several services, and you can point DATABASE_URL in server/.env at your own Postgres instance.
Which paid tools does Autumn replace?
It is listed as an open source alternative to Orb and Metronome, the commercial services for usage-based billing and metering.
Does Autumn replace Stripe?
No. It is a layer between Stripe and your application. Stripe still processes payments, while Autumn manages pricing models, entitlements and usage on top.
Is there a hosted version?
Yes. The README points to a cloud service at app.useautumn.com as the quickest way to start.
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