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Before you build your own AI monetization system, here’s everything you’d need to implement, maintain, and scale. Lava handles all of it out of the box — the only decision is which integration path fits your architecture.

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What you’d need to build

CapabilityLava AI GatewayLava Post-RequestBuild It Yourself
Cost trackingAutomaticYou forward responsesYou build
Usage meteringAutomaticYou forward responsesYou build
Pricing configuration (fixed, %, tiered)IncludedIncludedYou build
Subscription & plan managementIncludedIncludedYou build
Credit & wallet systemIncludedIncludedYou build
OveragesIncludedIncludedYou build
Auto top-upsIncludedIncludedYou build
Usage alertsIncludedIncludedYou build
Hosted checkout flowIncludedIncludedYou build
Payment processing (Stripe)IncludedIncludedYou build
Front-end components (balances, plans)Lava SDKs & APIsLava SDKs & APIsYou build
Enforce usage limits (pre-request)AutomaticCheck via Lava SDKYou build
Revenue dashboardIncludedIncludedYou build
Per-customer usage analyticsIncludedIncludedYou build
Margin visibilityIncludedIncludedYou build
That’s 15 systems to design, build, test, and maintain — on top of the product you’re actually trying to ship.

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The hidden costs of building it yourself

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Metering is harder than it looks

Every AI provider returns usage data differently. OpenAI gives you prompt_tokens and completion_tokens. Anthropic gives you input_tokens and output_tokens. Google uses promptTokenCount and candidatesTokenCount. Voice providers bill by the second. Image providers bill per generation. You’d need to write and maintain parsers for every provider you use, handle streaming responses where token counts arrive at the end, and normalize everything into a single billing unit. Lava does this across providers automatically.

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Billing logic compounds

A credit system sounds simple until you need overages, tiered pricing, auto top-ups, subscriptions with included credits, prorated refunds, and audit trails. Each feature interacts with the others. Tiered pricing changes how overages work. Subscriptions need to interact with the credit system. Auto top-ups need to trigger at the right threshold without race conditions.

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Enforcement requires being in the request path

If you want to block requests when a customer is out of credits, you need a proxy or middleware that checks balances before every API call — with sub-20ms latency so you don’t slow down responses. That’s infrastructure you’d need to build, deploy, and keep highly available.

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Checkout and payments are their own product

Stripe integration, PCI compliance, hosted checkout flows, payment method management, failed payment retry logic, webhook handling — this is months of work that has nothing to do with your core product.

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Two ways to integrate Lava

Both paths give you the full billing stack. The difference is how usage data gets into the system.

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AI Gateway

Route your AI requests through Lava. One URL change — Lava handles metering, billing, and enforcement automatically. 
# Before: direct to provider
curl https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions

# After: through Lava
curl https://api.lava.so/v1/forward?u=https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions
Best for: Most AI apps. Fastest integration, automatic enforcement, works across all supported providers.

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Post-Request Metering

Call your AI provider directly and forward the response to Lava for billing. You keep your existing request path — Lava handles everything after the request. Best for: Apps deeply integrated with provider SDKs, providers Lava doesn’t proxy yet, or non-AI usage billing.
Not sure which to pick? See How Lava Gateway Works for a detailed look at the proxy path.

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Next steps

Quickstart

Get billing running in under 10 minutes

How Lava Monetize Works

Step-by-step setup for both integration paths

Supported Providers

See all AI providers Lava supports

Pricing Configuration

Configure meters with tiered pricing and markups