Kill Bill alternatives for AI apps: core, wallets and app margin

Choose Kill Bill alternatives after identifying whether you use the open-source core, commercial Aviate modules or a particular hosted arrangement. Compare Lago, Flexprice, Orb and the selected Stripe usage-billing path for relevant commercial requirements. Evaluate ShareAI when an existing app wants eligible model inference paid through an approved Builder arrangement, with a permitted surcharge and app-attributed earnings. Start with the operating responsibility and actual customer payer.

Reviewed 23 October 2026. ShareAI publishes this comparison and operates one program discussed. Current official references support facts; screenshots show actual source pages. The executed code is an offline synthetic ledger. No production installation, catalog, wallet, customer invoice, payment, migration or performance benchmark was created or changed.

Kill Bill core is free under Apache 2.0 and already supports subscriptions, usage billing, invoices and payment plugins. Aviate adds commercial modules and support on that engine. A comparison that applies a commercial package price to the core, or says the core cannot bill usage, gives buyers the wrong starting point. Equally, not every feature on an Aviate page belongs to the open-source implementation.

What Kill Bill core and Aviate actually include

The official overview identifies self-hosted billing and payments infrastructure. The current core-versus-Aviate comparison separates the Apache 2.0 engine from commercial modules, the Control Plane and support. Reasons to keep it: evaluate the selected implementation when infrastructure ownership, extensibility and working customer billing already fit the application’s needs.

The current AI-billing reference distinguishes core usage that the app aggregates and records per subscription from Aviate Metering, which accepts raw events. It also identifies prepaid wallets as Aviate scope. Compare that exact boundary rather than inferring either that every metering component is free core or that AI usage always requires replacing the engine.

The current comparison labels several quote-to-cash, contract, approval, revenue-recognition and access-control modules Insider Preview for selected customers and partners. Do not describe preview scope as universally available. Core and Aviate share the billing engine, while the actual license, modules, support and deployment determine what the app can use and must operate.

A batch AI app has a pending top-up while old jobs finish

Consider a hypothetical existing asset-generation app with a queue of AI jobs. Customers buy credits, jobs consume model resources and an accepted commercial offer determines the charge. An organization keeps its existing subscription price while the app introduces a new plan for future customers. The business wants to compare an allowed margin on eligible inference without losing its current customer and billing records.

Already-started jobs finish while a wallet replenishment payment fails. Another worker resubmits an event after losing the response. The customer’s screen shows a proposed top-up and asks whether another job can start. A credit record, spendable allowance, actual payment and authorization to begin work are different facts. The app needs an explicit decision rather than treating every visible wallet entry as available money.

Support then accepts a correction for an unusable output from an older plan. Preserve the original job, source observations, customer subscription, effective price and adjustment. A new catalog version should not silently become the price for every existing subscriber. The difficult migration case combines that pricing continuity with a failed replenishment and work already in progress.

Compare alternatives by the responsibility they change

The batch app can retain working subscriptions while evaluating another approved inference arrangement. That requires an actual integration and a clear customer explanation. No native connector, automatically shared credit pool or transferred agreement among these products is implied. Decide who owns the customer, original job, usable allowance, accepted charge and adjustment before changing existing users.

Read the wallet and invoice timing before promising prepaid access

The Aviate Wallet reference describes one wallet per account in its default currency. Paid credits generate an invoice and payment attempt; free credits generate neither. The page explicitly says failed-payment credits remain inactive and excluded from the balance until payment succeeds. A created top-up invoice is therefore not proof of newly usable paid credit.

The same reference says wallet credits are used when Kill Bill generates usage invoices. It distinguishes the balance from the live balance after credits held for invoices being generated. Optional expiration and fixed-amount or target-balance top-off add further commercial rules. Qualify actual application admission control instead of equating invoice-time credit application with a hard real-time limit before every model call.

The Aviate Metering reference describes raw-event aggregation and priced usage plans. Current catalog behavior preserves existing subscription prices when a new plan version is introduced. For the queued job, retain the accepted offer and timing rather than attaching whichever price happens to be newest when the delayed observation arrives. Confirm the selected configuration and correction path with actual records.

Keep credit, payment and job-admission evidence separate

Preserve a failed attempt without presenting it as collected money. A retry can refer to the same original event or to a legitimate additional model operation; identify which before deduplicating. A customer refund, invoice adjustment and restored allowance can also have different effects. Qualify the selected workflow instead of implementing every correction by deleting original usage or resetting a displayed balance.

Lago: compare the selected billing deployment and payment integration

The Lago introduction describes ingestion, metric aggregation, pricing, invoices and connected payments, with hosted and self-managed paths. Pros: evaluate the selected deployment when the app wants commercial usage modeled independently from the rest of its application infrastructure. Decide which team owns operation and recovery as well as pricing configuration.

Tradeoffs: qualify the actual edition, licensed scope, customer identity and payment integration. Self-hosting billing does not itself mean self-hosting the app or serving the model. A documented billing capability does not establish that every pending top-up or accepted customer correction follows the same timing as the current Kill Bill implementation.

For the queued job, preserve the old agreement, delayed source observations and accepted adjustment. Compare how those records reach the actual invoice and payment process before moving the full customer population. Retain working subscriptions unless the requirement calls for changing them; compare the inference payer as a separate commercial decision.

Flexprice: compare credits and application-side decisions

The Flexprice documentation describes usage and hybrid pricing, wallets, grants, entitlements, subscriptions and invoices. Pros: evaluate that selected scope when the app wants credit consumption and purchased rights connected. Current capabilities should not be replaced with blanket claims from older comparisons that credits or customer billing are unavailable.

Tradeoffs: its credit-pricing recipe describes plan grants, top-ups and checks in the app before a chargeable action. Qualify the actual implementation under running work, retries and payment failure. A grant, ledger entry and request-admission decision are different evidence even when they appear in the same product workflow.

For the failed replenishment, preserve what the customer authorized and what actually succeeded. Decide how the app handles already-started jobs without silently creating free additional work or charging the original job twice. Compare the complete customer explanation, not only whether the selected platform can display a credit number.

Orb: compare pricing continuity and accepted corrections

The Orb overview describes usage, seat and hybrid billing, pricing simulations and historical corrections. Pros: compare the selected implementation when customer-specific agreements and effective pricing matter. Historical usage can help evaluate a proposed commercial model before applying it, provided the underlying customer and work records represent the intended sold product.

Tradeoffs: qualify actual ingestion, contract timing, credit treatment and collection. A simulation or corrected billing amount is not proof of a received payment. Preserve the old subscription price and accepted adjustment for queued work; do not assume that publishing a new offer automatically defines the correct commercial treatment for every existing customer.

For the repeated worker event, keep original job identity and source observations before deciding whether to deduplicate. The useful output and its consumed resources can have different commercial meanings. Compare the implementation’s actual corrected invoice and payment path alongside its ability to represent the selected usage model.

Stripe: compare the actual usage-billing integration path

The current Stripe usage-billing guide recommends Metronome for new usage-based integrations while retaining basic Billing Meters for existing implementations. Pros: evaluate the selected path when an existing customer and collection arrangement in the Stripe ecosystem already fits. A new integration choice need not mean an existing supported meter has stopped working.

Tradeoffs: the official comparison distinguishes rating and billing from payment and related services. Qualify compatibility with the selected subscription, credit, checkout and tax arrangement. Shared product ownership does not establish that every feature or operating assumption transfers unchanged from a self-hosted billing engine.

For the failed top-up, preserve the payment result, currently usable value and queued-job policy. Compare how the selected path treats delayed work under the accepted offer and an explicit correction. A familiar processor dashboard does not establish that a credit is active or that the application should admit another expensive request.

ShareAI: compare approved inference payment and app attribution

The ShareAI Builder Program concerns an app that already exists with its own users. Eligible model traffic routes through ShareAI, the Builder configures a permitted surcharge or margin, and the end customer pays ShareAI for that inference. App-attributed earnings follow the program. Pros: compare that approved payer and attribution journey for eligible batch-app requests.

Tradeoffs: approval, eligible traffic, model access and account terms apply. Validated company Builders have a 45-day review period before payout. Individuals currently accumulate inference value for ShareAI use, without cash-out or account transfers. These Builder terms are not universal Provider, Creator or Prosumer terms. Usage and earnings are not guaranteed.

The batch app remains built, hosted, distributed and maintained elsewhere. It retains job admission, queuing, customer access, useful-result delivery and support. Provider, Creator, Prosumer and custom-endpoint participation involve separate onboarding and terms. Operating a self-hosted billing engine or owning model infrastructure does not automatically approve a Builder arrangement, transfer wallet credit or establish app earnings.

Decide how customers understand the approved inference payment alongside retained subscriptions or asset-generation charges. No automatic replacement of Kill Bill catalogs, Aviate wallets, payment plugins or financial history is promised. Preserve the original job and accepted correction, and qualify the actual customer journey without charging twice for the same work.

Compare license, operation and gross inference margin separately

The open-source core has no license fee; operating infrastructure, maintaining plugins and recovering the service still require work. Aviate is a separate commercial offer. Compare actual selected terms, implementation, database operation, upgrades, payment processing and correction costs. A third-party directory’s commercial number is not the license price of Apache 2.0 core.

For arithmetic only, 1000 USD of inference plus a hypothetical 15% surcharge yields 150 USD gross surcharge and 1150 USD total. These synthetic figures are not Kill Bill, Aviate or ShareAI fees, received earnings, net profit or a tax result. Actual costs, corrections, eligibility and settlement terms affect the outcome.

Check arithmetic before qualifying a real wallet and payment flow

The executed fixture below deduplicates identical activity, rejects a conflicting duplicate and records an explicit adjustment in integer USD cents. It does not operate Kill Bill, create wallet credit, authorize a queued job or collect money. Actual application and financial evidence must establish the customer, effective agreement and usable allowance surrounding the calculation.

import assert from "node:assert/strict";
const records = [
  {id: "usage-a", customer: "demo", cents: 60000n, kind: "usage"},
  {id: "usage-b", customer: "demo", cents: 50000n, kind: "usage"},
  {id: "usage-a", customer: "demo", cents: 60000n, kind: "usage"},
  {id: "adjustment-b", customer: "demo", cents: -10000n, kind: "adjustment"}
];
function netCents(rows) {
  const seen = new Map();
  let total = 0n;
  for (const row of rows) {
    assert.equal(row.customer, "demo");
    const fingerprint = [row.customer, row.cents.toString(), row.kind].join("|");
    if (seen.has(row.id)) {
      if (seen.get(row.id) !== fingerprint) throw new Error("Conflicting duplicate");
      continue;
    }
    if (row.cents < 0n && row.kind !== "adjustment") throw new Error("Invalid sign");
    seen.set(row.id, fingerprint);
    total += row.cents;
  }
  return total;
}
const base = netCents(records);
assert.equal(base, 100000n);
assert.throws(() => netCents([...records,
  {id: "usage-a", customer: "demo", cents: 1n, kind: "usage"}
]));
const numerator = base * 1500n; // Hypothetical 15 percent in basis points.
if (numerator % 10000n !== 0n) throw new Error("Define contractual rounding first");
const surcharge = numerator / 10000n;
assert.equal(surcharge, 15000n);
const usd = cents => `${cents / 100n}.${(cents % 100n).toString().padStart(2, "0")}`;
console.log(JSON.stringify({baseUSD: usd(base), grossSurchargeUSD: usd(surcharge),
  totalUSD: usd(base + surcharge), paidReceiptVerified: false}));

Observed output is 1000 USD illustrative inference, 150 USD gross surcharge and 1150 USD total, with no verified paid receipt. Preserve original work, actual payment result and accepted adjustments in production. A correct sum cannot establish an active top-up, application admission, collected invoice or released app earnings.

Move one customer and the failed-replenishment exception first

• Identify core, commercial modules, selected versions and operating responsibility.
• Preserve customer, original job, effective catalog and financial records.
• Separate credit creation, active balance, payment and job admission.
• Rehearse failed top-up, delayed worker, retry and accepted correction.
• Verify runtime and financial outcomes without duplicate live collection.
• Retain original records and rollback until the complete customer journey is qualified.

Keep the selected Kill Bill implementation when it fits. Compare another billing path for actual customer requirements and ShareAI for eligible customer-paid inference. Begin with a job whose old price, payment failure and accepted correction remain explainable. That exception is stronger migration evidence than a successful top-up in an ideal demonstration.

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