Zuplo's API Monetization is now in public beta. It's a fully integrated system
that lets you price, bill, and meter your APIs directly from the gateway. No
external metering services, no webhook spaghetti, no state sync headaches.
Define your pricing, connect Stripe, and start billing. Zuplo handles metering,
quota enforcement, and subscription management as a single integrated system.

Most teams attempting API monetization cobble together three separate systems: a
metering service to count usage, a billing platform to charge customers, and
custom gateway logic to enforce limits. These systems inevitably drift apart.
Zuplo eliminates this by making the gateway the single source of truth. Every
request that hits your API is metered, enforced, and billed through one system.

## Pricing Plans and Rate Cards

Create flat-rate, tiered, and usage-based pricing models with configurable
billing cadences (weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual, and more). Rate cards
connect features to prices and entitlements, supporting graduated tiered pricing
where the first 1,000 API calls might cost $0.01 each and the next 10,000 cost
$0.005.

Plans move through a managed lifecycle: Draft, Published, End of Sale, and
Retired. You can version plans to iterate on pricing while maintaining existing
subscriptions on older versions, duplicate plans to quickly spin up variations,
and create private plans hidden from the public pricing table for enterprise or
custom deals.

![Monetization pricing table in the Dev Portal](../public/media/changelog/2026-03-26/monetization-pricing-table.png)

See the
[Plans and Pricing documentation](https://zuplo.com/docs/articles/monetization/pricing-models)
for all available pricing models.

## Stripe Integration

Connect your Stripe account through the Zuplo Portal and publishing plans
automatically creates corresponding Stripe Products and Prices. When a customer
subscribes through your Dev Portal, Stripe handles the checkout and payment
processing. Zuplo listens to Stripe webhooks for subscription lifecycle events,
keeping everything in sync.

Zuplo is the source of truth for access control and metering. Stripe is the
source of truth for payment state.

See the
[Stripe Integration documentation](https://zuplo.com/docs/articles/monetization/stripe-integration)
for setup instructions.

## Metering and Quota Enforcement

The
[monetization inbound policy](https://zuplo.com/docs/policies/monetization-inbound)
meters every request at the gateway in real time. Usage is tracked per
subscription and enforced against plan entitlements. You can configure hard
limits that block requests when a quota is exceeded, or soft limits that allow
overages and bill for them through Stripe automatically.

Plan-scoped API keys are issued automatically when a customer subscribes, so
each key is tied to a specific plan's entitlements.

![The monetization inbound policy in the route designer](../public/media/changelog/2026-03-26/monetization-policy.png)

## Self-Service in the Dev Portal

Once monetization is enabled, your
[Developer Portal](https://zuplo.com/docs/articles/monetization/developer-portal)
gains several new pages:

- **Pricing page**: Displays all published plans with feature comparisons,
  pricing details, and subscribe buttons. Unauthenticated visitors see plans and
  pricing. Authenticated users see their current plan and get upgrade/downgrade
  options.
- **Subscription management**: Lists all subscriptions (current and past), shows
  the current billing period, and provides cancel, upgrade, or downgrade
  actions.
- **Usage dashboard**: Real-time view of quota consumption for the current
  billing period with visual progress indicators for each metered feature.
- **API key management**: Keys are displayed in the context of their
  subscription, making it clear which key corresponds to which plan. Customers
  can regenerate keys directly.

![Dev Portal subscription management, usage tracking, and API keys](../public/media/changelog/2026-03-26/monetization-portal-subscriptions.png)

## Get Started

The
[Monetization Quickstart](https://zuplo.com/docs/articles/monetization/quickstart)
walks you through the full setup from scratch. By the end you'll have a pricing
page in your Dev Portal, Stripe-powered checkout, plan-scoped API keys,
real-time usage metering, and quota enforcement with overage billing.

Josh Twist, Zuplo CEO, also published a
[walkthrough post with an overview video](https://zuplo.com/blog/monetize-your-api-in-10-mins)
that covers the full quickstart flow.

Monetization is in beta and free to try. To go to production, contact
[sales@zuplo.com](mailto:sales@zuplo.com).

See the full
[Monetization documentation](https://zuplo.com/docs/articles/monetization) for
everything else.