Billing
AuthGate includes a self-managed subscription billing engine that uses Stripe solely as a payment processor — not as a billing platform.
This means AuthGate owns the full subscription lifecycle: plan management, upgrades, downgrades, cancellations, proration, usage tracking, coupons, and invoicing. You get the reliability of Stripe's payment infrastructure without the 0.7% Stripe Billing fee on top of your Stripe transaction fees.
How it works
AuthGate's billing engine sits between your application and Stripe. When a user subscribes, AuthGate:
- Creates and manages the subscription record in its own database
- Instructs Stripe to collect payment via the appropriate payment method
- Tracks usage, applies coupons, and calculates proration internally
- Generates invoices and fires webhooks to your application on billing events
Stripe never sees your subscription logic — it only processes charges when AuthGate tells it to. This gives you full control over the billing experience without building a billing engine from scratch.
Because AuthGate manages subscription state, billing events like subscription.created and invoice.paid come from AuthGate webhooks, not from Stripe's webhook system directly. You configure one webhook endpoint in AuthGate, not in Stripe.
Features
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Plans & prices | Define products with recurring, metered, or tiered pricing |
| Subscriptions | Full lifecycle management: create, upgrade, downgrade, pause, cancel |
| Usage-based billing | Report usage events server-side; AuthGate aggregates and bills at period end |
| Coupons & promo codes | Percent or amount discounts with duration control and redemption limits |
| Invoices | Automatic invoice generation with PDF download |
| Entitlements | Gate features by plan or individual feature flags |
| Webhooks | Outgoing events for all billing state changes |
| Proration | Automatic mid-cycle proration when users change plans |
| Trial periods | Configurable free trials on any plan |
Guides
- Billing Tutorial — Hands-on walkthrough: connect Stripe, create plans, add checkout, and gate features
- Billing Setup — Connect your Stripe account and configure currency
- Subscriptions — Create plans, manage subscription lifecycle, handle trials
- Usage-Based Billing — Report usage events and query usage summaries
- Coupons & Promo Codes — Create discounts, promotion codes, and bulk import
- SDK Components — Drop-in React components for pricing, checkout, and subscription management
- Entitlements — Gate features by plan or feature flag
- Webhooks — Receive real-time billing events in your application
- Billing API Endpoints — REST API reference for all billing proxy routes