Stripe wants to turn your AI costs into a profit center | TechCrunch

Stripe on Monday has released a preview of a new feature that could help AI startups (and other companies) solve the problem of passing on the underlying costs of using AI models to their customers.

However, Stripe’s function goes further than just passing on the costs of the tokens. This allows startups to charge a surcharge percentage on token usage. So, for example, a company can automatically charge 30% above the cost of the tokens that the startup pays to the model maker.

As Stripe described it: “Say you’re building an AI app: you want a consistent 30% margin on raw LLM token costs across providers. Billing automates the process.”

The billing feature allows the startup to choose the AI ​​models it uses. It tracks the API prices of those models. It then records the customer’s token usage and automatically applies the profit margin.

As we previously reported, there are several ways AI startups charge for their products. Many of them charge tiered monthly subscriptions with usage limits; Once these are reached, the subscriber may have to pay more for exceeding the limit.

For example, last year Cursor changed pricing for some of its tiers from unlimited usage to capped usage, with additional usage charges added on top.

Without a usage limit, users could rack up large bills for a startup from the model makers, forcing the startup to operate in the red. This is especially acute for agentic startups. The more their customers use their agents, the more tokens they consume from the underlying model provider, whether that’s OpenAI, Google Gemini, Anthropic or others – making pricing and business model decisions particularly crucial.

Stripe has also introduced its own AI Gateway, a tool that gives users access to multiple models so they can choose the best one for the job. But the billing tool also works with third-party gateways that are already popular, such as those offered by Vercel and OpenRouter, according to a tweet by a Stripe product manager,

There are of course other startups offering cost management features for AI models with their own gateways. OpenRouter for examplewhich gives access to over 300 models, charges a flat 5.5% markup on token fees for its tier one plan, and also offers budget controls.

Stripe currently does not charge its own fees on the gateway, the product manager said on Twitter. However, the feature is still in waitlist mode. Either way, if Stripe can help startups easily turn tracking and invoicing these costs into profit-making, this could be a gamechanger. Stripe did not immediately respond to a request for comment on when the feature might be generally available.