Meters

A meter defines how you price and bill usage. Each meter has:

Meter slug

Unique identifier included in forward tokens to apply specific pricing

Fee model

Fixed credits per usage unit, or a percentage of provider cost

Usage units

What you’re measuring — tokens, characters, seconds, or requests

Pricing tiers

Volume-based rate schedules that reward higher usage

Meters define pricing. Plans link to meters and provide the credit balance that usage draws from. See How Lava Monetize Works for the full picture of how meters, plans, and customers fit together.

Meter configuration

Full create example with all parameters

Node.js SDK
cURL

const meter = await lava.meters.create({
  // Required
  name: 'Chat Completion Tokens',

  // Optional — auto-generated if omitted
  meter_slug: 'chat-tokens',

  // Required — 'fixed' (credits per usage unit) or 'percentage' (markup on provider cost)
  rate_type: 'fixed',

  // Required — 'tokens_1m' | 'characters_1m' | 'minutes' | 'requests'
  tier_type: 'tokens_1m',

  // Required — at least one tier, first tier must start at '0'
  tiers: [
    { start: '0', rate: '5.00' },        // 5 credits per 1M tokens
    { start: '1000000', rate: '3.00' },   // 3 credits per 1M after 1M
    { start: '10000000', rate: '1.00' },  // 1 credit per 1M after 10M
  ],
});

curl -X POST 'https://api.lava.so/v1/meters' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer sk_your_secret_key' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "name": "Chat Completion Tokens",
    "meter_slug": "chat-tokens",
    "rate_type": "fixed",
    "tier_type": "tokens_1m",
    "tiers": [
      { "start": "0", "rate": "5.00" },
      { "start": "1000000", "rate": "3.00" },
      { "start": "10000000", "rate": "1.00" }
    ]
  }'

Usage units

Usage units define what metric drives pricing. Set via the field:

Unit type	Label	Rate basis	Example use case
`tokens_1m`	Tokens	credits per 1M tokens	LLM APIs
`characters_1m`	Characters	credits per 1M characters	Text-to-speech
`minutes`	Seconds	credits per minute	Audio processing, voice calls
`requests`	Requests	credits per request	Image generation, API calls

Fee models

The field determines how fees are calculated.

Fixed
Percentage

Charge a fixed number of credits per usage unit (tokens, characters, time, or requests), regardless of the provider’s dollar cost:

credits_charged = rate × units

Example: 2 credits per 1M tokens with input+output basis

500 input tokens + 200 output tokens = 700 tokens
Credits: 2 × 700 / 1,000,000 = 0.0014 credits

Charge a percentage of the base provider cost. The rate represents what percentage of the provider cost your customer pays — not the markup on top.

customer cost = baseCost × rate / 100

Example: 20% markup → set rate to 120

Provider charges $0.01 for a request
Customer pays: $0.01 × 120 / 100 = $0.012

The rate is the total percentage of provider cost the customer pays. For a 20% markup, set the rate to 120 (not 20). Setting the rate to 20 would charge the customer only 20% of the provider cost.

Pricing tiers

Tiers let you offer volume-based pricing. Each tier defines a usage threshold and rate. As cumulative usage increases, later tiers apply.

At least one tier is required. The first tier must start at 0, and tier starts must be in ascending order.

Example: Three-tier token pricing

Tier	Start	Rate (credits per 1M tokens)
1	0	5
2	1,000,000	3
3	10,000,000	1

For a customer that uses 5M tokens total:

First 1M at 5 credits/1M = 5 credits
Next 4M at 3 credits/1M = 12 credits
Total: 17 credits deducted from their balance

Tiers accumulate per customer. Each customer tracks total usage across all requests to determine the active tier.

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Meter slug

Fee model

Usage units

Pricing tiers

Meter configuration

Usage units

Fee models

Pricing tiers

Next steps

Checkout

Gateway vs Post-Request

Meter slug

Fee model

Usage units

Pricing tiers

​Meter configuration

​Usage units

​Fee models

​Pricing tiers

​Next steps

Checkout

Gateway vs Post-Request

Meter configuration

Usage units

Fee models

Pricing tiers

Next steps