Subscription billing for AI companies that sell seats, credits and enterprise contracts at once
How AI-native SaaS companies run self-service signup, seat subscriptions, credit allowances and enterprise contracts on one billing platform in Bunny, without a rebuild each time pricing changes.
What makes subscription billing different for AI-native SaaS
Companies selling AI products where pricing mixes seats, credits, tokens and committed spend, and where the pricing model itself changes every few months.
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Self-serve and enterprise arrive together
AI products often get a card-paying developer audience and an enterprise buyer in the same quarter. A billing stack built only for one of them forces the other into spreadsheets.
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Free tiers, trials and allowances everywhere
Free credits, trial periods, monthly allowances and promotional pricing are standard in AI. Each one is a billing rule that has to survive contact with an upgrade or a renewal.
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Plans are versioned, not replaced
Early customers on legacy pricing, current customers on the new model, and a beta tier for the next one — all billing simultaneously, all expected to be correct.
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Revenue reporting has to separate the pieces
Investors and finance want recurring revenue, usage revenue and one-time credit purchases reported distinctly, not as a single blended number from a payments tool.
How Bunny handles subscription billing for AI-native SaaS
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01
PLG and SLG customers on one catalog
Self-service signups through the customer portal or embedded React components and sales-quoted enterprise deals bill from the same product catalog, so a customer who starts on a card can be upgraded to a contract without re-creating them.
Self-service in Bunny -
02
Recurring, usage and one-time charges on a subscription
Seat fees, credit allowances, overage and one-off credit packs are different charge types on the same subscription and appear together on one invoice.
Usage-based billing in Bunny -
03
Trials and free plans in the catalog
Trial periods and free plans are configured on price lists, so free-to-paid conversion is a plan change on an existing subscription rather than a new account.
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04
Versioned price lists
New pricing is a new price list; old price lists can be deprecated for new sales while existing subscriptions continue on them. Nobody is migrated until a quote moves them.
Price lists explained -
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Card and bank payments, dunning and the portal
Stripe and Plaid handle card and bank payment collection; customers manage payment methods, invoices and subscription changes in the Bunny portal.
Stripe integration -
06
Revenue analytics that separate the components
MRR, ARR, net and gross revenue retention and cohort analytics are computed from the subscription data, with recurring and usage revenue distinguishable.
Net revenue retention
The two-audience problem
AI-native products tend to acquire two customer bases at once. Developers and small teams sign up on a card and expect a portal where they can add seats or buy credits without talking to anyone. Enterprise buyers want a contract, a negotiated rate, an annual invoice and a security questionnaire. Most billing tools were built for one of these and handle the other badly.
Bunny was designed around the assumption that a B2B SaaS company has both, and that individual customers move between them. A self-service customer who signs an enterprise agreement keeps their account, history and subscription; the quote changes their pricing and terms. An enterprise customer on custom pricing can still add seats in the portal, because self-service works on custom-priced plans rather than only on list price.
Where AI companies get billing wrong early
The most common early mistake is building the free tier and credit system in application code and treating billing as something that happens when a card is charged. It works until pricing changes, at which point the application logic, the payments configuration and the invoice presentation all have to change together.
Modelling the allowance, the overage and the seat fee as charges in the catalog from the start means the application only needs to report usage and read entitlements. Pricing changes happen in the catalog and flow through to invoices, the portal and the revenue analytics without a deploy.
More Bunny for AI-native SaaS
See everything on the AI SaaS overview, or read about subscription billing in Bunny in general.
Subscription billing for other industries
The same workflow, written up for other kinds of B2B SaaS. Browse all industries.
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