TLDR: Kong Inc. has launched Konnect Metering and Billing, a new solution designed to help businesses monetize their APIs, AI models, and data streams. Powered by recently acquired OpenMeter technology, this offering provides unified usage monitoring, flexible pricing, and real-time billing to address the growing need for efficient revenue capture and cost control in the evolving AI landscape.
Kong Inc., a prominent developer of cloud API and AI technologies, announced a suite of innovations at its annual developer conference, highlighted by the introduction of Kong Konnect Metering and Billing. This new offering, built on technology from OpenMeter, which Kong acquired approximately a month prior, is set to revolutionize how companies generate revenue from their digital assets, including application programming interfaces (APIs), data streams, and artificial intelligence models.
The Konnect Metering and Billing solution is specifically designed to address the urgent need for enterprises to effectively scale, monetize, and manage usage across their diverse digital services, particularly with the increasing adoption of AI systems. According to Kong, many organizations currently face fragmented visibility and billing processes, which act as significant obstacles to efficient revenue capture and robust cost controls.
Ross Kukulinski, VP of Product at Kong Inc., emphasized the strategic importance of this integration, stating, “By integrating OpenMeter into Kong Konnect, we’re giving organizations the tools to transform their digital services into profitable assets while maintaining strong governance in the agentic AI era. This unified approach not only accelerates monetization but also provides deep insights to optimize strategies, help reduce churn, and capitalize on emerging opportunities.”
Key features of Kong Konnect Metering and Billing, which is expected to be available to customers before the end of the year, include real-time usage metering with built-in integration in Kong API and AI Gateways. This allows for seamless monitoring of existing API traffic and AI application usage. The platform also enables companies to create highly flexible, data-driven products and rate cards that can be easily market-tested, modified, and versioned to adapt quickly to market demands and optimize pricing. Furthermore, it supports the implementation of robust entitlements, add-ons, and granular limits, offering unparalleled control over costs and real-time management of customer access to products and features.
In addition to the metering and billing tools, Kong also unveiled an update to its Konnect Service Catalog at the API Summit. This updated catalog is now deeply integrated with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API Gateway, allowing enterprises to discover, visualize, and govern APIs within the AWS cloud alongside those already managed by Kong.
Augusto Marietti, CEO and Co-Founder of Kong Inc., highlighted the broader vision, stating, “As businesses scale and AI adoption grows, organizations need simple, turnkey solutions to meter and monetize digital consumption in real time. With OpenMeter joining Kong, we’re enabling customers to turn their APIs, data, and AI capabilities into new revenue streams. Thus making monetization native, scalable, and ready for the agentic AI era.”
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Kong positions itself as a leader in API and microservices management, connecting these critical components of modern applications and AI systems across various environments, including public clouds, Kubernetes, and on-premises data centers. The company’s mission is to empower businesses to become “API-first” to advance and enable the AI era, where AI agents are expected to increasingly exchange labor via APIs.
