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Compare · AI cost and margin

Limitr vs Paid.

Paid tracks what each agent cost after it ran. Limitr decides before it runs: whether the call is allowed, what it will cost, and whether the budget covers it.

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The short answer
Paid

Monetization and cost tracking for AI agents.

Limitr

Decides every call in your app, with prices, costs, limits, and contract terms, then bills it.

Side by side

What happens when…

The moments that decide it, answered from each product's own docs and pricing.

When…PaidLimitr
An agent loop runs away at 2 a.m.Tracks what the agent spent. Stopping it is up to your app.The call that would break the budget never runs. Task, customer, and org budgets are checked in your app first.
A customer costs more than they payYes, its core: cost per agent, workflow, and customer, after the work.Margin per account is live, and a cap on what an account can cost you stops it before it turns unprofitable.
Sales signs a custom dealSeat, activity, and outcome pricing in one contract.Write it as a contract in Limitr Cloud. Its prices, limits, and terms are enforced in the product on the next call.
Open sourceNo.The engine and policy format, Apache 2.0.

Checked November 10, 2026. Sources: Paid · Paid seed round (TechCrunch). Something out of date? Tell us.

Architecture

Where the decision happens.

The difference most comparisons skip: where a call is allowed, priced, and capped, and when.

Paid
After the call

Usage is recorded and billed after it happens. Your app acts on alerts and webhooks, once the calls have already run.

Your app
no check first
Model or APIthe cost
afterward
Billing servicerecords it
Limitr
Inside your app, before the call

The engine runs natively in your process and decides every call in about a millisecond: allowed, priced at your cost and your price, and held to the contract. Usage goes to Limitr Cloud in the background.

Your appLimitr engine inside
decided first
Model or APIthe cost
in the background
Limitr Cloudledger and invoices

Proof

Don't take our word for it.

Bring last month's usage. We'll replay it through Limitr Analyst and show your margin per account, and what Limitr would have stopped.

100,000+users metered for The Regis Company's Fortune 500 contract971 of 1,000attack calls stopped inside the app in our abuse demo, on a real policy0network calls to decide a request. It keeps deciding when the network doesn't.Apache 2.0Read exactly what decides your calls.
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The gap

What you'd still build on Paid.

Teams pair Paid with code of their own. With Limitr, that part is the product.

With Paid, you still build
With Limitr, you get
Budgets that stop a call before it spends
Budgets and limits checked in your app before the call
Limits and caps per customer and task
Caps per customer, org, task, and call
Enforcement of the contract in the product
Contracts enforced in the product on the next call

Choose Paid if you sell agents on outcomes and proving value per outcome is the core need.

Switching

From Paid to Limitr.

No migration day. Limitr runs next to what you have until the numbers match.

Book a replayMap your pricing
Map your Paid plans and prices to a Limitr policy, line by line.
Run Limitr in observe mode next to Paid and compare the numbers on real traffic.
Switch enforcement on. Customers come over as they appear, with no migration day.

Common questions

Limitr vs Paid, answered.

Paid tracks cost and value after the work. Limitr also decides before the work: whether the call is allowed, what it will cost, and whether the budget can cover it.

Paid tracks what each agent cost after it ran. Limitr decides before it runs: whether the call is allowed, what it will cost, and whether the budget covers it. Choose Paid if you sell agents on outcomes and proving value per outcome is the core need.

Paid: after the call. Usage is recorded and billed after it happens. Your app acts on alerts and webhooks, once the calls have already run. Limitr: inside your app, before the call. The engine runs natively in your process and decides every call in about a millisecond: allowed, priced at your cost and your price, and held to the contract. Usage goes to Limitr Cloud in the background.

Map your Paid plans and prices to a Limitr policy, line by line. Run Limitr in observe mode next to Paid and compare the numbers on real traffic. Switch enforcement on. Customers come over as they appear, with no migration day.

Limitr is built for them. An agent is a customer like any other, with its own plan, limits, and budget, linked to the workspace it works for. Budgets per task, customer, and org are checked in your app before each step runs, and the agent can see what it has left as a Claude tool.

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npm i @formata/limitr
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