Kong API Gateway 3.16 is here: runtime log-level tuning, per-consumer plugin configs, credit/usage-based request blocking with the new Entitlement Enforcement plugin, and FIPS 140-3 compliance for regulated industries - all built for live production debugging and governance, no downtime or custom…
Our launch announcement made the business case for prepaid credits: collect fiat-specific payment before consumption, protect your margins from token-cost spikes and collections risk, and give customers a flexible wallet with different overage options. This post is the technical follow-up, written…
AI moves fast: new models, new pricing, new capabilities, sometimes all at once. Prepaid credits let customers buy value upfront and spend it across whatever you're offering today or launch next, without needing to reprice, remigrate, or renegotiate every time something changes. Prepaid credits are…
GitHub just sent waves of budget panic across its developer base. Seat-based Copilot pricing is out. Consumption-based credits are in. And if you're building an AI-driven product today on flat-rate pricing? You're building a problem into your roadmap. GitHub just announced Copilot plans will shift…
Your AI infrastructure is producing financial signals your CFO has never seen. Token consumption is a direct cost line item. Cache hit rate is a margin improvement. Model routing decisions are cost arbitrage events. These things are happening right now, in the gateway layer, with no route to the…
Every enterprise moving AI into production is about to face a familiar problem in an unfamiliar form: the cost explosion, but for LLMs. This is very similar to what happened with cloud. In the early days of cloud, teams spun up infrastructure with no visibility into who was consuming what. Finance…
AI APIs don't get enough credit for how much weight they're actually carrying. These AI APIs aren't merely technical connectors. They're, in fact, cost drivers and potential revenue engines. And when something goes sideways, they're ground zero. In production, they behave nothing like the…
Today, we’re announcing that Kong has acquired OpenMeter , the open source and SaaS leader for real-time usage metering and billing. OpenMeter’s capabilities will be integrated into Kong Konnect, enabling usage-based pricing, entitlements, and invoicing for APIs, events, and AI workloads. This is a…
Picture this: you’ve spent months building a slick API that developers love, and it’s already humming behind the scenes in production. But every time someone calls your endpoint, what happens? You get an invisible hit across multiple cost centers, including expensive LLMs, without a clear line of…
Happy holidays from the Kong team! Consider this our gift to everyone who's been asked "what's the ROI on AI?" one too many times. The AI boom has a dirty secret: for most enterprises, it's bleeding money. Every LLM call, every agent invocation, every API request that powers your AI products — they…
If your 2026 resolution is to finally get AI costs under control , we've got you covered. Every January, the same resolutions show up: eat better, exercise more, finally learn that language, finally figure out that production use case for AI agents (OK, this one isn’t so typical unless you operate…
See how easily Konnect Metering & Billing transforms API and AI traffic management into new revenue streams. We've talked about why 2026 is the year of AI unit economics . There, we explored the "2025 hangover" where organizations realized that without financial governance, AI isn't just a science…
TL:DR Imagine 47 million requests hitting your platform last month. Can you prove who made each one—and invoice with confidence? If that question tightens your stomach, you're not alone. Metered billing for APIs promises fair, transparent pricing that scales with customer success. But it only works…