Choosing between Orb and Commet is a question of scope: what else do you need to plug in around your billing engine?
Orb is a usage-based billing platform built for complex metering and aggregation. Commet is a full billing platform with Merchant of Record that includes usage-based billing as a core primitive. Both handle usage well.
TL;DR
| Orb | Commet | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Usage-based billing specialist | Full billing platform + MoR |
| Merchant of Record | No (you are the seller) | Yes (Commet is the seller) |
| Payment processing | BYO (Stripe, etc.) | Included (Stripe under the hood) |
| Tax handling | Not included | Built-in (MoR handles it) |
| Usage metering | Advanced pipelines and SQL-based | Metered, credits, balance |
| Target market | Enterprise | Startups to mid-market |
| Pricing | Custom/enterprise contracts | 4.5% + $0.40 per transaction |
Different Scopes
Orb: deep on metering
Orb is built to solve one problem extremely well: tracking usage events, aggregating them through complex pipelines, and converting them into invoice line items.
Orb handles event ingestion, deduplication, SQL-based aggregation, backfill and amendment, and flexible pricing models (per-unit, tiered, bulk, package, matrix). If your metering logic requires joining multiple event streams, applying time-weighted averages, or custom SQL transformations, Orb gives you the tools.
What Orb does not do: collect payments, handle taxes, manage compliance, or act as Merchant of Record. You pair Orb with Stripe (or another processor) for payments and a tax solution (Avalara, Anrok, etc.) for compliance.
Commet: billing as a complete stack
Commet bundles metering, invoicing, payment collection, tax handling, and compliance into a single service. Usage-based billing is one of three consumption models (metered, credits, balance), and it sits alongside plan management, seat billing, addons, and real-time entitlements.
The trade-off is that Commet's metering is less configurable than Orb's. Commet handles the common patterns (count, sum, overage calculations) but does not offer SQL-based aggregation pipelines or multi-dimensional event transforms.
Usage-Based Billing Comparison
| Feature | Orb | Commet |
|---|---|---|
| Event ingestion | HTTP API with idempotency | SDK with real-time processing |
| Aggregation | SQL-based, multi-dimensional | Count, sum, overage |
| Pricing models | Per-unit, tiered, bulk, package, matrix | Per-unit with included allowance |
| Backfill and amendment | Yes (retroactive corrections) | Limited |
| Real-time entitlements | No (billing system, not access control) | Yes (query before action) |
| Credit systems | Prepaid credits | First-class credit packs |
| Balance accounts | No | Built-in balance model |
| Invoice generation | Yes | Yes |
| Payment collection | No | Yes |
Orb gives you more flexibility in how usage translates to charges. Commet gives you more out of the box beyond just the billing calculation.
Feature-by-Feature: Orb vs Commet
| Dimension | Orb | Commet |
|---|---|---|
| Usage metering | SQL-based aggregation, multi-dimensional transforms | Count, sum, overage with real-time entitlement checks |
| Merchant of Record / tax | No — you handle tax registration, calculation, and remittance | Yes — Commet is the legal seller, taxes handled end to end |
| Credits | Prepaid credits | First-class credit packs that gate usage when exhausted |
| Payouts | None — Orb does not move money | Local-currency payouts in 112 countries |
| Local-currency charging | Depends on the processor you bring | 20+ markets out of the box |
| Pricing model | Custom enterprise contracts, no public prices | 4.5% + $0.40 per successful transaction, no monthly fees |
| Open source | No | Platform is not open source; SDKs and libraries are |
What You Need Around Each Platform
With Orb, you also need:
- Payment processor (Stripe, Adyen): to actually collect money
- Tax solution (Avalara, Anrok): to calculate and remit sales tax and VAT
- Compliance handling: you are the legal seller, so tax registration, invoicing format, and regulatory compliance are your responsibility
- Entitlement logic: Orb calculates bills, it does not gate features. You build access control in your application
With Commet, you get:
- Payment processing (Stripe under the hood)
- Tax calculation and remittance (MoR)
- Compliant invoicing across jurisdictions
- Real-time entitlement checks via SDK
- Embeddable checkout and customer portal
The total cost of Orb is not just Orb's contract. It is Orb + Stripe fees + tax solution fees + engineering time to integrate and maintain three systems.
Pricing Model
Orb uses custom enterprise pricing. You negotiate a contract based on your expected volume. There are no public prices. This works for well-funded companies with predictable growth, but creates friction for startups that want to start small.
Commet charges 4.5% + $0.40 per transaction with no monthly minimums or platform fees. You pay when you process revenue. This includes payment processing, tax handling, and all MoR services.
For a startup processing $10K/month across ~1,000 transactions, Commet costs roughly $850/month all-in. With Orb, your cost is Orb's enterprise contract + Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 + your tax solution's fees.
Target Market
Orb targets enterprise companies with complex billing requirements. Their customer base includes companies processing millions of events per month who need granular control over how those events map to charges. The sales process involves demos, contract negotiation, and implementation support.
Commet targets startups and mid-market SaaS companies that want to ship billing quickly without assembling multiple vendors. Self-serve signup, SDK integration, and pay-as-you-go pricing reflect this focus.
Switching From Orb to Commet
Most Orb concepts have a direct Commet equivalent, so migration is mostly mapping, not rebuilding:
| In Orb | In Commet |
|---|---|
| Billable metrics | Metered features (count, sum, overage) |
| Plans and prices | Plans with billing intervals |
| Prepaid credits | Credit packs |
| Event ingestion API | Usage events via SDK |
| Your Stripe account + tax vendor | Included — Commet becomes the Merchant of Record |
A migration typically looks like this:
- Map your billable metrics to metered features. If a metric is a count or sum over events, it maps directly. If it relies on custom SQL transforms, pre-aggregate in your application before sending the usage event.
- Recreate plans in Commet with their billing intervals, included allowances, and overage prices.
- Point event ingestion at the Commet SDK instead of Orb's API. Entitlement checks become available immediately — something Orb never gave you.
- Run both systems in parallel for one billing cycle and compare the invoices line by line.
- Move subscriptions at renewal. Because Commet becomes the seller of record, the billing relationship (checkout, invoices, tax) moves to Commet, and you retire your separate tax vendor at the same time.
The biggest structural change is not the metering — it is that payments and tax stop being your problem.
When Orb Is Actually the Better Choice
No platform wins every scenario, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. Orb is the better pick when:
- Your metering logic requires SQL-based aggregation or multi-dimensional event transforms
- You need backfill and retroactive amendment of usage data
- You already have payment processing and tax compliance handled
- Your company is at a scale where enterprise contracts make sense
- You have engineering resources to integrate and maintain multiple billing vendors
When to Choose Commet
- You want billing, payments, tax, and compliance in one platform
- Your usage metering follows common patterns (count events, sum quantities, calculate overage)
- You need real-time entitlement checks in your application
- You want to start without a sales call or enterprise contract
- You sell to LATAM customers and need local currency pricing
- You are building an AI product with token-based consumption
Final Thought
Orb is the better metering engine. Commet is the better billing platform.
If your primary challenge is complex usage aggregation and you have the rest of the billing stack covered, Orb is purpose-built for that. If your challenge is getting billing, payments, tax, and compliance working without stitching together multiple vendors, Commet handles the full stack.
Start without a sales call — the numbers are public on the pricing page. See also how Commet compares to Stripe, Paddle, and Chargebee.