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An Apitally alternative for per-customer API usage

Apitally is a well-built API monitoring and analytics tool for Python, Node.js, Go and .NET apps. You install its open-source SDK middleware, and it shows traffic, errors and performance per endpoint and per consumer. It also adds request logs, traces and alerts. API Meter covers a narrower job: counting requests per customer, endpoint and plan so you can bill or price on them. It works with no SDK if you want. This page compares the two as neutrally as we can.

Apitally's plans (checked Oct 20, 2026)

Prices as listed on Apitally's pricing section, in USD. It says "Prices exclude tax" and offers USD or EUR. There is no free plan; it offers a "14-day free trial" with "No credit card required at sign up" (apitally.io pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026).

	Basic	Starter	Premium
Price, billed monthly	US$9/mo	US$29/mo	US$119/mo
Price, billed yearly	US$8/mo	US$26/mo	US$109/mo
Apps	1	3	10
Dashboard users	1	3	Unlimited
API consumers	100	1,000	Unlimited
API requests for metrics	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Request logs	1M/month	5M/month, then US$2.00 per 1M	25M/month, then US$2.00 per 1M
Application logs and trace spans	Not included	20M/month, then US$1.00 per 1M	100M/month, then US$1.00 per 1M
Slack and Teams integration	Yes	Yes	Yes

Overage: optional. Apitally's docs say "Usage-based billing is disabled by default." It can be turned on for Starter and Premium. Without it, a plan that goes over its monthly request-log quota stops ingesting logs until the next month. "Your API metrics are not affected" (Apitally usage limits, checked Oct 20, 2026).
Consumer limit: counted as unique consumers "within a rolling 24-hour period". If you go over, there is a grace period: the docs say 7 days and the FAQ says "one-time". After that, Apitally stops ingesting until you're back under the limit or upgrade (Apitally usage limits, checked Oct 20, 2026).
Retention: the FAQ says "Apitally retains aggregated API metrics for 1 year", and "Request logs, application logs, and traces are retained for 15 days" (apitally.io FAQ, checked Oct 20, 2026). The docs add that metrics are kept at 1-minute granularity for 32 days, then 30-minute intervals, and are deleted after 13 months (Apitally: how it works, checked Oct 20, 2026).
Frameworks (21):
- Python: BlackSheep, Django Ninja, Django REST Framework, FastAPI, Flask, Litestar, Starlette.
- JavaScript: AdonisJS, Elysia, Express, Fastify, H3, Hapi, Hono, Koa, NestJS.
- Go: Chi, Echo, Fiber, Gin.
- .NET: ASP.NET Core.
- Cloudflare Workers via "a Logpush integration and our Serverless SDKs" (Hono and FastAPI) (apitally.io FAQ, checked Oct 20, 2026).

Approximate CAD, for orientation only: US$9 ≈ CA$13, US$29 ≈ CA$41, US$119 ≈ CA$168. This uses the Bank of Canada USD/CAD rate of 1.4097 for Oct 19, 2026, before tax. Apitally bills in USD or EUR, so your card's rate will differ.

Side by side

	Apitally	API Meter (beta)
Setup	SDK middleware or plugin in your app ("Just add a few lines of code"). Open-source SDKs for Python, Node.js, Go and .NET (docs, checked Oct 20, 2026).	No SDK needed. Change one base URL to the proxy, or paste a short ingest snippet (Express, Hono, FastAPI, Flask, Django, Go, curl). Works with any language.
Per-customer usage	Yes. A Consumers view shows how individual consumers use your API, once your app sends a consumer identifier with each request (docs, checked Oct 20, 2026).	Yes. Two response headers set the customer and plan, or API keys are hashed into a customer ID.
Billing export	Its docs list an API reference that includes "List Consumers" and "Get Request Logs". We didn't find a monthly per-customer usage export for billing described on the pages we checked.	Per-customer CSV export of monthly counts from the dashboard.
Request logs, traces	Yes. Optional request logs with headers and payloads, plus application logs and traces (not on Basic).	No. Per-minute totals only; bodies are never stored.
Alerts and uptime	Custom alerts on "14 different traffic, error and performance metrics", plus uptime checks, health checks, and Slack and Teams integration.	No alerts yet. There is a usage meter with 80%/100% plan warnings.
Retention	Metrics 1 year (deleted after 13 months). Logs and traces 15 days.	35 days of per-minute totals during the beta.
Free option	14-day trial, no free plan.	Free to 250K requests/month per API.
Pricing basis	Per plan: apps, users, consumers and log quotas. Metrics requests are unlimited.	Per request: Indie CA$19/mo includes 2M, then CA$3 per started million. Unlimited APIs and seats.
Currency	USD or EUR, before tax.	CAD. Checkout is in Stripe test mode during the beta.

When Apitally is a better fit

You run one of its 21 supported frameworks and want SDK-native depth: endpoint introspection, validation-error details, and app logs and traces next to each request.
You need request logging with headers and payloads to debug specific calls. API Meter never stores bodies.
You want alerting and uptime monitoring today: 14 alert metrics, heartbeats, health checks, and Slack and Teams notifications.
You want a year of metric history, compared with API Meter's 35-day beta retention.
You have high traffic but few consumers. Apitally's metrics don't count requests, so Basic at US$9/mo covers any request volume for 1 app with up to 100 consumers. API Meter's per-request price would be higher at, say, 10M requests/month (CA$43).

Where API Meter fits better

No SDK, any stack. A proxy base URL works for languages and frameworks without an Apitally SDK (Ruby, PHP, Java, Rust, Elixir and others), and for APIs whose code you'd rather not touch.
Per-customer billing export. Monthly counts per customer and plan, as a CSV built for invoicing usage-based plans.
CAD pricing. Billed in Canadian dollars, with no USD conversion on a Canadian card.
Price at volume across many customers. API Meter doesn't price by consumer count, app count or seats. At 5M requests from 2,000 customers, Indie is CA$28/mo. On Apitally that consumer count needs Premium (US$119/mo, about CA$168).
A real free tier. 250K requests/month with no time limit, compared with a 14-day trial.

Beta, read this first: API Meter runs on Cloudflare's free plan during the beta, with a shared limit of about 100,000 proxied requests/day across all APIs. Indie checkout is in Stripe test mode, and overage isn't billed yet. Apitally is an established, paid product.

FAQ

Does Apitally have a free plan?

Not on its pricing section as of Oct 20, 2026. It offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card. API Meter is free to 250K requests/month.

Can I use both?

Yes. Apitally runs as middleware inside your app, and API Meter can sit in front as a proxy, or receive a copy of each request's metadata from an ingest snippet. Some teams use one for debugging and one for billing counts.

Is Apitally's price per request?

No. Its pages say there's "no limit on the number of API requests processed for metrics and analytics". The quotas apply to request logs, application logs and trace spans, plus app, user and consumer limits per plan.

Try it

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Sources, all checked Oct 20, 2026: apitally.io pricing and FAQ; Apitally docs on usage limits, how it works, consumers and data privacy. Vendors change pricing and features, so check before you decide.