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A Zuplo alternative for per-customer API analytics

Zuplo is a managed API gateway (with an AI gateway, MCP gateway, developer portal and monetization) that runs across 300+ edge locations. Its built-in Analytics shows request volume, latency, errors, a per-consumer breakdown and a section for classified AI agent traffic (Zuplo Analytics docs, checked Oct 23, 2026). To get those analytics, your traffic goes through Zuplo as your gateway. API Meter covers a narrower job: counting requests per customer, endpoint and plan so you can bill or price on them, next to whatever gateway or framework you already run. This page compares the two as neutrally as we can.

Zuplo's plans (checked Oct 23, 2026)

As listed on Zuplo's pricing page, in USD (zuplo.com/pricing, checked Oct 23, 2026).

	Free	Builder	Enterprise
Price	US$0, no credit card	US$25/mo	From US$1,000/mo, annual contract
Monthly requests	100K	100K included ("$100 per 100K" more); plan caps at 1M/mo	Custom (base package includes 1M)
Analytics history	1 day	7 days	30 days (custom available)
Log and trace history	Live (15 minutes)	1 day	3 days (up to unlimited)
Consumers and API keys	100	1,000	Custom
Developer seats	2	2	Custom
Monetization (metered billing)	100K events	100K events	Add-on

Over the limit: "On the Free tier, requests beyond your limit will be rate-limited until the next billing cycle." Builder can buy more capacity with "no hard cutoff" (zuplo.com/pricing, checked Oct 23, 2026).
Builder is not a team plan: Zuplo says it is for "solo entrepreneurs and hobbyists" and caps at 2 custom domains, 2 developer seats and 1M requests/mo (zuplo.com/pricing, checked Oct 23, 2026).
Per-customer: "Every request through Zuplo is automatically attributed to the API key that made it, and through the key to the consumer record", and you can attach metadata such as plan or tenant to keys (Zuplo observability, checked Oct 23, 2026). The Consumers section shows requests, 4xx/5xx rates and P95/P99 latency per consumer; unauthenticated calls fall into "Anonymous · No auth" (Zuplo Consumers docs, checked Oct 23, 2026).
AI agents: an Agents section "isolates AI agent traffic", with a classifier that recognizes ChatGPT, Claude.ai, Cursor, Claude Code, GPTBot, Perplexity, Cline, Continue, OpenAI SDK, Anthropic SDK, Google AI and Common Crawl. It uses an hourly rollup, and other sections can't be filtered by agent (Zuplo Agents docs, checked Oct 23, 2026).
API access: the Zuplo Developer API returns per-consumer request counts by status code for windows from the last hour to the last 3 months, and recent calls from the last 24 hours (Zuplo Developer API: analytics, checked Oct 23, 2026).

Approximate CAD, for orientation only: US$25 ≈ CA$35, US$100 ≈ CA$140, US$1,000 ≈ CA$1,402. This uses the Bank of Canada USD/CAD rate of 1.4021 for Oct 22, 2026, before tax. Zuplo lists prices in USD, so your card's rate will differ.

Side by side

	Zuplo	API Meter (beta)
What it is	A full API gateway: auth, API keys, rate limits, developer portal, monetization, AI and MCP gateways, plus analytics.	Usage analytics only.
Setup	Route your API through a Zuplo project (deploy from GitHub); analytics come from the gateway.	No gateway change needed. Change one base URL to the proxy, or keep your URL and paste a short ingest snippet (Express, Hono, FastAPI, Flask, Django, Go, curl).
Per-customer usage	Yes, by API key and consumer record (needs Zuplo auth on the route).	Yes. Two response headers set the customer and plan, or API keys are hashed into a customer ID.
AI agent traffic	Built-in Agents section with a classifier for known agents.	No classifier. Counted like any request; you can give it its own bucket with a plan label (guide).
History	Analytics 1 day (Free), 7 days (Builder), 30 days (Enterprise).	35 days of per-minute totals during the beta.
Billing export	Monetization (metered billing) included up to 100K events on Free and Builder; Developer API for per-consumer counts.	Per-customer CSV export of monthly counts.
Free option	100K requests/mo; past that, Free is rate-limited.	Free to 250K requests/month per API; your traffic is never blocked (recording pauses past 125%).
Currency	USD.	CAD, monthly. Checkout is in Stripe test mode during the beta.

When Zuplo is a better fit

You also need a gateway: API key management, rate limiting, auth policies and a developer portal in one product. API Meter does none of those.
You want AI agents classified automatically by name (ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor and others) rather than tagging them yourself.
You want built-in metered billing (Monetization) and MCP or AI gateway features on the same platform.
You want P95/P99 latency per consumer, geography, and logs and traces next to your analytics.
You're on Enterprise and need an SLA, SSO or self-hosting. API Meter is a beta with no SLA.

Where API Meter fits better

Keep your gateway. If you already run on Cloudflare, AWS, Kong or plain Express, you don't migrate anything; you add a proxy URL or a snippet.
Longer history on the free and low tiers. 35 days of per-minute totals, compared with 1 day on Zuplo Free and 7 days on Builder.
Volume pricing for small teams. Indie is CA$19/mo with 2M requests included, then CA$3 per started million, with unlimited seats. Zuplo Builder includes 100K requests, is limited to 2 seats and caps at 1M; teams need Enterprise from US$1,000/mo (about CA$1,402).
Traffic is never blocked by us. Past the free limit, API Meter pauses recording; your API keeps serving.
CAD, monthly. No annual contract and no USD conversion on a Canadian card.

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. Zuplo is an established product.

FAQ

Does Zuplo have per-customer API analytics?

Yes. As of Oct 23, 2026 its Analytics has a Consumers section, and requests are attributed to the API key and consumer that made them. Analytics is included on every plan, with 1 day of history on Free.

Does AI agent or bot traffic count as usage?

Yes. In API Meter every request counts as normal usage, whether it comes from a person's app, a script, a bot or an AI agent, and it's billed the same. Zuplo shows classified agents in their own section. With API Meter you can label agent calls as their own bucket per customer and endpoint; see tracking AI agent API usage per customer.

Can I use both?

Yes. Zuplo can stay your gateway and forward to your origin, and your origin can send API Meter a copy of each request's metadata with an ingest snippet. Some teams keep the gateway's analytics for operations and API Meter for monthly per-customer counts.

Is Zuplo priced per request?

Partly. Free includes 100K requests/mo, Builder US$25/mo includes 100K and lists "$100 per 100K" beyond that up to 1M, and Enterprise starts at US$1,000/mo with volume discounts above 1M.

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Sources, all checked Oct 23, 2026: zuplo.com/pricing; Zuplo observability; Zuplo docs on Analytics, Consumers, Agents and the analytics API. Vendors change pricing and features, so check before you decide.