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Open Source CloudStack billing: software, metering and source code

CloudStack billing turns what customers use on Apache CloudStack — virtual machines, storage, IPs, traffic — into prices, invoices and payments. NexCMP is a self-hosted CloudStack billing and customer portal platform that does it for free.

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Updated 30 October 2026. Third-party facts come from the vendors' own pages, read on 2026-10-19.NexCMP Source: full source code for $499, one-time. Use, modify and self-host for your own business. You may sell the services you operate; you may not resell or redistribute the source code or builds. Source license terms

What is CloudStack billing?

CloudStack billing is the layer that prices and charges what customers consume on Apache CloudStack: virtual machine hours, disks, public IPs, snapshots, backups and network traffic. It covers metering, rating, a customer wallet or credit, invoices and payment gateways and, for providers who sell through partners, reseller billing.

The CloudStack Usage Server is “an optional, separately-installed part of CloudStack” that turns event data into summary usage records (running VM, allocated VM, IP address, network bytes, volume, template, snapshot and more), retrieved through the listUsageRecords API. CloudStack’s documentation describes those records as the basis for a billing integration you build on top.

Pricing, invoices, payments and a branded storefront are the job of a billing layer on top of CloudStack — which is why providers add one.

What your customers see of their bill

The virtual machine page in the customer portal carries the billing: the plan and cycle, the renewal and the history. Pick a tab, use the arrows, or open the full-screen viewer. Screens show sample data.

Overview

Customer portal, virtual machine Overview: power state, plan, vCPU, RAM and disk, IP addresses, bandwidth chart, billing summary, system information and the action log.
The VM at a glance: state, size, IP addresses, bandwidth, billing and recent actions.

Billing

Customer portal, virtual machine Billing tab: current plan, renewal and billing history.
The current plan, renewal and the billing history.

Change plan

Customer portal, virtual machine Change plan tab: the current plan, billing cycle and the available plans with prices.
Pick a bigger plan or another billing cycle with the price shown first.

Activity

Customer portal, virtual machine Activity tab: a log of actions such as reboot, snapshot and volume changes.
Everything done to the VM, newest first.

Storage

Customer portal, virtual machine Storage tab: the root disk and add-on data volumes.
The root disk and add-on volumes that the customer can buy, attach or grow.

How do providers bill CloudStack customers today?

There are four common routes. The right one depends on how much you want to build, what else you sell and who runs the software.

  • Build it yourself on the Usage Server records. No license cost, but you write the rating, invoicing, payment and portal code.
  • Add a CloudStack module to a general billing system. HostBill ships a CloudStack module that bills hourly VM usage or metered resources, Ubersmith documents a CloudStack billing service module, and WHMCS's marketplace lists one third-party CloudStack module.
  • Use a cloud management portal built for CloudStack. StackBill, now part of StackOrbit, is one; it prices per physical hypervisor node and does not publish an amount.
  • Install a self-hosted CloudStack billing and customer portal build. That is NexCMP: one license, no per-node, per-VM or per-customer fee.

What should a CloudStack billing system cover?

Use this checklist to compare any option, NexCMP included.

  • Metering and rating

    What it means
    Price every VM, volume, IP, backup and GB of traffic customers use.
    How NexCMP covers it
    VMs are charged by the hour or the month; data volumes and backups by GB-hour; traffic is read from CloudStack's VM statistics and feeds quotas, add-on packs and alerts.

  • Prepaid wallet or credit

    What it means
    Customers fund an account and are charged as they consume.
    How NexCMP covers it
    A prepaid wallet on an append-only, double-entry ledger — a balance is the sum of immutable rows, never a number edited in place.

  • Invoices and payments

    What it means
    An invoice for every charge and top-up, and gateways customers can pay through.
    How NexCMP covers it
    Automatic invoices with a printable view; Stripe, PayPal, USDT (TRC20) and SePay bank transfer — you connect your own accounts.

  • Customer self-service portal

    What it means
    Customers order, control and watch their own servers.
    How NexCMP covers it
    Deploy, power actions, resize, reinstall, browser console, snapshots, backups, data volumes, public IPv4 and a self-service firewall.

  • Resellers and white-label

    What it means
    Partners sell under their own brand and prices.
    How NexCMP covers it
    Each reseller gets its own domain, brand, retail prices and wholesale wallet; reseller domains are unlimited; NexCMP Free covers 1 primary domain.

  • Quotas and limits

    What it means
    Stop customers running more than they have paid for.
    How NexCMP covers it
    Deposit-based quotas, enforced whenever a VM is created, resized or given more storage.

  • API

    What it means
    Let customers and partners automate.
    How NexCMP covers it
    A public REST API with scoped, revocable API keys and an OpenAPI document.

How does NexCMP bill a CloudStack customer?

From top-up to invoice, in the order it happens:

  1. The customer funds the wallet

    A card, PayPal, USDT or bank-transfer payment, or a voucher code, adds a row to the ledger and creates an invoice.

  2. The customer orders a server

    They pick a plan and an OS in the portal and see the price before they confirm. NexCMP provisions the VM on your CloudStack through its API.

  3. NexCMP charges as the VM runs

    Each VM is charged by the hour or the month against the wallet. Data volumes and backups are charged by GB-hour, and traffic is checked against quotas.

  4. Resellers settle against wholesale

    A sale through a reseller charges the customer at the reseller's retail price and settles the wholesale cost against the reseller's wallet automatically.

Example: in the NexCMP demo a 1 vCPU / 2 GB plan is priced at $0.005 per hour — $3.60 over 30 days. It is a demo catalog price; you set your own.

Can I see a CloudStack customer portal with hourly billing?

The Cloud Servers recording shows ordering, hourly pricing and day-to-day management in the NexCMP customer portal.

Cloud Servers

What do you need to run NexCMP on CloudStack?

NexCMP keeps its own hourly ledger, and the CloudStack Usage Server is not on its list of requirements. Once you have your free license, your account page shows your license key and the exact install command:

  • An Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 x86_64 server with at least 2 GB of RAM, and a domain.
  • An Apache CloudStack that server can reach through its API — NexCMP is developed and tested against CloudStack 4.23.
  • The API URL and keys of a CloudStack account that owns the VMs you sell, plus compute offerings, templates, a network and a pool of public IPs.
  • Optional CloudStack features only for optional modules: Backup & Recovery for backups, Kubernetes Service for Kubernetes, VPC offerings for Private Cloud.
curl -fsSL https://nexcmp.com/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- \
  --license <LICENSE_KEY> --domain <YOUR_DOMAIN> --port 3000

How much does CloudStack billing software cost?

Published prices, read from each vendor's own pages on 2026-10-19. Prices exclude tax, and vendors change them — check before you buy.

  • NexCMP

    Published price
    Free ($0) for the first year with every module and unlimited reseller domains, then $99 per year; NexCMP Source adds the full source code, all apps and 30 working days with an expert for $499 one-time.

    Source: nexcmp.com/pricing · accessed 2026-10-19

  • HostBill CloudStack module

    Published price
    Included in the Enterprise, Data Center and All-Inclusive editions; a standalone price of $299 (Standard) or $499 (Developer, with source code) was listed on 2026-10-19 but is no longer shown on the page.

    Source: hostbillapp.com — CloudStack module · accessed 2026-10-30

  • HostBill editions

    Published price
    Startup $599 · Enterprise $999 · Data Center $1,599 · All-Inclusive $5,999 — one-time, each with 1 year of updates.

    Source: hostbillapp.com/pricing · accessed 2026-10-30

  • WHMCS

    Published price
    From $34.95/month (Plus, up to 250 active clients). One third-party CloudStack module in the WHMCS Marketplace ($45.00, last updated December 2022).

    Source: whmcs.com/pricing · accessed 2026-10-30

  • StackBill (StackOrbit)

    Published price
    Monthly by physical hypervisor node; no amount published. StackOrbit lists a perpetual license with a 10-host minimum and 20% annual maintenance, by quote.

    Source: stackbill.com/pricing.html · accessed 2026-10-30

  • Ubersmith CloudStack module

    Published price
    Documented; price not published.

    Source: Ubersmith docs — Configuring CloudStack Billing Service Module · accessed 2026-10-19

How does NexCMP compare with StackBill and WHMCS?

Each comparison lists what the vendors publish, with sources and dates:

CloudStack billing — frequently asked questions

What is CloudStack billing software?
CloudStack billing software prices and charges what customers use on Apache CloudStack — VM hours, disks, IPs, backups and traffic — and gives them invoices, payment options and usually a customer portal. NexCMP is one: a self-hosted build that is free.
Does Apache CloudStack include billing?
CloudStack records usage through its optional Usage Server and exposes it through the listUsageRecords API, but pricing, invoicing, payments and a branded portal come from a billing layer on top.
Can CloudStack VMs be billed by the hour?
Yes. NexCMP charges each VM by the hour or by the month from a prepaid wallet. HostBill's CloudStack module can also bill hourly VM usage or metered resources; its metered mode needs the CloudStack Usage Server.
Does NexCMP need the CloudStack Usage Server?
NexCMP keeps its own hourly ledger, and the Usage Server is not among the requirements on the CloudStack page. Traffic is read from CloudStack's VM statistics.
Can resellers have their own branded portal?
Yes. A reseller runs on its own domain with its own name, logo, colours, retail prices and wholesale wallet, and nothing on their site shows the NexCMP brand. Reseller domains are unlimited and free; NexCMP Free covers 1 primary domain.
How much does NexCMP cost?
NexCMP Free is $0 for the first year (then $99 per year). It includes every module, bug fixes and updates, 1 primary domain per license and unlimited reseller domains, with no technical support. NexCMP Source is an optional $499 one-time purchase that adds the full source code, all apps and 30 working days with an expert engineer.
Which CloudStack versions work?
NexCMP is developed and tested against Apache CloudStack 4.23. For other versions, contact sales.
Can I try it before buying?
Yes. The service pages show the customer portal tab by tab, with sample data: open View demo on a page such as Platform, CloudStack or Bare Metal. To see a real install, write to sales and we will walk you through one.

Sources

Pages read on 2026-10-19. Vendors change their pages; check them before you decide.

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