New HostBill release launches metered billing & account metric support for Hosted.ai integration and also focuses on expanding capabilities across cloud and DNS services, protecting sensitive pricing structures and more!

Metered Billing support for Hosted.ai

The recently launched Hosted.ai integration has now been expanded with support for metered billing and usage metrics. Metered billing is one of multiple advanced billing modules available in HostBill which makes it possible to track real usage, expose metrics, and bill customers accurately based on consumption rather than fixed plans. Instead of relying on fixed monthly fees or predefined resource bundles, metered billing allows charges to be calculated based on actual usage data collected in real time. By coupling billing directly to measurable consumption, providers can offer pricing models that are both fairer to customers and more closely aligned with operational costs.

The module also supports the Account Metric feature, which enables to download resource consumption information for certain account from the connected hosting module and trigger certain actions upon exceeding the limits. The addition of metrics support further enhances also makes usage data available not only for invoicing, but also for reporting or monitoring.

As demand for flexible, usage-based pricing models continues to grow, this enhancement opens the door to more transparent and scalable service offerings.

Release notes

One of the key API enhancements in this release is the improvement to the searchServiceByIP method. When searching for a service by IP address, the response will now also include the email address of the related customer. This small but meaningful addition provides faster context for support and network operations teams, allowing them to identify and contact customers more efficiently without making additional API calls

On the administrative side, HostBill now introduces a safeguard for premium domains by preventing the recalculation of their recurring prices. Premium domain pricing is often defined externally by registries or registrars and recalculating it could result in unintended changes or billing inconsistencies. By disabling this action, HostBill helps ensure pricing accuracy, protects revenue, and reduces the risk of disputes or manual corrections.

This update also resolves an issue in domain management where the DNS Management feature was not visible to clients when a domain’s nameservers differed from the DNS service configuration. With this fix, DNS management is displayed correctly regardless of nameserver differences, improving usability and reducing confusion for customers who rely on custom or external DNS setups.

Cloud infrastructure users will benefit from a new OpenStack option that allows administrators to disable automatic instance reboots when resizing a boot disk. This change gives providers more control over maintenance workflows and helps accommodate environments where uptime is critical or where reboots must be coordinated manually. It’s a practical improvement that aligns HostBill more closely with real-world operational needs in OpenStack deployments.

Finally, the ClouDNS DNS module has been extended with API support for changing DNS packages. This allows providers to automate plan upgrades and downgrades without manual intervention, making it easier to scale DNS services alongside customer needs while maintaining a fully automated provisioning flow.