NovaBilling

Open-source billing infrastructure for Africa & beyond.
Subscriptions, usage-based metering, invoicing, and prepaid wallets — with one API.

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Why NovaBilling?

Most billing platforms assume Stripe-only, USD-only, and card-only. NovaBilling is built for businesses that operate across multiple currencies, countries, and payment providers — especially in Africa where mobile money, bank transfers, and regional gateways are the norm.

• 6 payment providers — Stripe, Paystack, Flutterwave, DPO, PayU, PesaPal
• 40+ currencies — USD, EUR, KES, UGX, NGN, GHS, ZAR, TZS, and more
• Usage-based billing — Billable metrics with COUNT, SUM, MAX, UNIQUE_COUNT, WEIGHTED_SUM aggregations
• 5 charge models — Standard, Graduated, Volume, Package, Percentage
• Multi-tenant — Each tenant gets isolated data, custom SMTP, and their own payment provider credentials
• Self-hosted — Run it on your own infrastructure with Docker

Features

Category	What you get
Subscriptions	Create plans with recurring billing (monthly, yearly, weekly), upgrade/downgrade with proration
Usage Metering	Ingest events via API, aggregate with billable metrics, charge based on consumption
Invoicing	Auto-generated invoices with PDF export, email delivery, hosted checkout pages
Prepaid Wallets	Customer credit wallets with purchased/granted credits, auto-deduction on invoices
Coupons & Add-ons	Percentage or fixed-amount discounts, one-time add-on charges
Credit Notes	Issue refunds, void invoices, pro-rated credits on cancellation
Analytics	Revenue, subscriptions, customers, and payment analytics dashboards
Customer Portal	Self-service portal for customers to view invoices and manage subscriptions
Webhooks	Real-time event notifications for invoice, payment, and subscription lifecycle
SDKs	Auto-generated TypeScript and Python SDKs via Fern

Architecture

┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐
│   Landing   │  │  Dashboard  │  │    Docs     │  │   Portal    │
│  Next.js    │  │  Next.js    │  │  Nuxt/Docus │  │  Next.js    │
│  :4001      │  │  :4002      │  │  :4003      │  │  :4002/…    │
└──────┬──────┘  └──────┬──────┘  └─────────────┘  └──────┬──────┘
       │                │                                  │
       └────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┘
                        │
                 ┌──────▼──────┐
                 │   NestJS    │
                 │   API       │
                 │   :4000     │
                 └──┬───┬───┬──┘
                    │   │   │
              ┌─────┘   │   └─────┐
              ▼         ▼         ▼
         PostgreSQL   Redis    BullMQ
         (Central +   (Cache)  (Workers)
          Tenant DBs)

Quick Start

Docker (recommended)

git clone https://github.com/novabilling/billing.git
cd billing
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env — set JWT_SECRET, JWT_REFRESH_SECRET, ENCRYPTION_KEY

docker compose up -d --build

Service	URL
API	http://localhost:4000
Landing	http://localhost:4001
Dashboard	http://localhost:4002
Docs	http://localhost:4003

Production (pre-built images)

# On your server:
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/novabilling/billing/main/docker-compose.prod.yml
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/novabilling/billing/main/.env.example
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with real secrets and domain URLs

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

See nginx.conf.example for a reverse proxy setup with custom domains.

Local Development

# Start infrastructure
docker compose up -d central-db internal-tenant-db redis --wait

# Backend
cd backend
npm ci
npx prisma generate --schema=./prisma/schema-central.prisma
npx prisma generate --schema=./prisma/schema-tenant.prisma
npx prisma db push --schema=./prisma/schema-central.prisma
npm run start:dev

# Dashboard (separate terminal)
cd dashboard
npm ci
npm run dev

Project Structure

backend/       NestJS API — TypeScript, Prisma, BullMQ, PostgreSQL
dashboard/     Next.js 16 dashboard — shadcn/ui, Tailwind v4, Zustand
landing/       Next.js 15 marketing site
docs/          Nuxt/Docus documentation site
fern/          Fern SDK generation config
sdks/          Generated TypeScript and Python SDKs

API

NovaBilling exposes a REST API with 107 endpoints across 18 controllers. Interactive API docs are available at /api/reference (powered by Scalar).

Authentication: Register a tenant, get a JWT, and pass it as Authorization: Bearer <token>. Alternatively, use the API key from your tenant settings as X-API-Key: <key>.

# Register
curl -X POST http://localhost:4000/api/auth/register \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "John", "email": "john@acme.com", "password": "secret", "companyName": "Acme Corp"}'

# Create a customer
curl -X POST http://localhost:4000/api/customers \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "Jane Doe", "email": "jane@example.com", "currency": "USD"}'

SDKs

TypeScript

import { NovaBillingClient } from "novabilling-typescript-sdk";

const client = new NovaBillingClient({
  token: "your-jwt-token",
  environment: "http://localhost:4000/api",
});

const customer = await client.customers.create({
  name: "Jane Doe",
  email: "jane@example.com",
  currency: "USD",
});

Python

from novabilling import NovaBilling

client = NovaBilling(
    token="your-jwt-token",
    base_url="http://localhost:4000/api",
)

customer = client.customers.create(
    name="Jane Doe",
    email="jane@example.com",
    currency="USD",
)

Payment Providers

Provider	Regions	Methods
Stripe	Global	Cards, bank transfers, wallets
Paystack	Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya	Cards, bank transfers, mobile money
Flutterwave	30+ African countries	Cards, mobile money, bank transfers
DPO	20+ African countries	Cards, mobile money
PayU	South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya	Cards, EFT, mobile money
PesaPal	Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania	M-Pesa, Airtel Money, cards

Configure providers per-tenant in the dashboard under Settings > Payment Providers. Credentials are encrypted at rest.

Contributing

We're actively looking for contributors and testers. See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup instructions and the roadmap.

Areas where help is needed:

• Taxes, net payment terms, grace periods
• Progressive billing, plan overrides, dunning
• Enhanced analytics, Helm charts, more tests

Security

See SECURITY.md for vulnerability reporting.

License

NovaBilling is licensed under AGPL-3.0.