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Lago
AGPL-3.0Metering and usage-based billing engine built as an open-source alternative to Stripe Billing.
Open-source alternative to — compare it against:
Overview
Lago
The AI-native billing platform
Open-source metering, billing & revenue infrastructure for product-led companies.
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What is Lago?
Lago is the open-source billing platform for usage-based, subscription-based, and hybrid pricing models. If you can track it, you can bill for it.
- Open-source — self-host for full control over your data, or use Lago Cloud to get started faster. Either way, the code is transparent
- Payment-agnostic — works with Stripe, Adyen, GoCardless, or any payment gateway
- API-first — every feature available via REST API
- SOC 2 Type II certified
Features
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Usage Metering | Real-time event ingestion and aggregation for any pricing dimension |
| Billing & Invoicing | Automated invoice generation for subscriptions, usage, and hybrid plans |
| Entitlements | Feature access management tied directly to your billing plans |
| Cash Collection | Payment orchestration with dunning, retries, and multi-gateway support |
| Revenue Analytics | Cross-stream visibility into MRR, usage trends, and revenue drivers |
| Lago Embedded | White-label billing for platforms and marketplaces |
| Lago AI | AI-powered billing intelligence and MCP server for AI agents |
| Integrations | NetSuite, Xero, Salesforce, HubSpot, Avalara, AWS/Azure/GCP Marketplace, and more |
Get Started
Cloud (fastest)
Start billing in minutes — no infrastructure to manage.
Sign up for Lago Cloud or email [email protected]
Self-hosted
Requirements
- Docker & Docker Compose
- Git
Quick start
# Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/getlago/lago.git
cd lago
# Generate RSA key
echo "LAGO_RSA_PRIVATE_KEY=\"$(openssl genrsa 2048 | openssl base64 -A)\"" >> .env
source .env
# Start Lago
docker compose up
Open http://localhost for the UI. The API is at http://localhost:3000.
After an update
docker compose up
Configuration
If your server is not at localhost, set these in your .env:
LAGO_API_URL="http://your-server:3000"
LAGO_FRONT_URL="http://your-server"
For the full list of environment variables and advanced configuration (S3/GCS storage, SMTP, SSL, dedicated workers for high-volume), see the self-hosted docs.
Find your API key
- Open the Developer section in the sidebar
- Go to the API keys tab
- Click Copy
Documentation
- Getting Started — Full documentation
- API Reference — REST API docs
- Billing Templates — Reproduce pricing models from Algolia, Segment, Mistral, OpenAI, and more
- Development Environment — Set up Lago locally for development
- Architecture — Technical architecture and flows
- Monitoring — Prometheus metrics and alerting
SDKs & Client Libraries
| Language | Package |
|---|---|
| Node.js | lago-javascript-client |
| Python | lago-python-client |
| Ruby | lago-ruby-client |
| Go | lago-go-client |
Full OpenAPI spec: lago-openapi
Stay up to date
Contributing
We welcome contributions! See our contributing guide and the development environment setup.
Look for issues labeled beginner or help-wanted to get started.
License
Distributed under the AGPLv3 License. Why we chose AGPLv3.
Analytics & Tracking
Lago tracks basic actions on self-hosted instances by default. No customer PII or financial data is collected. Learn more or opt out.
