What is Lago used for?

Lago is open-source metering and usage-based billing infrastructure for subscriptions, credits, invoices and payments, with an API, CLI and MCP server for AI products. It is a good fit for usage-based billing for AI products, subscription billing for SaaS and embedding billing into a platform for customers.

Yes. Lago is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at getlago/lago and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. Lago is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.

Can I self-host Lago?

Yes. Lago can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Lago an alternative to?

Lago is an open-source alternative to Chargebee, Recurly, Zuora and Stripe Billing. Other open-source alternatives to Chargebee include Meteroid, Flexprice and Kill Bill.

Is Lago actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Lago was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.53.0, published on 8 September 2026. The project has 11k stars on GitHub.

Lago: open-source alternative to Chargebee, Recurly, Zuora

About Lago

Lago is an open-source billing and monetization platform that meters product usage and turns it into pricing, credits, entitlements, invoices, payments and revenue. It is positioned as infrastructure for AI products, where tokens, compute and API calls need to be measured and charged, but it also handles classic subscriptions and hybrid pricing.

It offers consumption tracking, subscription management, pricing iterations, payment orchestration and revenue analytics. Companies can use Lago Direct to bill their own customers or Lago Embedded to power monetization for their own customers. Integration is through a REST API and SDKs, a CLI for inspecting billing data and running diagnostics, and an MCP server that gives assistants tools to work with live billing data. A local demo prices sample AI requests.

The stack includes Go, Ruby, React and ClickHouse. Lago is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and can be self-hosted, and a managed Lago Cloud is available through the vendor. It suits SaaS and AI companies that want to own their billing logic rather than rely on a closed billing vendor.

Key features

Usage metering and event ingestion
Subscription and hybrid pricing management
Invoices and payment orchestration
Revenue analytics and reporting
REST API and SDKs
CLI and MCP server for AI assistants
Credits and entitlements

Good fit for

→Usage-based billing for AI products
→Subscription billing for SaaS
→Embedding billing into a platform for customers

Built with: Go; ClickHouse; React; Ruby
Tags: billing; usage-based-billing; metering; subscriptions; invoicing; payments; self-hosted; fintech; clickhouse

Lago: questions and answers

What is Lago used for?: Lago is open-source metering and usage-based billing infrastructure for subscriptions, credits, invoices and payments, with an API, CLI and MCP server for AI products. It is a good fit for usage-based billing for AI products, subscription billing for SaaS and embedding billing into a platform for customers.
Is Lago open source?: Yes. Lago is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at getlago/lago and is written mainly in Go.
Is Lago free?: Yes. Lago is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.
Can I self-host Lago?: Yes. Lago can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Lago an alternative to?: Lago is an open-source alternative to Chargebee, Recurly, Zuora and Stripe Billing. Other open-source alternatives to Chargebee include Meteroid, Flexprice and Kill Bill.
Is Lago actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Lago was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.53.0, published on 8 September 2026. The project has 11k stars on GitHub.