Best Lago alternatives for AI billing

Lago is an open-source billing platform (AGPLv3 core, managed cloud tiers) for usage-based and subscription pricing, self-hostable on Docker Compose or managed cloud. Teams evaluate alternatives when they need real-time per-usage authorization of wallet balance before individual usage events are incurred rather than invoice-based debit at cycle end. Common triggers also include wanting a cloud-only platform without the engineering overhead of self-hosted infrastructure, needing a full production billing feature set without gating the customer portal, dunning, and tax integrations behind paid tiers, or requiring published cloud pricing without a sales conversation.

These three alternatives address the main reasons teams move off Lago. Orb is the hosted-enterprise path for teams that have scaled past comfortable self-hosting and need a fully managed platform with SQL-defined metrics, pricing simulation, and finance-grade integrations, at the cost of entering a sales conversation and losing the open-source code layer. Flexprice is the adjacent open-source alternative: both use AGPLv3 licensing and support self-hosting, but they differ on wallet architecture (Flexprice debits wallets per event via invoice; Lago updates balances at invoice finalization) and portal strategy (Flexprice's embed is included at base; Lago's hosted portal is a paid premium). Stripe Billing is the consolidation option for teams that want billing and payments on a single account with global payment methods, tax compliance, and revenue recognition, at the cost of PSP lock-in to Stripe. Teams leaving Lago typically choose between the adjacent open-source flexibility of Flexprice and the managed-cloud depth of Orb or Stripe Billing.