Flexprice vs Lago
Flexprice and Lago are both open-source, self-hostable billing platforms with AGPLv3 cores, paid managed cloud tiers, and usage-based billing for SaaS and AI products. The key differences are in wallet architecture, customer portal delivery, billing model categorization, and enterprise deployment depth. Flexprice treats wallets as a first-class primitive with a documented full lifecycle (create, top-up, auto-recharge, debit, and low-balance alerts); Lago's wallet balance updates at invoice finalization, not on event ingestion. Flexprice provides a drop-in portal embed via API token; Lago's hosted portal is a premium paid feature. Flexprice describes its billing model as Hybrid; Lago is Invoice. Lago supports VPC and on-premises deployment with a dedicated solutions engineer and 24/7 support; Flexprice's enterprise tier is cloud and self-hosted only with no published dedicated support tier. At the canonical scenario (100 customers, $2K MRR, 100K events, 5 seats), Flexprice costs $500/month (Starter) and Lago's cloud pricing is not publicly listed; the self-hosted core is free.
Choose if...
- →Startups and growth-stage teams adopting usage-based or credit-based pricing who need transparent, predictable flat-fee pricing
- →Teams that want open-source code transparency and the option to self-host without vendor lock-in
- →Product and growth teams that need to run pricing experiments without engineering changes for each update
- →AI and SaaS companies in the US or India market that want multi-PSP support including Razorpay and Stripe
- →Engineering-led teams that need billing code transparency, auditability, and the option to self-host without vendor lock-in
- →Companies with compliance or data residency requirements that rule out SaaS-only billing platforms
- →Teams adopting open-source billing infrastructure who want a managed upgrade path to a commercial cloud tier when they scale
- →Platforms that want to offer white-label billing to their own customers via Lago Embedded
Feature comparison
| Dimension | Flexprice | Lago |
|---|---|---|
| Billing model | Hybrid | Invoice |
| Wallet architecture | First-class primitive Wallets are documented as core infrastructure with a full lifecycle: create, top-up, auto-recharge, debit, and low-balance alerts. However, automatic usage-based debit from usage events is invoice-driven (debited via INVOICE_PAYMENT transaction), not triggered on individual event ingestion. Manual API debit is synchronous and immediate. | Add-on Lago supports up to 5 active wallets per customer with individual priorities and usage restrictions. Wallet balance (`balance_cents`) updates when an invoice is finalized, not on event ingestion. The `ongoing_balance_cents` estimate refreshes every 5 minutes and is a premium feature. |
| Customer portal | Drop-in Pre-built portal URL, embeddable via iframe and generated via an API token. The portal is read-only for customers — they can view balances, invoices, and usage analytics but cannot initiate payments or self-service top-ups. | Hosted portal Pre-authenticated hosted portal showing invoices, usage, and wallet data. This is a premium feature unavailable in the AGPLv3 self-hosted tier. No self-service payment initiation or real-time balance top-up. |
| Enterprise contracts | Basic | Basic Enterprise tier offers 24/7 support, a dedicated solutions engineer, and on-prem or VPC deployment. Lago does not publish enterprise contract management features (commitments, true-ups, amendments) equivalent to Metronome or Orb. |
| Pricing models | Per-unit, Tiered, Volume, Subscription, Hybrid (subscription + usage), Prepaid credits / wallet, Seat-based | Per-unit, Tiered, Volume, Subscription, Hybrid (subscription + usage), Prepaid credits / wallet |
Pricing comparison
- Model
- Flat monthly fee by event volume tier; no revenue percentage
- Free tier
- Yes
- Starting price
- $500/month (Starter, billed monthly; $400/month billed annually)
- Model
- AGPLv3 self-hosted core (free); Business and Enterprise cloud tiers require sales
- Free tier
- Yes
- Starting price
- Free (AGPLv3 self-hosted core); cloud tiers require sales
Canonical scenario — 100 customers, $2K MRR, 100K events, 5 seats
| Line item | Flexprice | Lago |
|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | $500 (Starter tier, billed monthly; $400/month billed annually) | Not publicly available (cloud Business/Enterprise tiers); $0 for AGPLv3 self-hosted |
| Per customer | $0 | $0 |
| Seat fees | $0 | Not publicly available |
| Event fees | $0 | $0 |
| Revenue % | $0 | $0 |
| Payment processing | Pass-through | Pass-through |
| Total / month | $500 (Starter); $1,000 (Premium, if advanced credit features required) | Not publicly available for cloud tiers. Self-hosted: $0 license cost plus infrastructure (a few hundred dollars/month on a major cloud at this scale) plus engineering time for deployment and maintenance. |
Flexprice: The canonical scenario (100K events/month) fits within both the Starter and Premium event limits (10M and 25M respectively). The Starter tier ($500/month) covers core billing, usage metering, wallets, and customer portal. Flexprice does not publicly confirm whether real-time prepaid credit balance, recurring wallet top-ups, and entitlement management require the Premium tier ($1,000/month); if so, effective comparison cost is $1,000/month. Annual billing reduces these by 20%. Payment processing fees are charged by the connected PSP at pass-through rates. The open-source self-hosted version is excluded as it does not include wallet and credit features needed for a like-for-like comparison.
Lago: Lago's cloud Business and Enterprise tiers both require a sales conversation; prices are not published. Historical community discussions reference a starting cloud price of ~$3,000/month. The AGPLv3 self-hosted core is free to run but does not include the customer portal, credit notes and refunds, automatic dunning, tax integrations, CRM/accounting integrations, Lago AI agents, or Lago Embedded. Self-hosting at this event volume requires Postgres, Redis, and compute for 5+ services plus engineering for setup and ongoing maintenance. Payment processing fees are charged by the connected PSP at pass-through rates.
Flexprice: strengths and limitations
- +Published, transparent flat-fee pricing starting at $500/month with no revenue percentage and a free tier for evaluation
- +Wallet system with full lifecycle documentation — create, top-up, auto-recharge, debit, and low-balance alerts — positioned as core infrastructure
- +No-code pricing management dashboard lets non-engineers modify pricing without code deployments or engineering tickets
- +AGPLv3 open-source core with self-hosting on Docker Compose or AWS ECS/EKS; 3,600+ GitHub stars and active development (v2.1.3, April 2026)
- +ClickHouse-backed real-time event metering for high-volume analytics with flexible deployment options
- +Multiple PSP integrations — Stripe, Razorpay, Paddle, and Chargebee — suits teams in US and India markets
- −Automatic wallet debit from usage events is invoice-driven (INVOICE_PAYMENT transaction), not triggered atomically on each event ingestion
- −No pre-usage authorization primitive — the platform monitors balance via low-balance alerts but cannot gate individual events before they run
- −Customer portal is read-only — end customers can view balances and invoices but cannot initiate payments or self-service top-ups
- −Auto top-up is merchant-controlled — end customers cannot set their own top-up threshold or amount via self-service
- −PSP selection is limited to Stripe, Razorpay, Paddle, and Chargebee; no bring-your-own PSP model is documented
- −Early-stage company (founded 2023) with limited publicly named enterprise customers; track record is thinner than more established billing platforms
Lago: strengths and limitations
- +AGPLv3 core is fully auditable, forkable, and self-hostable at no license cost — code transparency matters for compliance-oriented buyers
- +Flexible deployment: self-hosted Docker Compose, managed cloud, on-premise, VPC, or custom infrastructure — suits data residency requirements
- +Extensive native integration ecosystem — Stripe, Adyen, GoCardless, Salesforce, HubSpot, NetSuite, Xero, and cloud marketplaces
- +Lago AI agents perform operational billing actions (discounts, invoice voids, payment retries) with an MCP server for machine-driven operations
- +Lago Embedded enables platforms to offer white-label billing features to their own customers without building billing from scratch
- +Active open-source community — 9,500+ GitHub stars, 183 total releases, latest v1.45.1 released April 7, 2026; SOC 2 Type II certified
- −Invoice-based architecture — wallet balance updates when an invoice is finalized, not on event ingestion; no real-time per-event debit
- −Material feature set gated behind paid tiers — the free AGPLv3 core excludes the customer portal, credit notes and refunds, automatic dunning, tax integrations, and CRM/accounting connectors
- −Cloud pricing is not publicly listed — Business and Enterprise tiers both require sales; historical community references cite a ~$3,000/month starting point
- −Self-hosting a production deployment still requires engineering for infrastructure, webhook wiring, payment provider setup, and release upgrades
- −No pre-usage authorization primitive — the platform can react to consumption after the fact but cannot gate individual events before they run
- −No native independent asset types — custom units like tokens or GPU hours are labels over USD-backed credit balances, not separate monetary primitives
Which one should you pick?
Choose Flexprice if transparent published pricing and a wallet-first billing design are priorities. Flexprice publishes flat-fee pricing starting at $500/month Starter with no revenue percentage; the full cost is known without a sales conversation. The wallet lifecycle is documented as core infrastructure rather than an invoice adjustment, which suits teams building credit-based AI products where wallet state is central to the product experience. The no-code pricing dashboard lets non-engineers run pricing experiments without code deployments; Flexprice's drop-in portal embed is available across tiers without a premium gate.
Choose Lago if open-source credibility, integration ecosystem depth, and white-label billing capability are the priority. Lago's 9,500+ GitHub stars, SOC 2 Type II certification, and publicly named customers (Mistral AI, PayPal, Groq, Synthesia) provide a deeper enterprise trust signal than Flexprice's current track record. Lago's native connectors for Stripe, Adyen, and GoCardless alongside Salesforce, HubSpot, NetSuite, and Xero integrations give it a broader integration ecosystem. Lago Embedded enables platforms to white-label billing for their own customers, a use case Flexprice does not cover at the same depth.
Both platforms gate material features behind paid tiers. Flexprice's AGPLv3 core includes metering, invoicing, and credit systems; advanced wallet features (real-time prepaid balance, recurring top-ups, entitlement management) may require the $1,000/month Premium tier, though Flexprice has not publicly confirmed which tier gates which wallet capabilities. Lago's free core excludes the customer portal, credit notes and refunds, automatic dunning, tax integrations, and CRM/accounting connectors. Teams should build a feature checklist against both providers' free tiers before assuming their workload fits the self-hosted version.