Lago vs Orb
Lago is an open-source billing platform (AGPLv3 core, managed cloud tiers) for usage-based and subscription pricing. It is self-hostable with an active open-source community, SOC 2 Type II certified, and expanding into white-label billing and AI billing agents. Orb is an enterprise revenue platform built for teams treating pricing as a product function. It is hosted-only, with SQL-defined custom metrics, pricing simulation against historical usage, and deep finance integrations. Both platforms target usage-based billing at scale and both use invoice-based billing at their core; the difference is primarily deployment model and the depth of pricing flexibility. At the canonical scenario (100 customers, $2K MRR, 100K events, 5 seats), Lago's cloud pricing is not publicly listed and Orb costs approximately $720/month (estimate; public pricing requires sales).
Choose if...
- →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
- →AI and infrastructure companies with complex multi-dimensional pricing that needs SQL-defined metrics and pricing simulation before rollout
- →Teams with enterprise contract requirements — commitments, multi-year deals, backdating, and high-volume event processing
- →Finance teams that need deep ERP integration, revenue recognition, and AR aging in the same billing platform
- →Companies running hybrid GTM (sales-led and product-led) that want one billing platform for both motions
Feature comparison
| Dimension | Lago | Orb |
|---|---|---|
| Billing model | Invoice | Invoice |
| Usage authorization | Post-usage Lago's documented model is observe-only. The platform can react to consumption (block or grant more credits) but there is no primitive to query wallet state and block an action before it runs, because the authoritative balance moves at invoice finalization. | Post-usage Threshold invoicing can trigger mid-cycle but remains post-consumption. Agentic Payment Methods (launched 2026) introduce new AI-agent payment flows but are not a pre-usage wallet authorization primitive. |
| Wallet architecture | 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. | Add-on Sophisticated credit pools are a documented feature. They operate inside an invoice-based billing system: credits reduce invoice totals rather than being debited atomically per usage event. |
| Payment processing | Integrated Lago provides native connectors for Stripe, Adyen, and GoCardless. Payment collection is handled by the connected PSP at pass-through rates; Lago orchestrates invoicing and routing. | Integrated |
| PSP agnostic | Partial | Partial |
| Customer portal | 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. | Hosted portal Pre-authenticated hosted portal shows usage and invoices. No self-service wallet top-up or real-time balance management is available to end customers. |
| Auto top-up | Platform-configured | Platform-configured Platform (merchant) sets top-up thresholds on behalf of customers. End customers have no self-service threshold control. |
| Open source | Partial The AGPLv3 core covers metering, subscriptions, usage-based billing, coupons, entitlements, and core wallet mechanics. The customer portal, credit notes and refunds, automatic dunning, tax integrations, CRM/accounting integrations, Lago AI agents, and Lago Embedded are commercial features unavailable in the free self-hosted tier. | No |
| Deployment | Both | Cloud only |
| Enterprise contracts | 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. | Full support |
Pricing comparison
- 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
- Model
- Enterprise; pricing not publicly disclosed
- Free tier
- No
- Starting price
- Contact sales (estimated ~$720/month at small scale based on previously public pricing)
Canonical scenario — 100 customers, $2K MRR, 100K events, 5 seats
| Line item | Lago | Orb |
|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | Not publicly available (cloud Business/Enterprise tiers); $0 for AGPLv3 self-hosted | ~$720 (based on previously public pricing; Orb no longer publishes rates) |
| Per customer | $0 | $0 |
| Seat fees | Not publicly available | Not publicly available |
| Event fees | $0 | $0 |
| Revenue % | $0 | $0 |
| Payment processing | Pass-through | Pass-through |
| Total / month | 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. | ~$720 (estimate; current rates require sales) |
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.
Orb: Orb does not publish pricing. The ~$720/month platform fee estimate is based on previously public pricing captured by third-party analysis before Orb removed its public pricing page. Current rates may differ; Orb's $25M Series B (September 2024) and ongoing product expansion may have affected pricing. Payment processing fees are charged by the connected PSP at pass-through rates. A sales conversation is required for current pricing.
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
Orb: strengths and limitations
- +Pricing simulation — retrospective testing of pricing model changes against historical usage before deployment, reducing migration risk
- +Custom SQL metrics for complex aggregation logic, supporting multi-dimensional billing (region, model, tier, customer segment) without bespoke pipelines
- +High-throughput hosted rollups architecture designed to process millions of events per second with backfill support for late data
- +Deep finance integrations — NetSuite, Salesforce, data warehouses, and ASC 606 revenue recognition alongside detailed invoice management
- +Multi-year enterprise contracts with commitments, backdating, amendments, and multi-product deals
- +Agentic payment support for AI agents executing payments on behalf of end users, launched in 2026
- −Post-usage invoicing model — usage accumulates and is billed at cycle end; threshold invoicing triggers mid-cycle but is still post-consumption
- −Pricing not publicly available — enterprise-level pricing requires a sales conversation with no published starting figure
- −No real-time pre-authorization primitive — there is no documented way to query wallet state and block an action before it runs
- −Auto top-up is platform-configured — end customers cannot set their own top-up threshold or amount via self-service
- −Implementation overhead — setting up metering, pricing models, and invoice workflows requires engineering resources and billing expertise
- −Credit portal is read-only — customers view usage and invoices but cannot perform self-service top-ups or manage wallet balances
Which one should you pick?
Choose Lago if code transparency, self-hosting, or data residency are requirements. The AGPLv3 core lets teams audit and run billing infrastructure on their own servers without license cost, a genuine differentiator for compliance-sensitive organizations. Lago's extensive PSP ecosystem (Stripe, Adyen, GoCardless), broad integration catalog (NetSuite, HubSpot, Salesforce, Xero), and active open-source community make it a viable managed billing platform beyond just the open-source pitch. Lago Embedded also serves platforms that want to offer billing features to their own customers.
Choose Orb if pricing simulation and SQL-defined metrics matter more than deployment flexibility. Orb's ability to retrospectively test pricing changes against historical usage before rolling them out is a meaningful capability for teams with evolving pricing models. Orb's dimensional pricing support (pricing across region, model, tier, and customer segment simultaneously) and AR aging features address complexity that Lago does not cover at the same depth. Both platforms support enterprise contracts, but Orb's finance-grade integrations with NetSuite and Salesforce are more thoroughly documented.
The cost profile differs. Lago's AGPLv3 core is free to self-host (with infrastructure and engineering costs), and managed cloud pricing is not published but has historically started around $3,000/month. Orb's pricing is also not published; third-party estimates cite a platform fee in the hundreds of dollars per month at small scale, but enterprise deployments require a sales conversation. Teams on limited budgets evaluating these two platforms should get quotes from both before committing to either.