---
title: "Lago vs Togai: Which Usage-Based Billing Platform Fits Your Stack?"
url: https://getlago.com/blog/lago-vs-togai
description: "Comparing Lago and Togai for usage-based billing? See how open-source, self-hosted control stacks up against Togai's managed metering platform, plus pricing, data residency, and extensibility differences."
authors: ["Anh-Tho Chuong"]
tags: ["Pricing & Monetization"]
published: 2026-08-24
updated: 2026-11-06
reading_time_minutes: 4
---

# Lago vs Togai: Which Usage-Based Billing Platform Fits Your Stack?

Togai and Lago solve the same starting problem: turning raw product usage into metered, billable events. If you're comparing them, the short answer is that Togai is a managed, API-first metering and billing platform built for teams that want the rating logic handled for them, while Lago is open-source infrastructure you can self-host, inspect, and extend within the AGPLv3 license. The right pick depends on how much control over your data, your rating logic, and your deployment you actually need to keep.

### What Togai does well

Togai deserves credit for building a genuinely complete metering and rating pipeline. Its seven modules (ingestion, metering, price configurations, entitlements, rules and rating, integrations, insights) cover the full path from a raw event to an invoice line, and the rules engine lets teams write custom JavaScript rating logic without waiting on an engineering sprint. Togai also ships a generous free Starter plan with no credit card required, and its 30-plus pre-built connectors span CRM, payments, ERP, and cloud marketplace billing, which shortens the first integration for teams that just want metering live quickly. For a company that wants a managed service and is comfortable handing over its usage data and rating logic to a third party's SaaS, Togai is a credible option.

### Where the two platforms actually diverge

The real difference isn't feature count, it's who owns the system once it's running.

Togai publishes a hosted service with APIs and integrations. If deployment control matters, compare export, data-residency, and contract terms with a self-hosted Lago setup before committing.

Lago is AGPLv3-licensed and built to be read, forked, and self-hosted. You can run the exact same billing engine that powers Lago Cloud inside your own infrastructure, inspect the rating logic in the source, and extend it with your own code when a pricing model doesn't fit the standard primitives. For teams with documented hosting or residency requirements, that deployment option may decide the evaluation.

### Lago vs Togai at a glance

|   | Lago | Togai |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Source model | Open source (AGPLv3), inspectable and forkable | Closed source |
| Deployment | Cloud or self-hosted, your choice | Hosted service; confirm dedicated options |
| Data ownership | Usage and billing data stays in your infrastructure if self-hosted | Check hosting, export, and retention terms |
| Pricing models | Subscriptions, usage-based, credits, hybrid, enterprise sales-led, all in one plan hierarchy | Subscriptions, pay-as-you-go, tiered, credits, hybrid |
| Rating logic | Configurable via billable metrics and plan overrides, extensible in your own code when self-hosted | Custom JavaScript rules engine |
| Payment processing | Named payment connectors; custom work may be required | Integrates payment providers as connectors |
| Pricing model | Free self-hosted license; Cloud and Premium self-hosted are commercial | Free Starter; Enterprise quote; Standard FAQ uses events and invoice value |
| Best fit | Teams that need control over data residency, rating logic, or a payment-agnostic stack | Teams that want a managed metering and billing service |

### Pricing: platform fees vs a transparent core

Togai publishes a free Starter path and custom Enterprise quote. Its pricing FAQ says Standard pricing depends on event count and invoice value. Model its event and invoice thresholds against your forecast. Lago's open-source core has no such fee: the license is free, while infrastructure and operations have costs, and Lago Cloud and Premium self-hosted are commercial offerings quoted for the required volume, features, and support. If usage-based pricing is central to your product, paying a usage-based fee just to run your billing platform is worth scrutinizing closely before you sign.

### Data residency and compliance

Because Togai publishes a hosted service, ask whether a dedicated or self-hosted deployment is available for your requirements. For most SaaS companies that's a non-issue. For teams with a documented hosting or residency requirement, verify each vendor’s regions and contract terms during security review. Lago's self-hosted deployment exists specifically for this case: same product, same API, running inside infrastructure you control end to end.

### Extensibility when the standard model doesn't fit

Togai's rules engine covers a wide range of pricing logic through configuration and custom JavaScript. Lago takes a different approach: because the core is open source, when a pricing model genuinely doesn't fit the standard primitives, you're not limited to what the vendor's rules engine exposes. You can read the billing engine's source, fork it, and ship the change yourself, on your own timeline, without waiting on a vendor roadmap.

### Which one should you pick?

If your priority is getting a metering and billing pipeline live fast, you're comfortable with your usage data living in a third-party's cloud, and you don't expect to need deployment flexibility later, Togai is a reasonable, well-built option. If you need to keep billing data in your own infrastructure, want a payment-agnostic setup that doesn't tie you to specific processors, or want the option to inspect and extend the billing logic yourself as your pricing model gets more complex, Lago is built for exactly that.

Teams that have already run this comparison against other usage-based billing vendors have gone through similar tradeoffs. See how the same open-source-versus-managed-platform question plays out against [Orb](https://getlago.com/blog/lago-vs-orb) and against [Chargebee](https://getlago.com/blog/lago-vs-chargebee) for a broader view of the usage-based billing landscape, or start with [what metered billing actually is](https://getlago.com/blog/what-is-metered-billing) if you're still scoping the problem before picking a vendor.

---

*Want to see how Lago handles your specific pricing model?*[Book a demo](https://getlago.com/book-a-demo)*or*[*explore the open-source repo*](https://github.com/getlago/lago)*and run it yourself.*