Create billable metrics

To charge your customers for the use of a feature, create the corresponding billable metric.

Dashboard
API

To add a new billable metric through the user interface:

Enter its name;
Assign it a code which will be used as the name of the event sent from your backend;
Add a description (optional);
Select the aggregation type which will define how consumption will be measured;
Define the property to aggregate;
Define filters if you price several dimensions for the same billing component; and
Define if this billable metric is recurring and kept in memory period over period, or resets to 0 at the end of each period.

Here are a few examples of billable metrics you can create:

LAGO_URL="https://api.getlago.com"
API_KEY="__YOUR_API_KEY__"

curl --location --request POST "$LAGO_URL/api/v1/billable_metrics" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-raw '{
    "billable_metric": {
      "name": "Storage",
      "code": "storage",
      "description": "Number of GB used",
      "aggregation_type": "sum_agg",
      "field_name": "gb",
      "recurring": false,
      "filters": [
        {
          "key": "provider",
          "values": ["aws", "google", "azure"]
        }
      ]
    }
  }'

LAGO_URL="https://api.getlago.com"
API_KEY="__YOUR_API_KEY__"

curl --location --request POST "$LAGO_URL/api/v1/billable_metrics" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-raw '{
    "billable_metric": {
      "name": "Seats",
      "code": "seats",
      "description": "Active seats added",
      "aggregation_type": "unique_count_agg",
      "field_name": "seat_id",
      "recurring": true
    }
  }'

LAGO_URL="https://api.getlago.com"
API_KEY="__YOUR_API_KEY__"

curl --location --request POST "$LAGO_URL/api/v1/billable_metrics" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-raw '{
    "billable_metric": {
      "name": "CPU",
      "code": "cpu",
      "description": "Maximum number of CPUs used",
      "aggregation_type": "max_agg",
      "field_name": "total_cpu",
      "recurring": false
    }
  }'

LAGO_URL="https://api.getlago.com"
API_KEY="__YOUR_API_KEY__"

curl --location --request POST "$LAGO_URL/api/v1/billable_metrics" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-raw '{
    "billable_metric": {
      "name": "Payments",
      "code": "payments",
      "description": "Card payments issued",
      "aggregation_type": "sum_agg",
      "field_name": "amount",
      "recurring": false
    }
  }'

The next section describes the different aggregation types. The examples page shows the relationship between incoming events and billable metrics.

Introduction

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Events & Usage Components

Pricing & Subscriptions

Quotes & Order Forms

Invoicing

Payments & Cash Collection

AI Agents and MCP

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Resources

Create billable metrics