---
title: Evaluate Lago for AI and usage-based billing
description: Product fit, evaluation criteria, boundaries, and the next step for a commercial review.
canonical: https://getlago.com/evaluate
---

# Is Lago right for your product?

Lago is an open-source billing platform for AI and usage-based businesses. It meters product usage, applies subscriptions, credits, and customer-specific pricing, then generates invoices. Teams can use Lago Cloud or self-host the codebase.

## When Lago fits

- **AI and infrastructure usage:** meter tokens, API calls, compute, and other product events as billable metrics.
- **Mixed pricing:** combine subscriptions, metered charges, prepaid credits, and customer-specific terms.
- **Deployment control:** choose Cloud or self-hosted deployment and integrate through the REST API or SDKs.

Public proof: [How Mistral AI uses Lago for billing](https://getlago.com/blog/mistral-billing).

## How to evaluate

1. Map one real customer agreement to a [Lago plan](https://getlago.com/solutions/use-cases/hybrid-plans), usage metrics, credits, and an invoice.
2. Review the [API, SDKs, and webhooks](https://getlago.com/developers) against your application architecture.
3. Check Cloud or self-hosted deployment, security needs, and payment providers.
4. [Request a demo](https://getlago.com/book-a-demo) to review commercial fit, migration needs, expected volume, and timeline.

## Boundaries

- Lago is not a payment processor. Payment processing runs through an integrated provider such as Stripe, Adyen, or GoCardless.
- Lago exposes usage, entitlements, balances, and alerts. The customer's application or gateway enforces request limits. A real-time balance is not synchronous authorization.
- Public documentation, API specifications, and source code can be reviewed without signup. For synthetic tests, use an isolated self-hosted instance; Lago has no built-in sandbox.
- A commercial deployment review starts with a [demo request](https://getlago.com/book-a-demo).

## Further reading

- [Lago for AI products](https://getlago.com/solutions/industries/ai)
- [Pricing](https://getlago.com/pricing)
- [Open-source repository](https://github.com/getlago/lago)
- [Guide for coding agents](https://getlago.com/for-agents)