Pricing & Monetization
Lago vs Chargebee: Choose Billing for the Product You Will Sell Next
Anh-Tho Chuong•Oct 15•4 min read
One embedded billing engine for every platform model
Lago is built for platforms that enable others to build, sell, and scale across AI, finance, e-commerce, cloud, and ERP ecosystems.
AI PLATFORMS
Let users monetize with usage, credits or hybrid pricing
AI apps have variable costs that don't fit flat subscriptions. When builders can't monetize to match their costs, they churn.
Supports subscriptions, usage-based, credits, hybrid pricing and everything else.
No-code interface for builders, APIs for engineers, MCP for LLMs
Security and compliance for your users and your platform
Self-host and customize Lago.
PayPal brought next-generation billing to AI companies with Lago.
Bring billing capabilities in days, not years
Everything you need to embed and customize billing features into your platform, without rebuilding it.
Built for embedded partners. Launch faster with a billing engine designed for OEM use cases. Get platform-grade APIs, tenant isolation, and the flexibility to build exactly what your customers need.
Make your monetization features and user experience unique. Embed our platform, customize it to your specific needs, modify and extend Lago's code if needed, and launch a tailored product faster than ever.
Keep full control. Lago is open-source, offered on-prem, Soc 2 type 2. There's no black box, you get direct access to the action, while we stay behind the scenes to support when needed.
Full support for Embedded partners. Get dedicated partner support, custom integrations, and the flexibility to build exactly what your customers need on top of Lago's infrastructure.
Frequently asked questions
What is Lago Embedded?
What does "embedded billing" mean with Lago?
Embedded means Lago runs inside your platform:
- Your branding, your UX, your pricing
- You own the customer relationship, and can deploy within your own infrastructure, for more control
- Billing logic and data flow naturally within your product
This is not a separate billing product you bolt on: it's billing as part of your platform experience.
How long does it take to launch embedded billing?
Most platforms can launch within a few weeks, depending on scope and internal resourcing. Lago's open-source foundation and embedded-first architecture remove much of the integration overhead.
If we embed Lago, how is our billing product going to be differentiated?
Your billing product remains fully under your control. Lago is embedded as infrastructure:
- UX and UI are completely customizable per partner
- Lago's open-source core can be extended or modified
- Teams can build or co-build features directly on top of Lago
This lets you differentiate on product and experience, while relying on Lago for the underlying billing logic.
When to use Lago Embedded?
When does it make sense to adopt Lago Embedded?
When billing becomes a growth and retention strategic lever, not just an operational detail.
This often happens when monetization keeps users on your platform, billing data becomes critical to your core product, your users need more sophisticated pricing, and/or competitors offer full-stack platforms. We see this most often with AI-native app platforms, commerce and ERP platforms, cloud commerce, and financial infrastructure providers.
Lago Embedded lets you add advanced billing quickly, without owning and evolving a full billing product yourself.
Who is Lago Embedded for?
Lago Embedded is for platforms that want to offer billing as a native capability to their users. It's built for teams in AI-native app platforms, commerce and ERP platforms, cloud commerce, and financial infrastructure, but not limited to these, who need flexible, evolving monetization to drive retention, unlock new markets, and power their core product with billing data.
Build vs. buy
Shouldn't we keep this in-house?
You can. But building billing for your users isn't a set-and-forget choice.
Lago offers the best of both worlds: a head start over building from scratch, without giving up control. It's open-source, not a black box, can be deployed on-prem, and is designed to be extended. You build on top of a proven billing core instead of owning and evolving one from zero.
Why not use Stripe Connect to do this?
Stripe Connect is designed for payments and money movement. Lago Embedded is designed for billing as a platform capability.
When you offer billing to your users, you need to support usage metering, complex pricing models, credits, plan changes, and pricing that evolves over time across many tenants. These concerns sit outside Stripe Connect's core design, which means much of this logic would need to be implemented and maintained in your application.
Lago separates billing from payments. You can use Stripe Connect or any other payment processor, without being tied to one provider, while Lago handles the billing complexity required for sophisticated, evolving platform business models.
How is this different from integrating a payments provider?
Payments providers move money. Billing defines pricing.
Embedded billing lets your customers price their products, meter usage, manage plans, and invoice their end users. Lago handles this billing layer for your customers, and their end-users, while staying payment-agnostic.
Security and compliance
Is Lago secure and enterprise-ready?
Yes. Lago supports enterprise-grade security, flexible deployment options (self-hosted or managed), and data isolation that meets platform-level requirements. Visit our trust center for more information.
Lago self-hosted
Deploy Lago seamlessly on your own infrastructure to keep full control.
Create a Lago plan from plan.json using the CLI:
lago plans create --input @plan.json --output jsonExample Lago JSON response for a yearly Basic plan with usage-based API charges:
{
"plan": {
"name": "Basic",
"code": "basic",
"interval": "yearly",
"amount_cents": 90000,
"amount_currency": "USD",
"charges": [
{
"billable_metric_code": "api_calls",
"charge_model": "standard"
}
]
}
}
SOC 2 Type II
Your data is protected with enterprise-grade rigor.
Flexible Deployment
Deploy Lago on-prem, in a VPC or elsewhere.
RBAC
Role-based access control to set user roles and permissions.
