Subscription Billing
The most concrete split between Paddle and Lago is the pricing model: Paddle runs on usage-based pricing from 5% + $0.50/transaction, while Lago uses freemium with paid plans from $1. That shapes how predictable your monthly spend is and how much of the cost sits in infrastructure versus per-seat or per-event fees. Beyond the headline, Paddle carries high lock-in (high — mor model = paddle handles everything, fromwith adapts under paddle) and usage-based pricing from 5% + $0.50/transaction; Lago carries low lock-in (open-source billing, self-hostable) and freemium with paid plans from $1. Paddle is a fit when you are saas, b2b. Lago is a fit when you are saas. The honest trade-off: Paddle is explicitly not for marketplace/platform payments; Lago is explicitly not for simple projects. On the product side, Paddle is described as Merchant of Record and subscription billing platform for B2B/B2C SaaS with global tax, checkout, and revenue recovery, and Lago is described as Open-source metering and usage-based billing API supporting flat, tiered, volume, and percentage pricing models.
Quick take
Paddle is for saas, b2b; Lago is for saas; decide on pricing model.
| | | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Subscription Billing | Subscription Billing |
| Pricing Model | usage | freemium |
| Entry Price | 5% + $0.50/transaction | $1 |
| Free Tier | No | Yes |
| Billing Complexity | low | — |
| Developer Experience | 5/5 | 4/5 |
| Pricing Transparency | 4/5 | 4/5 |
| Lock-in Level | high | low |
| Migration Complexity | high | — |
| Data Portability | Limited — Paddle owns frombutand with customer | — |
| Enterprise | Available | Available |
| GitHub Stars | — | — |
| License | — | — |
High — MoR model = Paddle handles everything, fromwith adapts under Paddle
Migration difficulty: high
Data you keep: Limited — Paddle owns frombutand with customer
API standard: Proprietary, andon towithfromand
Risk notes: High — MoR model = Paddle handles everything, fromwith adapts under Paddle
💡 Plan 2-4 weeks minimum. Consider running parallel during migration
Choose Paddle if its usage pricing model fits your budget shape better than Lago's freemium model, and you are saas, b2b.
Not for: Marketplace/platform payments
Choose Lago if you need a free tier to start before committing budget, and your use case matches saas.
Not for: Simple projects
Check each tool's dedicated page for deeper reviews, setup notes, and pros/cons.
Paddle starts at 5% + $0.50/transaction; Lago starts at $1. On entry price alone that is the comparison, but real cost scales with users, events or volume, which the entry prices do not capture. Check each vendor's full tier list before committing.
Migration from Paddle is harder: Paddle is rated high lock-in (high — mor model = paddle handles everything, fromwith adapts under paddle). You can still move, but expect schema-mapping, export tooling and a longer cutover window. Budget engineering time accordingly.
On our scoring Paddle rates 5/5 for developer experience versus 4/5 for Lago. That suggests day-to-day workflows (CLI, SDKs, docs) are smoother in Paddle. Scores are directional; run a short spike on your own stack to confirm.
Lago is pitched at saas, which overlaps with Paddle's fit (saas, b2b) but is not identical. Note that Lago is explicitly not for simple projects, so it only replaces Paddle if you are outside that exclusion. The lock-in profile differs (high vs low), which is the main thing to weigh.
Comments powered by Giscus (GitHub Discussions). You need a GitHub account to comment.