Which billing platform fits your team: Chargebee or self-hosted Lago?
Chargebee fits teams that want billing run as a managed service, with revenue and retention modules available without building them. If your renewal is coming up, your priority is to keep billing working while you reduce per-month platform spend, or you have a small internal team that cannot staff billing engineering, a managed platform is the lower-risk choice to keep. Chargebee's subscription management, dunning, revenue recognition and retention features are product areas your team would otherwise build or buy separately, and a managed platform keeps upgrades, uptime and vendor support in one contract.
Self-hosted Lago fits teams that need to host billing data in their own infrastructure, own metering and invoicing logic, or avoid a vendor dependency for the billing core. Lago is licensed under AGPLv3, so you can run the platform inside your own cloud account or data center and review how usage is metered and how invoices are produced. Its Docker Compose deployment includes an API, workers, PostgreSQL, Redis and Gotenberg for PDFs. Confirm the AGPLv3 obligations with your legal team before you modify the code and offer it to users over a network. Plan to pin a tagged release rather than the latest image, as Lago's self-hosting docs recommend.
The decision turns on three questions. First, where card data sits: Lago does not collect payments itself and needs a processor such as Stripe, Adyen or GoCardless, so your gateway relationship and PCI scope stay the same either way. Second, whether you need Chargebee's revenue or retention modules or can cover those needs elsewhere. Third, who will run the platform day to day, including upgrades, backups, monitoring and on-call support. If that team does not exist yet, a fixed-scope implementation with a documented support plan can close the gap, but the ongoing staffing cost belongs in your comparison.
Which option fits each buying scenario
This table compares the situations that usually drive a Chargebee review and shows where a self-hosted Lago deployment is the better fit. Read each row against the condition in its middle column, and treat a row as decisive only when that condition describes your organization.
| Scenario | Better fit | Why and under what condition |
|---|---|---|
| Billing data must stay in your own cloud account | Lago, self-hosted | Applies when a residency or contractual rule requires customer and invoice records to sit in your own accounts. Confirm with your regulator or assessor which data counts as billing data. |
| Revenue recovery and retention modules are a priority | Chargebee | Applies when you rely on dunning, churn recovery and retention features as delivered. Confirm which of these Lago's free edition includes versus its Enterprise plans. |
| Usage-heavy pricing with very high event volumes | Lago, self-hosted, with capacity planning | Applies when you can size PostgreSQL, Redis and workers for your event rate. ClickHouse is an optional store for high-volume events and is disabled by default, so plan for it early. |
| Small team without a platform engineering function | Chargebee | Applies when no one can own upgrades, backups, monitoring and on-call for billing. Self-hosting shifts these tasks to your staff or a support partner. |
| Need to modify billing logic directly | Lago, self-hosted | Applies when pricing rules or invoice flows must change faster than a vendor roadmap allows. Confirm the license terms of AGPLv3 with counsel before modifying and offering the software to users. |
| Existing Stripe, Adyen or GoCardless setup to keep | Either, with the same processor | Applies in both cases because Lago calculates amounts and sends them to a gateway that you still need. Card tokens stay with the processor, so payment fees remain. |
| Accounting sync with NetSuite, Xero, Salesforce or HubSpot | Confirm for your stack | Lago's README lists these integrations. Confirm depth of sync, field mapping and maintenance responsibility against your own chart of accounts. |
Where Lago covers Chargebee's billing core and where it does not
Lago covers the billing core: it meters usage, applies pricing, produces invoices and hands charges to a payment gateway. It does not hold card data itself. Businesses running Lago need a separate payment processor, and the README names Stripe, Adyen and GoCardless as supported providers. Before you compare, map which of your Chargebee flows depend on Chargebee's own payment handling, such as dunning retries, card updater behavior and hosted payment pages, and confirm with each gateway how those flows would be rebuilt or kept. The gateway fees stay the same either way, so the comparison is about the billing logic and its operations, not the processing bill.
Lago's README lists integrations with NetSuite, Xero, Salesforce and HubSpot. A listed integration is not the same as the depth you need. For each system, confirm which objects sync (customers, invoices, credit notes, payments, plans), in which direction, how often, and how errors are reported and retried. Test the mapping of your chart of accounts and tax codes against your own ledger, and check how your CRM account and deal fields line up with Lago customer records. Ask Chargebee for its current connector list and compare it line by line, because your existing integrations may depend on connectors Lago does not list.
Chargebee sells revenue and retention modules that many buyers use, including revenue recognition, churn management and subscription recovery features. Do not assume Lago replicates them. Make a written list of the Chargebee modules you actually use, pull the configuration and reports behind each, and ask whether Lago provides an equivalent, a plugin, or whether you would build it yourself. Where Lago does not cover a module, decide whether a separate tool, your accounting system or in-house code will carry it, and price that work into the comparison.
How Chargebee and Lago compare on capabilities
This table sets Chargebee against Lago across the capabilities that usually drive a billing decision. Where the supplied facts do not describe a Chargebee feature in detail, the cell tells you what to confirm in Chargebee's current documentation. Use it as a checklist for your own requirements rather than a complete feature inventory.
| Capability | Chargebee | Lago |
|---|---|---|
| Subscriptions | Hosted subscription management. Confirm plan, add-on and proration behavior against Chargebee's current documentation. | Open-source monetization engine that applies pricing and calculates when and how much to charge for subscriptions. |
| Usage metering and invoicing | Offered as part of its billing product. Confirm metering methods, invoice templates and tax handling for your jurisdictions. | Meters usage, applies pricing and produces invoices. PDF generation runs through Gotenberg in the standard Docker Compose stack. |
| Payment collection | Connects to payment gateways that hold card tokens. Confirm the list of supported gateways for your region. | Calculates the charge and sends it to a separate gateway. The README names Stripe, Adyen and GoCardless as supported providers. |
| Accounting integrations | Confirm the accounting connectors available in your plan with Chargebee. | README lists integrations with NetSuite, Xero, Salesforce and HubSpot. Confirm the connector version you need. |
| Licensing | Commercial SaaS subscription. Pricing depends on plan and modules; request a written quote. | Platform licensed under AGPLv3. Agent SDKs and MCP server are MIT licensed in separate repositories. A forever-free open-source edition is available, with Enterprise plans adding premium features. |
| Self-hosting | Not offered as a self-hosted deployment. Hosting and upgrades are managed by Chargebee. | Self-hosted with Docker Compose, Helm charts for larger deployments. You run PostgreSQL, Redis and Gotenberg, with ClickHouse optional. |
What hosting control changes for data, identity and compliance
Moving billing from Chargebee to self-hosted Lago changes who holds customer and invoice data, who runs the infrastructure and who produces the evidence an auditor asks for. The cards below cover the decisions that matter most when residency, internal audit or licensing terms apply to your billing stack.
Data location and residency
Lago stores customers, subscriptions, invoices and usage events in PostgreSQL, with Redis holding job queues. If a residency rule limits where customer or invoice records may sit, you choose the region and the database host. Check where Gotenberg renders PDF invoices and where any ClickHouse store for high-volume events would run, because each component handles billing data. Confirm each location in writing before go-live.
Hosting model and operator
With Chargebee, the vendor operates the billing service. With Lago, your team or a partner operates the API, workers, clock process and database, so patching, backups and failover move to you. This matters most when an internal audit expects documented change control over the billing system. Decide who holds on-call duty for invoice runs and who approves version upgrades.
Identity and access control
Chargebee manages administrator roles inside its own console. A self-hosted Lago deployment needs your identity provider, role model and audit logging around the admin interface and API keys. Confirm how Lago administrator access is granted, rotated and revoked, and tie those accounts to your joiner and leaver process. Least-privilege access to refunds and credit notes is usually the first control reviewers test.
Audit evidence and change records
Auditors will ask for evidence that invoices were generated as configured, that price changes were approved and that the version running in production is the one tested. You must produce that evidence from your own logs, deployment records and database backups. DeployOpen can prepare controls and collect evidence for a readiness review, but independent auditors and certification bodies issue any audit report or certification.
AGPLv3 licensing obligations
Lago's platform is licensed under AGPLv3. If you run a modified version and let users interact with it over a network, the license may require you to offer those users the corresponding source of your changes. Internal use without modification carries fewer obligations. Ask counsel to review your planned customizations, and keep the agent SDKs and MCP server, which carry MIT licenses in separate repositories, separate from the platform in your review.
Vendor dependency and exit
Self-hosting removes a single vendor's control over pricing and availability, but it adds your own dependency on the Lago release cycle. Pin a tagged release rather than the latest image, as the self-hosting documentation recommends, and set a review schedule for new releases. Keep an exported copy of your plans, customers and invoices so that a future move does not depend on any one system staying available.
What each option costs to own, by component
Chargebee is a managed service, so most of its cost is a recurring subscription fee. The fee is set by the plan you choose and by the add-on modules you enable, such as revenue or retention features. Chargebee handles hosting, upgrades, uptime and the application itself, so your internal effort is mainly configuration, integrations and the finance workflows around the platform. Confirm with Chargebee whether pricing depends on subscriber count, revenue volume or a combination, because that determines how the bill grows as the business grows.
- Recurring plan fee: The base subscription recurs on each billing period and is the largest line for most teams. Ask how it changes at higher volumes and whether it resets on renewal.
- Add-on modules: Revenue, retention and similar modules are usually priced separately and recur. Ask which features sit in each module and which are included in the base plan.
- Integration work: Connecting accounting, CRM and data tools is a one-time internal or partner cost, plus ongoing maintenance when APIs change.
- Data export at exit: Exporting customers, subscriptions and invoices carries one-time effort. Check the export format, cost and availability period before you commit.
- Payment gateway fees: Card and transaction fees from your gateway apply whichever billing system you run. Ask Chargebee which gateway charges are passed through and which are its own.
Before comparing, ask Chargebee for a written quote that states the plan, every module, the volume basis, the renewal terms and any overage rules.
Lago's platform is AGPLv3 licensed, and its FAQ describes a forever-free open-source edition with fundamental billing features. Premium features sit in Enterprise plans, so the licence line depends on which features you need. Infrastructure is the main recurring cost of a self-hosted install. The Docker Compose deployment runs a front end, an API, an API worker, a clock worker, PostgreSQL, Redis and Gotenberg for PDF generation. ClickHouse is optional for high-volume events and disabled by default, so you add it only when event volume requires it.
- Servers and cloud resources: Compute, storage and network costs recur monthly and grow with invoice and event volume. Size them from your own load tests, not from a generic estimate.
- PostgreSQL: Managed or self-run database hosting recurs. Backups and replicas add to it.
- Redis and Gotenberg: Redis serves as the job queue and Gotenberg generates PDFs. Both add running cost and monitoring work.
- Enterprise plan (if needed): A licence fee recurs under a commercial agreement. Ask Lago which premium features are included and what the fee depends on.
- Optional ClickHouse: Adds hosting and operations cost only if you enable it for high event volumes.
Request a written list of the features and support included in each Lago tier, then price your infrastructure from a sized test environment.
Self-hosting moves cost from the vendor invoice into your own team's time. Someone must deploy the stack, pin and upgrade versions, patch the operating system and databases, rotate secrets, test backups and monitor job queues. Lago's self-hosting docs recommend pinning the last tagged version instead of the latest image tag, and they point larger deployments to Helm charts and dedicated workers. Each of those choices adds engineering work that a managed service would otherwise absorb.
- Initial deployment: Setup, configuration and integration with your payment gateway is largely one-time work, whether done in-house or by a partner under a fixed scope.
- Upgrades: Each tagged release needs testing against your invoices and integrations. Upgrade effort recurs with each release you adopt.
- Backups and monitoring: Backup schedules, restore tests, alerting on workers and queues recur as ongoing duties.
- Billing operations: Finance staff still run dunning, credit notes and revenue reviews. This effort exists in both options, but the tooling behind it changes.
- Retainers or support: Ongoing support and upgrades can be bought as a retainer, which turns variable staff time into a recurring fixed cost.
Ask your team to estimate hours per month for upgrades, backups and on-call, and compare that with the support scope of the Chargebee plan.
Neither option removes payment processing costs. Lago calculates what to charge and when, then sends the charge to a payment gateway. The README names Stripe, Adyen and GoCardless as supported providers, and you hold a direct contract with whichever one you choose. Chargebee also connects to gateways that you pay directly. Gateway fees are per transaction or per percentage of volume and are set by the processor, so they should be compared on identical volumes in both scenarios rather than treated as a platform difference.
- Transaction fees: Charged per payment by the gateway, recurring with every collection, and driven by card mix, currency and retry rates.
- Chargeback and dispute fees: Charged by the gateway on disputed payments, and they depend on your dispute rate.
- Card token storage: Ask who stores card tokens and whether storage carries a separate fee from the gateway or from the billing platform.
- Setup and integration: One-time gateway onboarding and any connector work are paid to the gateway or your integrator.
- Failed payment retries: Retry logic can change the number of billable attempts, so model it on your own failure rate.
When requesting quotes, ask each vendor and each gateway for a sample invoice based on your monthly volume, currency mix and retry settings.
What a move from Chargebee to Lago involves at a high level
The sequence moves subscription logic, customer history and open invoices into Lago while card tokens stay with the payment gateway that already holds them, so billing continues without a gap in collection. Each step closes with a check you can verify before the next one starts.
Inventory plans, add-ons and usage metrics
Your finance and billing owners list every plan, add-on, price version, billing interval, tax rule and usage metric in Chargebee, including the grandfathered plans that existing customers still use. Engineering maps which product events feed each usage metric. The output is a written inventory that both teams sign off, because anything missing here will surface later as a pricing error on a live invoice.
Export customers, subscriptions and invoices
Pull customers, active subscriptions, invoice history, credit notes and open balances from Chargebee using its exports or API. Chargebee's own export guidance describes what is available entity by entity, and the detailed export page covers the order and format. The check is a reconciliation: record counts, total open balances and the subscription status of each account must match the Chargebee reports before you import anything.
Rebuild the catalog in Lago
Recreate the billable metrics, plans, charges and add-ons in your self-hosted Lago instance, using the inventory from the first step as the specification. Map each Chargebee plan to a Lago plan and confirm how proration, trial periods and tax settings behave in Lago's own documentation or with the Lago team. The output is a Lago catalog that a test account can run through every pricing path in your inventory.
Import customers and subscriptions into Lago
Load customers and their active subscriptions into Lago, keeping Chargebee identifiers in an external reference field so you can trace every record back to its origin. Recreate open balances and the billing anchor dates for each subscription so the next renewal lands on the same day it does today. The check is a sample audit of accounts from each plan type, comparing the next scheduled invoice amount in both systems.
Keep card tokens with the existing gateway
Lago does not store card data. It calculates what to charge and sends that instruction to a payment gateway such as Stripe, Adyen or GoCardless, so the cards and mandates your customers already hold stay where they are. Confirm with your gateway whether the existing tokens or mandates can be used by the connection Lago requires, and with your payment security owner how that data flow is documented. The output is a written confirmation that no customer has to re-enter payment details, or a list of customers who will need to, with a plan for them.
Run both systems in parallel through a billing cycle
Run Lago in shadow mode alongside Chargebee for at least one full billing cycle, generating invoices in Lago without collecting from customers. Compare each invoice line, tax amount and total against Chargebee's output and log every difference with its cause. Accounting integrations such as NetSuite, Xero, Salesforce and HubSpot, which Lago's README lists, should be tested with the same data in this window. Cut-over is not approved until the variances are explained and closed.
Cut over and retire Chargebee duties
Switch collection to Lago at an agreed date, stop Chargebee invoice runs and confirm that scheduled renewals and dunning now originate in Lago. Keep Chargebee read-only for historical records and retain exports under your own records policy. The check is that the first live cycle in Lago closes with reconciled revenue and no duplicate charges, after which the Chargebee subscription can be closed on the terms in your contract.
What running Lago yourself requires from your team
Running Lago yourself starts with version pinning. Lago's self-hosting documentation recommends pinning the last tagged version rather than the latest image tag, so an upgrade happens because your team chose it, not because a new image was pulled during a restart. Watch the getlago/lago releases page as part of routine operations. The project shipped v1.54.0 on October 6, 2026 and v1.55.0 the following day, so a release cadence of days is possible and someone must own triage of each one. Before any upgrade, run it against a copy of your own data and compare generated invoices, taxes, proration and usage charges line by line with the current production output. Vendor release notes do not know your plans, add-ons or metric definitions, so this comparison is the only test that matters for billing accuracy.
The Docker Compose stack has several stateful and queued parts that need their own backup and health checks. PostgreSQL holds application data and must be backed up with tested restores, not just snapshots. Redis serves as the job queue, so you need monitoring for queue depth and failed or stuck jobs, because a silent backlog means invoices or webhooks are late without an obvious error. The clock worker and API worker should be watched as separate processes. Gotenberg generates PDFs, so a failure there shows up as invoices that cannot be sent. If event volume grows, ClickHouse is optional and disabled by default, and the docs point larger deployments to Helm charts and dedicated workers. Ask your platform team early whether that move needs a Kubernetes cluster you already operate, and confirm the sizing with the Lago documentation and your own load tests rather than assuming it.
Decide ownership before go-live. Someone must own on-call for billing failures, another must own upgrades and version pinning, and finance operations must own payment reconciliation between Lago's invoices and the balances at Stripe, Adyen or GoCardless. Lago calculates what to charge and when, but the gateway settles the money, so mismatches between the two are your problem to detect. The team needs people who understand subscription billing rules, PostgreSQL administration and backup restores, Redis and worker operations, container orchestration if you use Helm, and secure handling of payment webhooks and API keys. If those skills sit in one or two people, plan cross-training and document runbooks. Ask any implementation partner to state in the written scope who does which of these tasks after handover, and what the retainer covers.
Questions buyers ask before choosing Chargebee or Lago
What does self-hosting Lago cost compared with staying on Chargebee?
Self-hosting Lago removes the Chargebee subscription line, but it replaces it with infrastructure, engineering time and payment gateway fees that stay either way. Lago's free open-source edition covers fundamental billing features, and Enterprise plans add premium features at a price set by Lago. The main cost drivers are the servers and managed database you run for PostgreSQL, Redis and Gotenberg, the optional ClickHouse store if event volume is high, the people who operate billing and upgrades, and the migration itself. Ask Chargebee for its current plan and add-on pricing in writing, and ask Lago for its Enterprise terms. The Lago self-hosting guide shows the components you would run.
How long does a migration from Chargebee to Lago take?
The timeline depends on how many plans, add-ons and usage metrics you need to rebuild, how many active subscriptions and invoices must move, and how long you run both systems in parallel through a billing cycle. Usage metering and tax or accounting integrations usually take more time than the plan catalog itself. No duration figure is supplied for this work, so treat any number a vendor quotes as a claim to verify against your own catalog. DeployOpen plans migrations as fixed-scope engagements, and the timeline is agreed in writing after a scoping review of your catalog, data exports and integrations.
What does our team need to provide for a Lago migration?
You need someone who owns the pricing model, someone who can export and validate billing data, and an engineer who can run the platform. Finance should confirm how invoices, credit notes and revenue reports map to Lago's outputs. Engineering needs to operate PostgreSQL, Redis and the Lago workers, handle upgrades (Lago recommends pinning the last tagged version rather than the latest image tag), and connect the accounting system. Your payment gateway team must confirm how card tokens transfer. Chargebee's exports are covered in the separate guide to exporting your data from Chargebee.
Can our own team run a Lago migration without outside help?
A capable team can run Lago without outside help if it has platform engineering skills, a clear billing owner and time to test invoices against real cycles. Teams without that experience usually find the hard parts are data mapping, usage metric rebuilds, parallel running and cutover controls, not the container deployment. Ask whether the team has run a self-hosted billing system through a full billing cycle before. An outside partner can plan, implement, test, document and support the work under a written scope, or provide a retainer for ongoing upgrades and support.
Does Lago's free edition have the billing features we need?
Lago's free open-source edition covers fundamental billing features, so the answer depends on which features your business relies on. Check the feature list in the General FAQ against your current Chargebee configuration, including usage pricing, tiered plans, coupons, dunning and proration. Features that Lago places in its Enterprise plans should be listed and priced before you commit. Ask Lago which features are included in each tier and confirm that answer in writing before you plan the migration.
How do card tokens move from Chargebee to Lago?
Card tokens do not move through Lago. Lago calculates what to charge and when, then sends the charge to a payment gateway such as Stripe, Adyen or GoCardless, so the stored card credentials stay with the gateway that holds them. Moving to Lago therefore means keeping the existing gateway connection or agreeing a token transfer with that gateway, which is a separate process. Confirm with your gateway which token export options it supports and how long they take before you set a cutover date.
What happens to Chargebee's revenue and retention modules?
Chargebee's revenue and retention modules are not one-to-one replacements in Lago, so you should map each module you use to a specific Lago capability or to a separate tool. Examples include revenue recognition, dunning and churn recovery, and reporting dashboards. Lago's integrations with NetSuite, Xero, Salesforce and HubSpot may cover part of the accounting and CRM flow. Document which functions you will rebuild, which you will run in another system, and which you will stop using before the migration plan is signed off.
How DeployOpen helps you evaluate, implement or migrate billing
DeployOpen is a Chainscore Labs company that plans, implements, integrates, hardens, backs up and documents self-hosted open-source platforms inside your own cloud accounts, data centers or air-gapped networks. For a Chargebee vs Lago decision, we start with the written scope that fits your billing model, payment gateways and accounting systems.
How we scope
- We agree scope, deliverables and timelines in writing before any work starts.
- We map your plans, add-ons, usage metrics and invoice rules to Lago's model.
- We confirm which payment gateway holds your card tokens and how Lago connects to it.
How we build
- We deploy Lago in your environment with PostgreSQL, Redis and Gotenberg, pinned to a tagged release.
- We configure Stripe, Adyen or GoCardless and the NetSuite, Xero, Salesforce or HubSpot links you need.
- We test metering, proration, invoice generation and failed payment handling against your own scenarios.
How we hand over
- We document the architecture, configuration, upgrade steps and backup and restore procedures for your team.
- We provide runbooks for billing cycle checks, reconciliation with your ledger and incident response.
- We prepare controls and evidence for your compliance assessment, while independent auditors issue any opinion.
How we support
- Ongoing support, upgrades and continuous testing are available as a retainer after handover.
- We plan each Lago version upgrade in a staging environment before it reaches production billing.
- We can review your Enterprise plan needs against the open-source edition so you choose with written facts.
