# Lago vs Paid

> Lago scores 65.7 (B) to Paid's 55.1 (C) for usage billing. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-paid
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-paid.md (~2,450 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-paid.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-paid.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Lago scores 65.7 (B) on agent readiness against Paid's 55.1 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Paid leads on security & auth. Both do usage billing.

- Lago: grade B, 65.7/100, rank #311 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lago.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lago.json
- Paid: grade C, 55.1/100, rank #669 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/paid.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/paid.json
- Best payment and monetisation platforms for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/payment-platforms/index.md
- All 76 platforms comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/payment-platforms/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Lago (B)

Good for: A team that wants usage metering, plans, wallets and invoicing under its own control and can run PostgreSQL and Redis.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 86 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 64
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 91 against 77
- Transparency & trust, 59 against 51

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: The free edition has one organisation API key with full access. Creating more keys needs a Premium licence and per-resource permissions need an enterprise add-on

### Paid (C)

Good for: A team selling an AI agent that needs usage metering, credit balances, cost and margin tracking and invoicing in one service, with Stripe as the payment rail.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 65 against 37

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card
- No incidents deducted, where Lago loses 3 points for them

Watch for: The docs index advertises an OpenAPI 3.1 file at two addresses, and both returned 404 on 9 October 2026


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Lago | Paid | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 86 | 35 | Lago +51 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 64 | Lago +23 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 71 | 70 | Lago +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 37 | 65 | Paid +28 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 30 | Lago +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 91 | 77 | Lago +14 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 51 | Lago +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **65.7 · B** | **55.1 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Lago | Paid |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Get Lago Corp. | Agent Paid Limited |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.agentpaid.io/api/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 (platform). The MCP server and agent SDKs are MIT. Premium capabilities and Lago Cloud are commercial | Proprietary service under Paid's Master Subscription Agreement. The Node and Python SDKs on GitHub are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-09-15 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 11k stars, 48k npm/wk | 24k npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**Lago.** Lago's open-source edition runs usage metering, plans, wallets and invoicing on the owner's servers at no charge, with an OpenAPI 3.1 file of 217 operations and releases about every two weeks. The free edition has one unscoped API key and no audit logs, and Lago's llms.txt understates what its MCP server can change.

**Paid.** Paid suits a builder who wants usage metering, credits and invoicing behind one API, with restricted and customer-bound keys, OAuth on the MCP server and a free plan that needs no card. No status page, SLA figure, API changelog or rate-limit numbers were found, both advertised OpenAPI links returned 404, and card payments need the builder's own Stripe account.

## Before you call either

### Lago

1. Call `<your Lago API origin>/api/v1` with `Authorization: Bearer <key>`. On Lago Cloud the hosts are `api.getlago.com` and `api.eu.getlago.com`
2. Send every usage event with a deterministic `transaction_id` and an explicit `timestamp`, and resend the same payload on retry. On the ClickHouse event store a changed timestamp is billed again
3. Expect 422 `value_already_exist` for a repeated event on the Postgres event store. Treat it as success for a retry
4. Page with `page` and `per_page` and read `meta.next_page` and `meta.total_count`. The default page size is 100 in most cases
5. Treat the free edition's API key as full access. It can void invoices and terminate subscriptions, so keep it out of prompts and ask a person before financial changes
6. Before giving an assistant the MCP server, note that it includes `delete_invoice`, `void_invoice`, `delete_plan` and `create_payment` and sets no read-only annotations

### Paid

1. Call `https://api.agentpaid.io/api/v2` with `Authorization: Bearer <key>`. A person creates the first key at app.paid.ai. No programmatic signup was found
2. Give every signal a stable `idempotencyKey` and resend the same key on retry. Signals without one are not deduplicated
3. Send at most 500 signals a request. A 429 rejects the whole batch, so wait for `Retry-After` and resend it all
4. Read the `code` field on a 429. `CONCURRENCY_LIMIT_EXCEEDED` carries no `Retry-After` and clears when an analytics query finishes
5. Install the Python SDK as `paid-python`, the name in its README and `pyproject.toml`. The quickstart's `pip install paid` names a package we could not check

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Lago or Paid?

Lago scores 65.7 (B) on agent readiness against Paid's 55.1 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Paid leads on security & auth.

### Do Lago and Paid need an API key?

Lago needs an API key. Paid takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Lago and Paid without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Lago. Paid has a hosted endpoint at https://api.agentpaid.io/api/v2.

### Are Lago and Paid open source?

Lago is open source (AGPL-3.0 (platform). The MCP server and agent SDKs are MIT. Premium capabilities and Lago Cloud are commercial). No open-source release is listed for Paid.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-paid.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-paid.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "lago", "b": "paid"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare lago paid`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lago.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/paid.json

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