# Lago vs Payman Genie MCP

> Lago scores 65.7 (B) to Payman Genie MCP's 52.5 (D) for card payments. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-payman
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-payman.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-payman.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-payman.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 Payman Genie MCP's 52.5 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Payman Genie MCP leads on security & auth. Both do card payments.

- 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
- Payman Genie MCP: grade D, 52.5/100, rank #735 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/payman.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/payman.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 25
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 56
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 91 against 60
- Transparency & trust, 59 against 43

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

### Payman Genie MCP (D)

Good for: A person or small business who wants an assistant to pay bills, issue one-time cards or pay x402 APIs within hard limits.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 80 against 37

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

Watch for: No published pricing, status page, rate limits or changelog


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Lago | Payman Genie MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 86 | 25 | Lago +61 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 56 | Lago +31 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 71 | 68 | Lago +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 37 | 80 | Payman Genie MCP +43 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 35 | Lago +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 91 | 60 | Lago +31 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 43 | Lago +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **65.7 · B** | **52.5 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Lago | Payman Genie MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Get Lago Corp. | Payman AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://genie.paymanai.com/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP | Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 (platform). The MCP server and agent SDKs are MIT. Premium capabilities and Lago Cloud are commercial | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 5 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-09-19 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-29 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-29 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 11k stars, 48k npm/wk | 0 stars, 33 npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

## 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.

**Payman Genie MCP.** OAuth 2.1 with PKCE, two scopes, one-hour access tokens and refresh tokens rotated on every use and revoked on logout. No published pricing, status page, rate limits or changelog.

## 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

### Payman Genie MCP

1. Pass the person's request to `ask_genie` in their own words; don't pick accounts or fill payment fields
2. On `needs_approval`, stop and tell the person; approval happens in their Genie account
3. Retry only after `NOTHING_RAN` or `BUSY`, never after `OUTCOME_UNKNOWN`
4. Treat `done` as acted, not settled; check the activity history before confirming a payment
5. Sign-ins from bridge 0.3.x lack `genie:self`; log out and sign in again to use the self-service tools

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Lago or Payman Genie MCP?

Lago scores 65.7 (B) on agent readiness against Payman Genie MCP's 52.5 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Payman Genie MCP leads on security & auth.

### Do Lago and Payman Genie MCP need an API key?

Lago needs an API key. Payman Genie MCP uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Lago and Payman Genie MCP without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Lago. Payman Genie MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://genie.paymanai.com/mcp.

### Are Lago and Payman Genie MCP 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 Payman Genie MCP.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Lago or Payman Genie MCP

- [ATXP vs Lago](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atxp-vs-lago.md)
- [Lago vs Metronome](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-metronome.md)
- [Lago vs Nevermined API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-nevermined.md)
- [Lago vs Orb](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-orb.md)
- [Lago vs Paid](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-paid.md)
- [Lago vs Stripe API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-stripe-mcp.md)
- [Lago vs Tempo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-tempo.md)
- [Adyen MCP server vs Lago](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adyen-mcp-server-vs-lago.md)
- [Adyen MCP server vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adyen-mcp-server-vs-payman.md)
- [Crossmint API + Docs MCP vs Lago](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crossmint-vs-lago.md)
- [Crossmint API + Docs MCP vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crossmint-vs-payman.md)
- [Lago vs Skyfire API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-skyfire.md)
- [Orb vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-payman.md)
- [Paid vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/paid-vs-payman.md)
- [Payman Genie MCP vs Skyfire API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/payman-vs-skyfire.md)
- [ATXP vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atxp-vs-payman.md)
- [Circle Gateway Nanopayments vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circle-gateway-nanopayments-vs-payman.md)
- [Nevermined API + MCP vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nevermined-vs-payman.md)
- [Payman Genie MCP vs Stripe API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/payman-vs-stripe-mcp.md)