---
title: Tanso vs. Lago vs. Autumn — Open-Source Billing Comparison
description: Honest comparison of Tanso, Lago, Autumn, and Stripe Billing across licensing, self-host, cost tracking, entitlements, metering, credits, invoicing, and MCP support.
date: 2026-09-02
---

> Full site context for agents: https://tansohq.com/llms.txt

# Tanso vs. Lago vs. Autumn

Three open-source billing and entitlement tools, compared from source.
Enforcement and MCP are not unique to Tanso; cost next to revenue in one
ledger, the lightest self-host, and full AGPL are.

| Capability | Tanso | Lago | Autumn | Stripe Billing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| License / OSS | AGPL-3.0, no paid tier | AGPL-3.0 open-core; some features paid | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary |
| Self-host vs. cloud | One Postgres + one service; docker compose up | Docker self-host (5+ services) or Lago Cloud | Cloud-first; self-host from source, thin docs | Cloud only |
| What the vendor charges you | Nothing. No vendor bill, no per-event fees | Open source is free; Lago Premium is contact sales, no published price | Free to 8K monthly billing volume; Pro $375/mo, $5 per 1M API requests above 20M; Stripe fees on top | See Stripe's pricing page |
| Cost & margin per event | Yes. Cost (tokens, model) next to revenue on every event | Revenue analytics only; no per-event cost † | No. Meters usage, not cost † | No. Payments, not your COGS |
| Internal AI spend (Anthropic, OpenAI, Cursor, Copilot, LiteLLM admin APIs) and Feature P&L | Yes | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented |
| Real-time entitlement checks | Yes. Allow/deny at ingestion | API only; you enforce in your app † | Yes. Inline check API | No |
| Usage metering | Yes. Idempotent events | Yes. High volume (Kafka + ClickHouse) | Yes. track API | Yes. Meters |
| Subscription billing | Yes. Usage + subscription, proration | Yes. Hybrid, proration | Yes, on top of Stripe | Yes. Core product |
| Credit / wallet | Yes. Pools with hard limits | Yes. Wallets, top-ups, rollover | Yes. Credits, grants, expiration | Limited |
| Invoicing | Yes | Yes. Taxes, credit notes, dunning | Via Stripe | Yes. Mature invoicing + tax |
| Stripe integration | Optional payment adapter | Payment-agnostic | Stripe-native by design | N/A, it is Stripe |
| MCP / AI-agent support | Yes, consent gate on spend | Yes (Lago AI) | Yes, approval-gated writes | Agent toolkit |
| Stack / language | Spring Boot; single Postgres | Rails; Kafka + ClickHouse at volume | TypeScript on Bun; Postgres + Redis | Managed service |
| Maturity / adoption | Earliest-stage of the four | More mature billing suite | Younger, AI-focused Stripe layer | Industry incumbent |

† Inferred from each project's source and docs at the time this page was last
edited, not vendor statements. Verify against Lago and Autumn directly.

Facts checked September 2, 2026 against each vendor's public docs and pricing
pages. "Not documented" means we could not find it published, not that it
does not exist. Corrections: kat@tansohq.com

## Who each is built for

**Lago:** real billing complexity: multiple payment providers, taxes,
dunning, serious volume. Strengths: more mature billing suite, deepest
billing features, payment-agnostic, proven at volume.
Weaknesses: heaviest self-host (5+ services), open-core, no view of your
inference costs.

**Autumn:** TypeScript startups on Stripe that want pricing live in an
afternoon. Strengths: lowest integration effort, handles upgrade/cancel/
failed-payment flows, Apache-2.0, first-party MCP server. Weaknesses:
requires Stripe, cloud-first with thin self-host, meters what you sell but
not what it costs you.

**Tanso:** B2B AI products selling credits or usage, where margin per
customer is a real question. Strengths: one ledger (cost next to revenue),
enforcement at ingestion, lightest self-host (one Postgres, one service),
fully AGPL, MCP server with consent gate on spend. Weaknesses:
earliest-stage, Stripe-only payments (no tax or dunning), self-host only.

Already on Stripe? None of these replace it for payments. Autumn builds on
it, Lago treats it as one gateway, Tanso syncs to it.

## Links

- [Tanso source](https://github.com/tansohq/tanso-oss) · [docs](https://tanso.mintlify.app)
- [Lago](https://github.com/getlago/lago) · [Autumn](https://github.com/useautumn/autumn)
- [Tanso vs. Orb, Stigg, Schematic, and Metronome (hosted platforms)](https://tansohq.com/md/compare-billing-platforms.md)
- [HTML version of this page](https://tansohq.com/compare)

More for agents: https://tansohq.com/llms.txt