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Launch HN: Lago (YC S21) – Open-source usage-based billing

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Lago (YC S21) – Open-source usage-based billing

#32

Post by Rafsark »

asselinpaul wrote: post #26

Congrats on the launch! Any plans to tackle Stripe Connect like functionality (platform / marketplace payments)?

We have a growing number of requests for this use-case, but we try to focus on billing right now. However, I can promote Formance (https://www.formance.com/) here that can help on this vertical. They are YC folks, and tackle the use-case of collecting fees and splitting payments. And it's also open source! Hope this helps

Re: Launch HN: Lago (YC S21) – Open-source usage-based billing

#36

Post by Rafsark »

nylonstrung wrote: post #31

How do you guys differ from Lotus, the other YC open-source usage based billing company?

Hi,

First of all, we launched our open source billing repository months before they did. In fact, they even reached out to us for inspiration. This could be related to the fact that our team has prior experience building billing engines, so we have a better understanding of the space.

From a product perspective, our coverage is more extensive. We provide more advanced coupons, usage-based components and billing use-cases. For example, we offer credit notes and refunds, small examples that are not listed in their API. Our product covers more billing edge-cases and deeper features.

Finally, we have customers in production. Our top user is invoicing 5M customers a month, which might not be the case for them.

To conclude, I would assert that we are more advanced.

Re: Launch HN: Lago (YC S21) – Open-source usage-based billing

#37

Post by Rafsark »

simplify wrote: post #28

How is usage based billing taken from the user's point of view? Isn't there a sense it disincentivizes a paying customer from using your product?

In our opinion, the future of billing is hybrid. This means customers pay a platform fee (a subscription) but don't face blocks for exceeding their plan's limits. Offering multiple plans with appropriate entitlements related to the feature set is still possible. However, blocking usage instead of billing for overage represents a lost revenue opportunity. Most customers won't upgrade, so we recommend allowing them to pay for overconsumption on top of the base fee.

Re: Launch HN: Lago (YC S21) – Open-source usage-based billing

#38

Post by Rafsark »

i_robi wrote: post #33

Congrats on the launch! Do you think it is appropriate for any kind of SaaS company (e.g. Figma, Airtable…), or just for companies like Snowflake?

Thanks! We cover all types of SaaS companies' billing. We often say that if you can track it, we can bill it! We cover subscriptions, hybrid, pay-as-you-go, and per-seat pricing models. We believe that the future of billing is hybrid - a mix of all the above. We've seen many missed revenue opportunities from companies that weren't able to price overage on top of a per-seat or pure subscription pricing (often because it was too hard to build, either internally or with existing vendors)

Re: Launch HN: Lago (YC S21) – Open-source usage-based billing

#40

Post by wongarsu »

simplify wrote: post #28

How is usage based billing taken from the user's point of view? Isn't there a sense it disincentivizes a paying customer from using your product?

Usage based billing disincentivizes customers from using your product. Seat based billing disincentivizes customers from giving people access to your product. Feature based prizing makes it harder to try features locked in more expensive plans, and disincentivizes smaller use cases.

Which of those is the smallest negative depends on your product.

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