After an invoice has been generated, you can add metadata to store additional information (e.g. custom ID, payment reference, etc.). This information will be included in the invoice object but will not be displayed on the PDF invoice.

Invoice metadata can be managed via the user interface or the API.

Learn more

When creating or editing a customer, you can add metadata to store additional information (e.g. customer type, name of the account manager, etc.).

Customer metadata can be displayed on invoices, and can be managed via the user interface or the API.

Learn more

The new webhook management system allows you to access the list of webhook messages sent by Lago and check their status. You can re-trigger a message that has failed through the user interface.

To access the webhook logs:

1. Go to the Developers section via the sidebar;
2. Open the Webhooks tab; and
3. Click on the webhook endpoint to see the list of messages.

Learn more

PDF files including invoices and credit notes can be generated in different languages.

The default language that is set at the organization level can be overwritten by the customer's preferred language.

In the API, the document_locale attribute determines the language of the documents.

You can contribute to Lago's open-source project by helping us translate documents. The new language will then be added to the list of supported locales and available to the entire Lago Community.

You can now update the payment status of an invoice through the user interface.

To do so:

1. Access the "Invoices" section;
2. Find the relevant invoice;
3. Click the ellipsis icon on the right;
4. Click "Update payment status";
5. Select the new payment status; and
6. Click "Update status" to confirm.

This action can be performed via the API as well.

We have added a new option to the coupon settings: it is now possible to limit the application scope of a coupon to specific plans.

By default, coupons apply to all plans but when creating a new coupon, you can define the list of plans to which the coupon applies.

This feature is related to the plan_codes attribute of the coupon object (see API documentation).

Please refer to the guide for more information on coupons.

Tired of scrolling through an endless list to find the customer your are looking for? We understand that.

We have added a search functionality to the user interface to make it easier to find metrics, plans, customers, invoices, etc.

When creating a coupon, through the user interface or the API, it is now possible to select the forever frequency.

Coupons with the forever frequency apply to all subscription invoices, regardless of the number of subscription invoices generated in a given period.

We have added the ability to resend payments for collection.

This new feature is available to all users:

• Through the user interface (learn more); and
• Through the API (learn more).

If at the end of the billing period, you want to review the invoices before sending them to customers for payment, you can define a grace period.

During the grace period, invoices are in draft status and can be modified. Available actions include:

• Adding usage records by sending events with a timestamp within the relevant billing period;
• Applying coupons to the customer's account; and
• Adding credits to the customer's wallet and credit note wallet.

When the grace period expires, invoices are automatically finalized (they can no longer be edited), which triggers the invoice.created webhook. You can also finalize invoices manually.

The organization's grace period applies to all customers by default, but it can be overwritten by the customer's grace period.

We have added a new "Invoices" section, which allows you to access the list of invoices.

Invoices are filtered according to their status (i.e. draft or finalized) and according to their payment status (i.e. succeeded, pending or failed).

The same filters can be applied when retrieving invoices via the API.

You can now use your Lago account to issue credit notes for subscription invoices and add-ons.

Depending on the payment status of the invoice, you will be able to:

• Refund the customer (only for paid invoices); and/or
• Credit back the customer's account.

Please refer to the documentation for more information on credit notes and credit methods.

You can now set the timezone of your organization in the settings of the app. To do so:

1. Access the "Settings" section via the side menu;
2. In the "Organization" tab, you will see the current timezone (UTC by default);
3. Click "Edit";
4. Select a new timezone from the list; and
5. Click "Save timezone" to confirm.

It can also be set through the API using this endpoint.

The organization's timezone applies to all customers by default and determines when billing periods start and end (i.e. when invoices should be generated). It is also the reference timezone for most views and lists in the app.

The organization's timezone can be overwritten by the customer's timezone (learn more).

We have developed an Open API to help you get started with Lago and make it easier to test our solution.

Please refer to the documentation to learn how to import the Lago Open API into Postman and create a new collection.

Our public repository is also available on GitHub.

As we are making progress on the grace period feature, which will allow you to review invoices before they are sent to customers, we have introduced changes to the API to add new invoice management options.

The invoice object included a status attribute with three possible values: pending, failed and succeeded. This attribute has been renamed payment_status for accuracy purposes (possible values remains unchanged).

In addition to this, a new status attribute has been created, including two possible values:

• draft: when an invoice has been generated but can still be modified; and
• finalized: when the invoice is validated and can no longer be modified.

All existing invoices are considered as finalized, you will not be able to use the draft status until the grace period feature is deployed (later this month).

Please contact us at hello@getlago.com if you have any questions, we will be happy to help.

In preparation for the release of the credit note feature and based on feedback from accountants, we have introduced changes to the way coupons and prepaid credits are taken into account in the calculation of invoices.

Until now, coupons and prepaid credits were deducted from the amount before tax - for example:

CURRENT INVOICE CALCULATION
-----------------------------
All subscriptions = $50
All usage-based fees = $20
Coupons = $10
Prepaid credits = $30
-----------------------------
Subtotal = $30
Tax (10%) = $3
Total due = $33

From now on, coupons and prepaid credits will be deducted from the amount after tax.

Following the previous example:

NEW INVOICE CALCULATION
-----------------------------
All subscriptions = $50
All usage-based fees = $20
-----------------------------
Subtotal (excl. tax) = $70
Tax (10%) = $7
-----------------------------
Subtotal (incl. tax) = $77
Coupons = $10
Prepaid credits = $30
Total due = $37

In addition to this, credit purchases are now considered as advance payments. Therefore, the tax rate no longer applies to the purchase of credits.

You can now apply several coupons to a customer account.

When several coupons are applied to a customer, they will be deducted according to the date on which they were applied: the coupon that was applied first will be deducted first.

The remaining value / number of remaining periods for each coupon will be visible in the "Overview" tab of the customer view.

You can also use GET /api/v1/applied_coupons to retrieve all coupons applied to a customer.

Lago now offers native integration with GoCardless, including (but not limited to):

• Ability to define GoCardless as the default payment provider for a customer;
• Ability to automatically create Lago customers in GoCardless and retrieve their customer ID;
• Ability to automatically collect payments via direct debit;
• Ability to automatically update the status of an invoice depending on the payment status; and
• Ability to automatically resubmit failed payments with GoCardless Success+.

To learn more about this integration, please consult our guide.

When creating a new billable metric, you can define dimensions that will be used to group events according to their properties.

For example, if you want to charge your customers for compute capacity according to the cloud provider and server region, you can create a compute billable metric with two dimensions (learn more).

Changes to the API include:

• Ability to add a group parameter with one or two dimensions when creating or updating billable metrics;
• Ability to retrieve the groups associated with a billable metric;
• Ability to add a group_properties parameter when creating or updating a plan;
• Ability to retrieve customer usage by group; and
• New lago_group_id for fees (see invoice object).

To review the invoice details through the user interface:

1. Go to the "Customers" section;
2. Select a customer to open the customer view;
3. Open the "Invoices" tab; and
4. Click the invoice to see its details.

On the details page, you can download the invoice in PDF format and copy the invoice ID through the "Actions" dropdown in the upper right corner.

It is now possible to set a start date in the past or in the future for a new subscription.

Setting a start date in the past can be useful when migrating existing customers to Lago, while setting a start date in the future can be useful for scheduling upcoming subscriptions.

For more information about the impact of the start date on the invoicing process, please refer to the documentation.

We have improved the coupon model to offer more flexibility.

Changes include (but are not limited to):

1. Ability to define the value of a coupon as a fixed amount or percentage;
2. Ability to create recurring coupons that apply over several billing periods; and
3. Ability to set an expiration date (i.e. date after which the coupon can no longer be redeemed).

Learn more

It is now possible to define the currency at customer level.

The currency associated with each customer was previously defined by the currency of the plan assigned to the customer. This logic prevented users from assigning a coupon or an add-on to a customer before creating a subscription.

When creating a new customer via the user interface or the API, you can now select the currency associated with the customer. If the currency is not defined at customer level, it will be determined by the first object assigned to the customer (i.e. currency of the plan, add-on, coupon, or wallet).

We have refactored the error management system to give more visibility to API users.

The message attribute for errors has been replaced with code and error_details, which provide more information about the errors. There are several codes associated with each error.

For example, when creating a new billable metric, the API may return "error": "Unprocessable entity" with the code value_is_mandatory for the name field (i.e. the name of the billable metric is missing).

Please refer to the documentation available for each endpoint for more information on error codes.

If after a negotiation phase, you need to create a custom plan for an important customer, you can use the 'overwrite' feature, available through the user interface.

This feature allows you to create a new plan from an existing one, in order to adjust the plan model and charges according to your business needs.

Overwriting a plan has no impact on the original plan or existing subscriptions.

Learn more

You can now invite your teammates to join your Lago account.

To add a new member via the user interface:

1. Go to the "Settings" section of the app;
2. Open the "Members" tab;
3. Click "Invite a member" on the right;
4. Enter the email address of your teammate;
5. Click "Generate invitation link" to confirm; and
6. Copy the invitation link to share it with your teammate.

Invitation links have no expiration date. When your teammate clicks the link, they can choose their password and then access the account.

You can remove a member by clicking the bin icon on the right of the list of members.

Companies with fair and transparent pricing models are often praised by customers. If you are considering implementing seat-based pricing for instance, the reccuring_count aggregation is exactly what you need.

This new aggregation type allows you to push events for persistent units.

Consider the following example:

Your customer is on a monthly plan and adds a new user to their account on September 15th, so you generate an event that corresponds to one billing unit.

At the end of September, Lago will automatically create a prorated charge for this user, based on the number of days of activity (i.e. from September 15th to September 30th).

This billing unit will remain valid until you generate another event to remove it. For instance, if your customer deletes the user on October 22nd, Lago will create another prorated charge for the period October 1st to October 22nd.

Consult our guide to learn more about persistent units.

We are introducing changes to the API that will make it easier to manage subscriptions:

• For the creation of new subscriptions, subscription_id and unique_id will be removed and replaced with external_id (required); and
• For all other endpoints, subscription_id will be replaced with external_subscription_id.

This will allow you to operate via the API using your own identifiers and save you the trouble for storing our IDs.

In addition to this, for consistency purposes:

• For the creation of new customers, customer_id will be replaced with external_id; and
• For all other endpoints, customer_id will be replaced with external_customer_id.

These changes will come into effect on September 8, 2022.

Please get in touch with our team if you have any questions.

Unlock recurring revenue opportunities for pay-as-you-go pricing models with Lago's prepaid credit features:

1. Set the value of the credits and create wallets for your customers;
2. Collect payments upfront using the invoices automatically generated by Lago; and
3. Check the balance of your customers' wallets and trigger top-ups at any time via the API or the user interface.

Please refer to the guide and API documentation for more information.

The new volume charge model allows you to create a tiered pricing structure and then calculate a unit price that applies to all units depending on total volume.

It is similar to the graduated charge model, except that only one price tier applies at the end of the billing period.

Please refer to the guide and API documentation for more information.

When assigning a plan to a customer, you can now choose whether the subscription should be renewed at the beginning of the period or on its anniversary date.

For instance, if a monthly plan is assigned to a customer on August 10th and you choose to align the billing cycle with the anniversary date of the subscription, the customer will be billed every 10th of the month.

With the API, you can use the billing_time attribute to choose your preferred option. If not provided, Lago will base the subscription on calendar periods.

Learn more

We have released an enhanced version of the percentage charge model, including:

• Ability to define free units based on the number of events (e.g. first 3 events are free); and
• Ability to define free units based on the total amount (e.g. first $500 are free).

Please refer to the documentation for more information.

It is now possible to assign multiple plans to a customer (e.g. if your customer needs to create several workspaces on your platform, you can link a plan to each workspace).

To help differentiate each plan, you can add display names that will appear in the user interface and on invoices.

Kindly note that:

1. All plans must be denominated in the same currency; and
2. You must now specify the subscription_id for each event or create batch events.

Click here to see the documentation

To help us better understand your needs, we have added a tracking module to the self-hosted version of Lago.

Data analytics will help us improve the quality of our product and performance of the API.

As the privacy of our users is of paramount importance, we will not collect any personal information about your customers or the amount of your invoices, and you can opt out at any time.

Learn more

We have added a new API client to make it easier for Go users to set up their billing system with Lago.

Click here to see the documentation

We like our users when they use our nice and clean UI, but we also love when they use our API. One of the usecase could be to use Lago as a white-labeled solution.

Here is the full list of endpoints we have just released:

Billable metrics

• Create a billable metric POST /api/v1/billable_metrics
• Update a billable metric PUT /api/v1/billable_metrics/:code
• Destroy a billable metric DELETE /api/v1/billable_metrics/:code
• Fetch a specific billable metric GET /api/v1/billable_metrics/:code
• Fetch all billable metrics GET /api/v1/billable_metrics?per_page=2&page=1

Plans

• Create a plan POST /api/v1/plans
• Update a plan PUT /api/v1/plans/:code
• Destroy a plan DELETE /api/v1/plans/:code
• Fetch a specific plan GET /api/v1/plans/:code
• Fetch all plans GET /api/v1/plans?per_page=2&page=1

Coupons

• Create a coupon POST /api/v1/coupons
• Update a coupon PUT /api/v1/coupons/:code
• Destroy a coupon DELETE /api/v1/coupons/:code
• Fetch a specific coupon GET /api/v1/coupons/:code
• Fetch all coupons GET /api/v1/coupons?per_page=2&page=1

Add-ons

• Create a add_on POST /api/v1/add_ons
• Update a add_on PUT /api/v1/add_ons/:code
• Destroy a add_on DELETE /api/v1/add_ons/:code
• Fetch a specific add_on GET /api/v1/add_ons/:code
• Fetch all add_ons GET /api/v1/add_ons?per_page=2&page=1

Current usage

• Get the current usage of a specific customer GET /api/v1/customers/:customer_id/current_usage

Organization

• Update the information of your organization PUT /api/v1/organizations

It is now possible to check the version of the Lago application you are using.

Click the name of your organization in the top-left corner of the user interface to see the app version currently in use.

Good news for those who follow closely the consumption of their customers. You can now track the current billing usage of your customers either from the UI or from the API.

To access this Usage tab:

1. Access your list of customers;
2. Select a specific customer that is already linked to a subscription;
3. Access the usage tab; and
4. Get a complete view of usage-based consumption that is going to be billed on the next invoice.

On top of that, you can fetch the current usage of a customer directly from the API. To do so, you can access the following endpoint GET /api/v1/customers/:customer_id/current_usage

Lago will generate a PDF file for each new invoice.

You can download invoices via the user interface or the API and can also modify some of the elements included in the invoice template.

Full documentation available here.

Lago now offers native integration with Stripe, including (but not limited to):

• Ability to create Lago customers in Stripe automatically and retrieve their customer ID;
• Ability to define Stripe as the default payment provider for a customer;
• Ability to generate payment intents automatically;
• Ability to update the status of an invoice depending on the payment status; and
• Ability to receive a webhook when a payment fails.

To learn more about this integration, please consult our guide.

When setting up a plan, you can select the weekly interval to define a weekly billing period.

The plan interval applies to the subscription and charges, which means that:

• For plans that must be paid in advance, the subscription fee is invoiced at the beginning of the week;
• For plans that are paid in arrears, the subscription fee is invoiced at the end of the week; and
• Usage is calculated at the end of each week.

The week starts on Monday and ends on Sunday. If the customer's subscription starts in the middle of the week, the fees will be applied on a pro-rata basis.

Before the release of this feature, usaged-based features (charges) were following the plan period. If the plan period was invoiced yearly, the charges were invoiced yearly.

It's now possible to invoice billable metrics on a montly basis for a plan billed yearly. The base amount of the plan will be invoice yearly (in-arrears or in-advance), but your usage based features will be invoiced on a monthly basis.

To do so:

1. Access a Plan;
2. Define a plan yearly;
3. Price additional charges from your billable metrics; and
4. Turn on the toggle for applying charges monthly.

By switching on, all the charges will be invoiced monthly even if the plan is yearly.

Inside the plan, when creating a charge, you can now select the percentage charge model.

This feature is useful for industries willing to take a % + fixed fee out of a usage-based features (for banking or charity industry, for instance). These fees are applied on the units to be charged (e.g. the aggregation result of your billable metric).

You are now able to view all the ingested events sent from your application to Lago. We called this feature debugger because it makes the event ingestion easier and more understandable.

1. Access the Developer sidebar item;
2. Click the Debugger tab; and
3. Take a look at the latest events ingested

This debugger is also helpul to warn you for 2 specific cases:

1. Warning 1 - The event code is not related to an existing billable metric
2. Warning 2 - The property sent does not match the aggregation property defined in your billable metric

Add-ons are now available on Lago. Create add-ons to apply one-time fees (e.g. setup fee, one-time purchase, etc.) and generate the corresponding invoices instantly.

Full documentation available here.

We've added a new template to our collection: click here to learn how to replicate Algolia's pay-as-you-go pricing.

It's a great starting point for companies whose pricing fully depends on usage, such as cloud service providers and API companies.

With Lago, you can adapt this template to your products and services, using some of our most popular features, including the 'sum' aggregation type and the package charge model.

Introducing coupons, a new feature that allows you to offer discounts to your customers.

Full documentation available here.

You can now modify the subscription assigned to a customer through the user interface.

To learn how to upgrade or downgrade a subscription and how it affects billing, please refer to the documentation.

It is now possible to apply a package pricing model to a charge. To do so:

1. Select an existing plan (or create a new one);
2. Add a charge; and
3. Select the package pricing model.

This new pricing model allows you to apply a flat fee to a range of units. The price will be fixed for the entire range, regardless of the number of units consumed by the customer during the billing period.