Arrears vs Advance

Usage-based charges can be either charged in advance or in arrears

You have the flexibility to define the nature of charges associated with your products or services. Specifically, you can determine whether a charge has to be paid in arrears (at the end of the period), or in advance (immediately on event ingestion).

Charges paid in arrears

Charges settled in arrears are invoiced at the end of the billing period, based on the actual usage during that period. This suits usage types like storage, API calls, or compute, where it is more practical to wait until the end of the period before billing. By default, all charges are billed in arrears.

Dashboard

Set a charge as invoiced in arrears from the user interface, where you can customize the invoice cadence.

Define a charge paid in arrears

API

Set pay_in_advance to false on a charge to bill it in arrears:

Define a charge as paid in arrears

    LAGO_URL="https://api.getlago.com"
    API_KEY="__YOUR_API_KEY__"

    curl --location --request POST "$LAGO_URL/api/v1/plans" \
    --header "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
    --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    --data-raw '{
      "plan": {
        "name": "Premium",
        "code": "premium",
        "interval": "monthly",
        "description": "Premium plan for SMB companies",
        "amount_cents": 50000,
        "amount_currency": "USD",
        "trial_period": 0.0,
        "pay_in_advance": true,
        "bill_charges_monthly": true,
        "charges": [
          {
            "billable_metric_id": "1111_2222_3333_4444",
            "charge_model": "percentage",
            "pay_in_advance": false,
            "invoiceable": true,
            "min_amount_cents": 100,
            "properties": {
              "rate": "0.5",
              "fixed_amount": "1",
              "free_units_per_events": 3,
              "free_units_per_total_aggregation": null
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    }'

Charges paid in advance

Charges paid in advance are invoiced immediately when usage changes. Use this when you need to bill a customer instantly for a usage-based action, such as adding a user seat or an integration.

Dashboard

Set a charge as invoiced in advance from the user interface, where you can customize the invoice cadence.

Define a charge paid in advance

API

Set pay_in_advance to true on a charge to bill it in advance:

Define a charge as paid in advance

LAGO_URL="https://api.getlago.com"
API_KEY="__YOUR_API_KEY__"

curl --location --request POST "$LAGO_URL/api/v1/plans" \
--header "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
  "plan": {
    "name": "Premium",
    "code": "premium",
    "interval": "monthly",
    "description": "Premium plan for SMB companies",
    "amount_cents": 50000,
    "amount_currency": "USD",
    "trial_period": 0.0,
    "pay_in_advance": true,
    "bill_charges_monthly": true,
    "charges": [
      {
        "billable_metric_id": "1111_2222_3333_4444",
        "charge_model": "percentage",
        "pay_in_advance": true,
        "invoiceable": true,
        "min_amount_cents": 100,
        "properties": {
          "rate": "0.5",
          "fixed_amount": "1",
          "free_units_per_events": 3,
          "free_units_per_total_aggregation": null
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}'