LALago Financial Model
Dev Tools Startup Financials (Free Excel Download)
Open-source billing and metering infrastructure ("The Open Revenue Hub") for software companies, with a cloud-hosted premium tier.
professionals from Deloitte
Used by professionals from
About this model
Lago is open-source billing and metering infrastructure for software companies with complex pricing. It ingests event streams, calculates usage, supports subscription and consumption models, and provides both business-facing UI and developer APIs through self-hosted and cloud deployment options.
The company monetizes Cloud Premium subscriptions and paid Self-hosted Premium licenses, while OSS remains free. It grew through developer communities rather than a sales team, with more than 4,800 GitHub stars and a substantial Slack community supporting its product-led funnel.
The model is an open-core SaaS ARR build. OSS adoption, cloud or premium conversion, contract minimums, account expansion, and churn create recurring revenue across hosted and self-managed products. Developer acquisition, cloud costs, enterprise security requirements, support, and net retention are the principal drivers.
A turnkey financial model
Live formulas, no hardcoded values
Outputs are driven by live formulas, so the workbook updates from its assumptions instead of relying on hardcoded results.
All assumptions in one tab
Inputs are clearly marked in the Assumptions tab and separated from calculations, making it clear what to change and what to leave intact.
Statements always balancing
For integrated-statement models, the balance sheet, cash flow, and supporting schedules tie through properly.
Distinct schedules for clarity
Debt, working capital, taxes, and cash flow can get messy quickly. We group calculations in clear schedules, not across disconnected tabs.
No hidden macros or external links
There are no unexplained external workbook links or macros to undermine auditability or portability.
Changes flow through the model
Update a key driver and see the impact carry through the forecast, financing, and return outputs. We never use hardcoded numbers in formulas.
About Lago
https:
How to build a detailed financial model for Lago
A complete walkthrough of the business, drivers, and assumptions behind the downloadable Lago model - distilled from its pitch deck and publicly available information.
Product & value proposition
- Core product (Series A positioning): Lago is an open-source billing engine that ingests raw event streams at scale (100K events/sec), converts them into billable data, and supports complex pricing models - metered, subscription, graduated, percentage, prepaid credits, prorated.
- Surfaces: (a) intuitive UI for finance/business users; (b) backend API for engineers.
- Delivery modes: self-hosted OSS (free), self-hosted premium (paid), cloud-hosted premium (paid). No free cloud tier.
- Key integrations: Salesforce 2-way sync, Stripe, Braintree, Clickhouse (real-time), plus invoicing and payment collection.
- Earlier positioning (seed deck): Fintech "product growth" platform - customer data modeling, audience segmentation, and campaign orchestration sync to CRMs/ad tools (Salesforce, HubSpot, Intercom, Mailchimp, Amplitude). The team pivoted away from this after YC S21.
Revenue model
- Open-core model: OSS is free (self-hosted). Revenue comes from:
- Lago Cloud Premium - hosted SaaS subscription with premium features.
- Lago Self-hosted Premium - paid license for premium features on self-managed infrastructure.
- ACV stated as "$XX K / year of minimum spend (only software, no service)" - the exact figure is redacted in the deck.
- 100% inbound lead generation through developer communities (Hacker News, Product Hunt, GitHub, Slack) - no sales or marketing team at time of Series A deck.
- Product still in Beta at time of Series A deck.
Traction & metrics
Community / developer traction:
- 4,800+ GitHub stars (chart shows ~4.0k at cut-off, July 2022 launch to ~Oct 2023)
- 1,000 Slack community members (largest billing community)
- 1,200+ Product Managers (Product Hunt #1 Product of the Month)
Revenue:
- Recurring revenue chart shows hockey-stick growth from November 2022 to October 2023. No y-axis values are labeled - absolute revenue figures are not disclosed.
- EU: 31% of recurring revenue; US: 27% of recurring revenue
Customers:
- Named customer wins: Mistral AI (displaced Stripe Billing), Swan.io (displaced Chargebee)
- Use case: displacing both home-grown systems and incumbent billing platforms
Hacker News (content/SEO flywheel):
- "Billing systems are a nightmare for engineers" - 777 points, 359 comments
- "Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?" - 336 points, 186 comments
- "Stripe's real pricing: a primer" - 417 points, 216 comments
- "Open Source does not win by being cheaper" - 425 points, 274 comments
Previous company benchmark:
- Qonto (co-founders' prior employer): $100M+ ARR, 150K+ B2B customers, $5B valuation at Series D
Funding / runway:
- "N years of runway at current burn" - placeholder, not a real figure
- Untouched capital from latest raise
Unit economics
- CAC: effectively $0 at time of Series A - 100% inbound, no sales/marketing spend
- ACV minimum: redacted ("$XX K / year")
Competition / moat
Competitive displacement:
- Displacing Stripe Billing (Mistral AI win), Chargebee (Swan.io win), and home-grown systems
Moat / differentiation:
- Open source builds trust - engineers can inspect/test before buying, shortens sales cycle
- Extensibility - easier to build on top of; competes directly with home-grown solutions
- Connectivity ("land and expand") - works alongside existing back-office/finance stacks
- Only open-source billing solution at this scale; claims "leading" position
- Deep fintech billing domain expertise (built Qonto's system from scratch)
Team & funding ask / use of funds
Team:
- 10 FTEs total; engineering/product-heavy (all except CEO Anh-Tho)
- 8 early Qonto employees; team stayed together through hard pivot to billing in 2022
- Fully founder-led GTM to date
Founders:
- Anh-Tho Chuong (Co-founder, CEO) - 1st employee / ex-VP Growth at Qonto
- Raffi Sarkissian (Co-founder) - ex-Head of Growth & Data Ops at Qonto
Existing investors:
- US: SignalFire, Lee Fixel's Addition, Y Combinator
- EU: New Wave
- Angels: Hugging Face CEO (Clément Delangue), MongoDB 1st GTM hire, OpenAI Head of DevRel, Elena Verna (ex-Reforge), various fintech operators
Funding ask / use of funds:
- GTM plan post-raise: hire Sales (SDR/BDR, AEs, Solution Engineers, BizOps) and Marketing (content, SEO, product marketing, community) in Europe and NYC
Recommended financial model
- Archetype + why: Open-core SaaS ARR model. Revenue splits into two streams - (1) Lago Cloud Premium (SaaS subscription, hosting included) and (2) Self-hosted Premium licenses. Both are ACV/ARR-based with annual contracts at a minimum spend threshold. This is a classic PLG open-core motion: free OSS drives top-of-funnel, paid conversion is the key efficiency metric. No marketplace GMV, no transaction revenue, no insurance mechanics.
- Forecast horizon & granularity: 3 years (Year 1–3), monthly granularity for Year 1, quarterly for Years 2–3. Monetization started Nov 2022; the Series A deck cuts off ~Oct 2023 - so Year 1 of the model should begin at the first meaningful ARR month.
- Key drivers & assumptions:
| Driver | Value |
|---|---|
| Starting ARR (Month 1) | $0 (curve starts flat Nov 2022) |
| ACV / minimum spend per customer | $XX K/year - redacted |
| ACV proxy for modelling | $30K/year |
| OSS-to-paid conversion rate (Month 1) | 2% of active OSS users/leads |
| New paid logos per month (seed) | 2–4/month |
| New paid logos per month (post-hire) | 8–15/month |
| Revenue split: Cloud vs Self-hosted Premium | 60% / 40% |
| Geographic split | EU 31%, US 27%, RoW 42% |
| Gross margin | 70–80% |
| Annual churn (logo) | 10% |
| Net Revenue Retention | 115% |
| Headcount at Series A | 10 FTEs |
| Planned GTM hires (Year 1 post-raise) | ~6–10 (SDR, AE, SE, Marketing) |
| Avg fully-loaded cost per hire | $120K/year |
| Burn rate (pre-raise) | Low - untouched capital |
| Runway | "N years" - not quantified |
- Scenarios (Base / Bull / Bear - which variables flex):
- Base: Inbound conversion at 2%, ACV $30K, logo churn 10%, NRR 115%, GTM hires ramp over 6 months post-raise.
- Bull: ACV $50K (larger enterprise deals similar to Swan/Mistral profile), NRR 130% (strong usage expansion), conversion 3%, hires fully ramped in Q1.
- Bear: ACV $20K (more SMB/mid-market), churn 15%, OSS community growth stalls post-2023 peak, GTM hires delayed 9 months.
- Primary flex variables: ACV, logo churn / NRR, inbound-to-paid conversion, GTM ramp speed.
- Required sheets / outputs:
- Assumptions - all drivers in one pane; scenario toggle (Base/Bull/Bear)
- ARR Build - monthly new ARR, expansion ARR, churned ARR, ending ARR; split Cloud vs Self-hosted Premium
- Customer Cohort - logo count by cohort, NRR waterfall
- P&L - Revenue, COGS (hosting/infra), Gross Profit, OpEx (R&D, S&M, G&A), EBITDA, Net loss
- Headcount Plan - by function (Eng, Product, Sales, Marketing, G&A); links to OpEx
- Cash & Runway - monthly burn, cash balance, implied raise timing
- KPI Dashboard - ARR, MoM growth %, logo count, ACV, NRR, CAC payback (once S&M spend begins), LTV/CAC
Frequently asked
Is the Lago financial model free?+
Yes. The Lago model is a free Excel (.xlsx) download with live formulas. Sign up with your email and the workbook is yours to keep, review, and edit.
What's included in the model?+
A 5-year monthly forecast with P&L, cash flow and runway, valuation (exit multiple plus a DCF cross-check), MOIC/IRR returns, and unit economics, with live formulas throughout.
How was this model built?+
It was built from Lago's pitch deck and publicly available information, then structured to investment-banking standards as a fully editable Excel model.
Can I change the assumptions?+
Yes. You can change assumptions and the live formulas will recalculate in the downloadable Excel model.
Have more financial modelling questions? Contact us
Created by ex-finance professionals
Hey, I’m Alex and I created Finamodel.
Over my years in the finance industry I kept building the same models over and over again. Same structure, same assumptions, different logo. So I started building frameworks to turn them into clean, reusable templates.
Every model here is one I’d actually use for a client, and I personally vet each one before it goes up.
I’m not an expert in every industry, but I’ve built enough models to know what belongs in one. And when something is completely foreign to me, I reach out to my network for experts to work on our models with us.
Having a template library on hand cuts a first build from hours to minutes.
Need help finding your model? You’ll find me in the Finamodel app!
Other Dev Tools Startup Financial Models
Browse another startup in the same category.
8base
Low-code/no-code platform providing backend and frontend development tools for building digital products, internal apps, and SaaS.
Ably
Enterprise realtime messaging infrastructure (pub/sub) delivered as a cloud-native platform, enabling developers to build scalable live experiences without managing complex realtime infrastructure.
Amplitude
Mobile analytics SaaS platform giving app developers real-time behavioral analytics, funnel/retention analysis, and raw data warehouse access at scale.
Anima
Automated design-to-code platform - designers export production-ready code from their design tools with one click.
Apollo
Apollo builds and sells an enterprise "data graph" platform (powered by GraphQL) that sits as a unified API layer between frontend apps and backend microservices.
BrowserStack
Cloud-based cross-browser and mobile app testing platform used by 50,000+ customers across 135 countries.
CodeSandbox
Cloud-native collaborative web IDE that lets entire product teams (not just developers) code, review, and iterate together in the browser.
CommandBar
SaaS SDK that embeds a search-based command bar into web apps, improving UX, onboarding, and retention for B2B software companies.
