Is Circula or Lago better?

Neither clearly leads. Circula starts at €15/month and Lago at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Circula or Lago?

Lago has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at €15/month for Circula and Free for Lago.

Does Circula or Lago run on more platforms?

Circula runs on Web, iOS, Android. Lago runs on Web, Cloud, Self-hosted, On-premise, VPC.

Can I use Lago for free?

Yes. Lago has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Circula starts at €15/month.

What is Circula best used for?

Circula is most often used for a german company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposure, a finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one datev export, an employer offering the tax free monthly benefit allowance and needing auditable records of it, a mid sized business replacing spreadsheet mileage claims with rule enforced distance calculations. Of those, a german company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposure and a finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one datev export are not what Lago is typically brought in for.

What can Circula do that Lago cannot?

Circula covers German per diem engine, Receipt capture and OCR, Corporate credit cards, Employee benefits. Lago covers Real-time usage metering, Multiple pricing models, Automated invoicing, Prepaid credits.

Accounting · head to head

Circula vs Lago

Circula

Accounting

Expense, travel and employee benefit management for German speaking finance teams

From: €15/month
Rated: -

Full review Website

Lago

Accounting

Open-source billing infrastructure for usage-based models

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Only Lago has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
Each has a real cost: Circula the module pricing stacks: expenses at fifteen euro per licence plus ninety nine euro for cards plus a hundred and forty nine euro for accounts payable means a fifty person company pays well over a thousand euro a month before add ons.; Lago free tier limited to 10,000 entities per month with 5M event cap
They diverge on capability: Circula covers German per diem engine, Lago covers Real-time usage metering.
Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Circula and Lago actually diverge.

Attributes where Circula and Lago differ
Attribute	Circula	Lago
Starting price	€15/month	Free
Pricing model	Per user per month	Freemium with optional paid tiers
Free tier	No	Yes
Platforms	Web, iOS, Android	Web, Cloud, Self-hosted, On-premise, VPC

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Accounting).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Circula

German per diem engine
Receipt capture and OCR
Corporate credit cards
Employee benefits
Accounts payable
Mileage and travel
DATEV and ERP export
Approval workflows

Only in Lago

Real-time usage metering
Multiple pricing models
Automated invoicing
Prepaid credits
Entitlements
Multi-currency support
Payment orchestration
Revenue analytics

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Circula

A German company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposurenot Lago
A finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one DATEV exportnot Lago
An employer offering the tax free monthly benefit allowance and needing auditable records of itnot Lago
A mid sized business replacing spreadsheet mileage claims with rule enforced distance calculationsnot Lago

Lago

Building usage-based billing for high-volume APIs and infrastructurenot Circula
Implementing metered billing for AI and tokenized servicesnot Circula
Creating subscription and hybrid pricing modelsnot Circula
Managing multi-currency billing for global companiesnot Circula
Maintaining billing infrastructure without vendor lock-innot Circula

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Circula

The module pricing stacks: expenses at fifteen euro per licence plus ninety nine euro for cards plus a hundred and forty nine euro for accounts payable means a fifty person company pays well over a thousand euro a month before add ons.
A minimum of ten licences excludes small teams, and the flexible licensing model for occasional claimants makes monthly cost harder to forecast than a flat per seat price.
Strength is in German tax rules, so companies with significant operations outside the DACH region gain little from the feature that justifies the price.
The accounts payable module includes only a hundred invoices per month, so invoice heavy businesses face metered overage on top of the platform fee.
Card issuing carries a per card transaction ceiling and depends on partner issuing, so high value procurement spend can hit limits that a bank issued corporate card would not.

Lago

Free tier limited to 10,000 entities per month with 5M event cap
No specific pricing published for Pro annual plan or Scale plan
Self-hosted and on-premise deployments require engineering resources
Community support only on free tier
Scale plan requires annual contracts and sales engagement

Pricing, plan by plan

Circula

€15/month

Employee and Travel Expenses$15/month
- Per licence, billed annually
- Minimum 10 licences
- OCR receipt capture
Credit Cards$99/month
- Platform fee, unlimited cards
- Per card spend limits
- Transaction limit of EUR 750,000 per card
Accounts Payable$149/month
- Platform fee
- Includes 100 invoices per month
- Supplier invoice capture and approval
Benefits$1/month
- Per licence
- Tax free benefit allowances
- Mobility and meal benefits

Lago

Free

Build (Free)Free
- 10,000 managed entities per month
- 5M usage events per month
- 1K events per second rate limit
Pro$399/month
- 10,000 entities included (graduated pricing to 100K)
- 25M usage events included (to 500M with graduated rates)
- 10K events per second (upgradeable to 100K)
Scale$null/custom
- Custom entity and event volumes
- 50K events per second (upgradeable to 100K)
- RBAC and SSO (SAML)

Which should you pick?

Choose Circula if

You need german per diem engine.
You work on Web, iOS, Android.
You also want receipt capture and ocr.

Circula review

Choose Lago if

You need real-time usage metering.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, Cloud, Self-hosted, On-premise, VPC.
You also want multiple pricing models.

Lago review

Questions people ask

Is Circula or Lago better?: Neither clearly leads. Circula starts at €15/month and Lago at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Circula or Lago?: Lago has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at €15/month for Circula and Free for Lago.
Does Circula or Lago run on more platforms?: Circula runs on Web, iOS, Android. Lago runs on Web, Cloud, Self-hosted, On-premise, VPC.
Can I use Lago for free?: Yes. Lago has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Circula starts at €15/month.
What is Circula best used for?: Circula is most often used for a german company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposure, a finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one datev export, an employer offering the tax free monthly benefit allowance and needing auditable records of it, a mid sized business replacing spreadsheet mileage claims with rule enforced distance calculations. Of those, a german company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposure and a finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one datev export are not what Lago is typically brought in for.
What can Circula do that Lago cannot?: Circula covers German per diem engine, Receipt capture and OCR, Corporate credit cards, Employee benefits. Lago covers Real-time usage metering, Multiple pricing models, Automated invoicing, Prepaid credits.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Circula: Does Circula calculate German per diems automatically?

Yes, by destination country and trip duration, including meal and accommodation deductions, which is the main reason DACH finance teams buy it.

Lago: Can I use Lago open-source for free?

Yes, Lago is open-source under the AGPLv3 license and can be self-hosted. The cloud-based Build plan is also free with limits of 10,000 entities and 5M events per month.

Source

Circula: What does it actually cost for fifty employees?

Roughly seven hundred and fifty euro a month for expense licences alone at the fifteen euro rate, before the ninety nine euro card platform fee and any accounts payable module.

Lago: What payment providers does Lago integrate with?

Lago integrates with Stripe and Adyen for payment processing. It is not a payment processor itself but orchestrates payments through these providers.

Source

Circula: Is there a minimum commitment?

Yes. A minimum of ten licences and annual billing on the published rates.

Lago: Does Lago support multiple currencies?

Yes, Lago supports multi-currency billing with automatic currency conversion for global businesses.

Source

Circula vs Lago

Circula

Lago

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Circula

Only in Lago

What people use each for

Circula

Lago

Where each one falls short

Circula

Lago

Pricing, plan by plan

Circula

Lago

Which should you pick?

Choose Circula if

Choose Lago if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Circula

More on Lago

Keep looking

Other head to heads