Stigg vs BuildBase for usage-based billing
Stigg goes deep on entitlements and pricing experiments. BuildBase bundles metering into a whole backend. Which one you need depends on what else is missing.
In short
Stigg is a dedicated pricing and entitlement layer that sits on top of your existing stack. BuildBase includes metering, quotas and subscriptions inside a backend that also does auth, workspaces and RBAC. Stigg goes deeper on entitlements; BuildBase means fewer systems to wire together.
Every usage-based billing comparison eventually reaches the same question: is pricing a product in your stack, or a feature of something bigger?
Stigg's answer is that it is a product. Ours is that it is a feature. So does a third: Lago answers it by being nothing but metering, deeper than either of us on that one axis and narrower everywhere else. All three answers are defensible and they suit different teams.
The one-paragraph answer
Pick Stigg if pricing itself is the thing you iterate on: multiple packages, frequent experiments, entitlements that need to be modelled precisely, and an existing stack you are happy with. Pick BuildBase if metering is one of several systems you still have to build, and you would rather have quotas that already know what a workspace and a role are.
What each one is
Stigg is a pricing and entitlement layer. You keep Stripe, your auth and your database exactly as they are, and Stigg holds the model of what each customer is entitled to, enforcing it through their SDK. Nothing else moves.
BuildBase includes metering as one of 19 modules on a single instance. Usage is recorded against a workspace, the quota is checked in the same call, and the subscription that defines the quota lives in the same system as the workspace and its members.
The practical difference shows up in the wiring. In Stigg's model, a quota check has to know which customer this request belongs to, which means your auth system and Stigg agree on an identifier and you maintain that agreement. In ours, the workspace is already the unit.
Pricing, verified 14 August 2026
| Feature | BuildBase | Stigg |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | No free plan, 7-day trial | Build: 10K entities, 5M events/mo |
| Entry paid plan | $49/mo (Launch) | Pro: $399/mo |
| Event ceiling | Not event-priced | Up to 500M events/mo on Pro |
| Self-hosted option | Yes, see /self-hosted | BYOC from $40K/yr |
| Scope | Metering inside a backend | Pricing and entitlements layer |
Stigg's free tier is unusually generous for the category - 5 million usage events a month is past the point where most products know whether their pricing model works. That matters more than the headline Pro price, because the free tier is where you find out.
The integration question
Here is the part that decides it for most teams, and it is not about features.
A dedicated entitlement layer is one more system that needs to agree with your auth about who the customer is, with your database about what a workspace is, and with Stripe about what was sold. Three agreements you maintain. That is completely fine when pricing is complex enough to deserve its own product, and it is overhead when it is not.
Bundled metering removes those agreements by removing the boundary. The cost is that you get our model of entitlements rather than a richer one.
Where Stigg wins
Entitlement depth. This is Stigg's whole product and it shows. Complex packaging, add-ons, feature-level entitlements, pricing experiments run without a deploy. If you are running real pricing experiments, we do not match that and I would not pretend otherwise.
It works with what you have. Stigg does not ask you to move your auth or your database. Adopting it is additive. Adopting a bundle is a bigger decision, and reversing it is harder.
Event headroom. 5 million events a month on a free tier, and graduated pricing up to 500 million on Pro, is more capacity than most products will meter in a year.
When each one is wrong
Stigg is the wrong call if entitlements are the only sophisticated thing about your billing and you are still missing workspaces, roles and an auth system. You would be integrating a precise pricing model into a stack that does not exist yet.
BuildBase is the wrong call if your stack is already built and working. Ripping out an auth provider that works, just to get bundled metering, is a bad trade. The bundle pays off when you are choosing the pieces. Not when you are replacing them.
If you are at the earlier point, the metering side is covered in charging per API call in Next.js and the UI side in enforcing quotas in React.