TL;DR

Implementing a simple subscription or usage-based SaaS in Stripe requires you to write a lot of boilerplate code. Lumen has all of this built-in so you can just integrate and manage everything from a no-code dashboard.

Stripe makes it clear that it is NOT a "database" and its rate limits don't allow you to use their data at scale (so you need to sync and duplicate all your Stripe data in your own database). Lumen has really high rate limits so you can call our APIs as much as you need, both to check feature access or to render UI elements.

What is Stripe Billing

Stripe Billing is a subscription management platform built on top of Stripe's payment processing infrastructure. While powerful, it comes with significant complexity and can become very expensive as your business scales, especially with additional features and transaction volume. It does not support feature access (also known as entitlements)

What is Lumen

Lumen handles both billing and feature access (also known as entitlements). It takes care of all the complexities of integrating a billing provider like Stripe, and requires minimal decision-making from your side. This makes Lumen the fastest way to develop a SaaS product.

Stripe Billing complexities explained

Here is a list of things that Lumen takes care of automatically but that you will need to manually code if you are using Stripe Billing:

• Webhook management: Setting up, securing, and handling dozens of different webhook events that can arrive out of order or be duplicated
• Subscription state tracking: Manually keeping track of subscription statuses, renewals, cancellations, and edge cases across your database
• Usage-based billing complexity: Implementing metering, aggregating usage data, handling billing cycles, and managing overage calculations
• Plan and pricing management: Creating and maintaining complex pricing structures, tiers, and feature access control
• Refunds and credits: Implementing refund workflows, partial refunds, and credit management systems
• Reporting and analytics: Building dashboards for MRR, churn, customer lifetime value, and other billing metrics