A Comprehensive Guide for Subscription Billing Platforms (+ 5 Options)

Most subscription billing platforms let you:

• Automate invoices and payment.
• Manage and customize one or more subscription and trial models.
• Create a self-service platform for customers so they can control their accounts (including seating information, payment details as well as many more).
• Manage and offer one-time add-ons Coupons, discounts, and more.
• Gather metrics and view reports of monthly recurring revenues.

The vast majority of organizations that do subscription billing will require a solution for other aspects of subscription billing management including:

• Payment processing.
• Prevention of fraud and chargebacks.
• Collecting and remitting tax on consumption.
• Legal compliance.
• And more.

A lot of subscription billing platforms don't provide these crucial aspects in managing subscriptions.

Plus, you'll need take into consideration whether the billing platform supports businesses like yours. Some, for instance, bill-paying solutions solely support SaaS firms, while other solutions provide support to companies that sell physical products or services (e.g., subscriptions to gyms, monthly food club memberships, or remote accounting).

 In this article We review the five most popular subscription billing platforms by specifying what aspects of the billing process they are able to support, which alternatives you'll have to integrate, as well as the types of companies they serve.

Our solution, , allows worldwide SaaS companies handle everything in both of the above lists. We'll begin with a deep dive into . The remaining options on this list are geared towards e-commerce as well as companies that sell physical products as well as services.

 Table of Contents

•   Recurly
•   Chargebee
•   Chargify
•   Zuora

Complete Subscription Billing Platform for Global Software Companies

is a comprehensive payment solution developed for SaaS firms and businesses selling downloadable and/or digital goods. Through the use of B2B and B2C software companies can manage:

• Trials, multiple subscription options, one-time add-ons, discounts and much more.
• Automated invoices and customer notifications.
• Payment processing (for many payment options around the world).
• Fully managed, self-serve portal for customers.
• Reporting and analytics.
• and many more.

Furthermore, takes on the risk of transactions and we take care of chargebacks, fraud prevention collecting and remitting consumption tax and conformity.

As you grow, there won't be no unexpected costs because the entire feature set is offered at one flat-rate price based on the volume of transactions you're involved in -You'll be charged after transactions are completed.

 In the sections below, we take a closer review of how you can:

•   Create Custom Subscription Models and Trials with no Coding
•   Let Customers Manage account details from a simple portal
•   Enhance the Checkout Process to Increase Conversions
•   Protect Your Company from Legal Liability of Transactions
•   Let Gather and Remit VAT and Sales Tax to You
•   Automate Payment Failure Handling and Reduce Churn
•   Automatically Gather Key Metrics and view detailed reports

Make Custom Subscription Models, Subscriptions and Trials with no code

A majority of businesses require a wide range of recurring billing options and trial models to meet the needs of diverse products and various market segments. Additionally, the types that work for you initially may not be the most effective long-term models as your business changes.

Many billing platforms will allow the creation of custom subscription plans however, you'll require your development team to set up these customizations manually (with little or no assistance from the billing service provider).

 offers lots of built-in options, so that everyone can build customized subscription plans with no the technical expertise.

Below are some examples of of trials and subscriptions that you could set up:

• Paid, free, or use-based trial.
• Automatic billing when the trial period has expired (or let customers manually start an active subscription).
• Preset billing frequencies or dates (or let your customers decide).
• Usage-based billing.
• Coupons, discounts, prorated amounts, and single-time additions.
• Automatically store information about payment (or allow customers to make the decision).
• Auto-renew to a different subscription plan.
• Plus.

If you're looking for greater customizations, make use of's API as well as Webhooks Library to design your own subscription model. developers are always available to provide you with your ideal solution and address all questions that you might need to ask.

Allow customers to manage their account details through a user-friendly portal

is a self-service platform where customers are able to view:

• Subscriptions active and inactive (or trial subscriptions).
• The history of your order (and identification numbers).
• Keys to licenses and download history.
• Payment details.
• Contact information.
• and more.

Through this website, users can control upgrades, downgrades, the bank or credit card information, and much more, with no need to contact your support team.

handles the whole portal to ensure that your staff doesn't have the burden of. However, you'll be in complete control of the design and layout of the portal. This lets you create an unified experience for your customers and not put more stress on your team of developers.

Optimize Your Checkout Process to increase conversions

In the case of most subscription billing platforms, you'll require a separate solution for checkout and payment processing (which will require additional charges as well as software to handle).

 allows you to control subscriptions, checkout as well as payment processing, all in the same solution.

Over the course of nearly two decades, we have gained working with software companies, we have gained valuable insights into the best ways to optimize checkout for increased conversions. For example, customers tend to stick to complete a purchase when:

• You accept their preferred payment method.
• The payment gets accepted on the very first attempt.
• Checkout is in the local language and currency.
• The design and style of checkout is in line with to the overall design of the website.

Each of these areas are built into the platform

• preferred payment method: lets you accept the most commonly used method of payment around the globe.
• high approval rate for payments: Each card network and issuing bank has different acceptability levels for fraudulent transactions as well as chargebacks. makes sure you're in compliance with the regulations in order that you can maintain an acceptable rate of authorization. Furthermore the transactions are more likely to be approved if the gateway is an official legal entity located in the same location as the purchaser. It works with multiple payment gateways across the globe and routes each payment through the one with the best rate of approval for the area.
• Automated currency conversion that converts the price to the local currency of the buyer. You may choose to either select an exact amount for each location or let do the conversion instantly.
• Checkout Language Translations can also assist you in translating the checkout process into local languages. It is possible to pick the correct language based on the buyer's place of residence, or allow the customer to choose which one they would prefer.
• Fully customized checkouts: With , you can choose from three checkout options which include an embedded checkout, a pop-up checkout or an individual storefront, which is run by our staff. Each option lets you have complete control over the design and layout of the checkout or webpage. Many checkout platforms offer only a handful of options to customize (e.g. you can add a logo or choose from a set of colors), but checkouts can be customized to the pixel.

Secure your Company from legal Liability of Transactions

The experienced SaaS businesses know that it is essential to define the terms and conditions for the subscription. Customers must be able to agree to these terms prior to taking payments. It's a challenge to determine what to include in that contract. This becomes more difficult when you are transacting internationally since the details of what the contract must contain will change with each nation, state, territory as well as province. If you don't include all the necessary elements the contract must include, you may be subject to heavy fines or be banned from transacting within that jurisdiction.

Additionally, many states have extra law and rules for automated regular payments, which are not required by the agreement. For instance, India limits automatic payments up to 15,000 rupees (approximately $180 at the time of this writing). If a regular payment goes above that threshold then the customer will have to approve the transaction manually each time. In order to avoid penalties Additionally, you must make an eMandate application to the Reserve Bank of India that specifies how you'll comply.

Keeping up to date on regulations like these for any jurisdiction is a massive challenge for any business.

To our customers who are not concerned about this, it isn't an issue since we ensure conformity with local law and regulations. Our legal staff keeps up to date with every aspect of transaction law and makes sure all the necessary procedures and documentation are put in place to process the automatic payment.

It is completely compliant with EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as well as is fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), among many other laws and regulations.

Let Gather and Remit GST and Sales Tax to You

SaaS companies didn't always have the obligation to collect tax on consumption However, the tax rules for software businesses are evolving and being more strongly enforced.

Most payment solutions will help collect consumption tax; but you're still responsible for making sure that it's the right amount and for remitting taxes at the conclusion of every tax season. If you don't make sure you collect and pay the correct amount (and type) in consumption taxes at the correct dates, you may be subject to massive fines or be disqualified from conducting business at that particular location.

automatically applies the correct amount (and the type) of consumption tax to the customer-facing price and remits those taxes for you.

We support tax-exempt transactions and others special situations. We also lead on any audits.

Automate Payment Failure Handling and cut down on Churn

Between the initial transaction and each subsequent rebill, numerous things could go wrong that stop the payment from being processed and cause customers to turn. Working with hundreds of businesses, we've developed automatic processes to address common problems that cause churn and get back most payments that failed.

 There are some HTML0 tools that will help you decrease churn and unsuccessful payment:

• Reminders for proactive payments:In our experience, letting customers know about upcoming payment dates and notifying them about payments that have expired is one of the most efficient methods to decrease involuntary churn , as well as the failure of payment attempts. By using this software , you can schedule automatic reminders of upcoming payments.
• Reminders in multiple formats: When a transaction has failed, customers often need multiple reminders before they are able to fix the issue (e.g. adding funds into their accounts, change the payment method, etc.). It is possible to send out follow-up reminders at intervals of two or three, five, seven 14or 21 days following the initial unsuccessful payment ( it will try to make the payment again prior to sending every reminder).
• Continuing the service: Another effective way to decrease churn in involuntary manner is to keep the service running while you attempt to get the money. This will give your customers a more pleasant experience since the client has an opportunity to address their issue without suffering the negative experience of a paused service. A better customer experience is, the more likely they will stay.
• Easy reactivation: Once all reminders have been made, you can choose to suspend instead of cancelling the client's subscription. This makes it easier for users to renew their subscriptions without having to sign up yet (onboarding is usually a huge hurdle to restarting services).

As we covered earlier it also automatically retries each payment using a different payment processor (without anyone on your team needing to lift the finger) that can fix problems with failed transactions caused by difficulties with your network.

Automatically collect Key Metrics and review detailed reports

Analytics and Reporting lets you tackle questions such as

• How is each product contributing to my profit margin?
• What products have proven to be the most successful and which are a drain on resources?
• What promotions, coupons or discounts attract greater numbers of customers?
• Which subscription models are the most effective?
• Which are the markets that have proven to be the most successful and which have the highest potential?

provides two main dashboards The revenue overview dashboard as well as the dashboard for subscription overview.

The Revenue overview dashboard gives you an overall view of your business' performance, including:

• The location of your clients.
• Which payment options and currencies do customers prefer.
• Net sales per product.
• The total number of transactions per country.
• and more.

The Dashboard for the overview of subscriptions lets you track the monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and dig deeper into what's impacting your MRR over time. The dashboard offers statistics about:

• Cross-sells, upsells, and additional products.
• Long-term value for each client.
• Total customer churn.
• In the billing cycle, churn happens most often.
• The life-time value of a customer.
• And more.

You are able to modify the report you want to save and share reports with key stakeholders via the dashboard or in the form of a PNG, CSV or XLSX spreadsheet export.

Four More Subscription Management Platforms

Recurly

Recurly is a recurring-billing and management system for subscriptions designed for companies selling:

• B2B and B2C software.
• Mobile app.
• Entertainment and Media.
• Retail and consumer goods.
• Professional Services.
• eLearning.

Recurly supports easy integrations using multiple payment gateways. but you're accountable for the setup and management of each one. Many companies who use Recruly will also add programs to:

• Taxes (e.g., Avalara).
• Accounting (e.g., for example, QuickBooks).
• Protection against fraud (e.g. Sift- customers are automatically protected with Sift).

Additionally, you'll be accountable for taxes and transaction costs, so it's likely that you'll need a separate department that is responsible for compliance. (With  everything, it is covered in one package and is fully managed by our experts.)

Chargebee

Chargebee is a billing for subscriptions and revenue management system designed to:

• B2B SaaS.
• eCommerce.
• eLearning.
• Publishing.
• YouTube and OTT.

Similar to Recurly, Chargebee is primarily an application for billing subscriptions, so you'll likely need additional solutions for tax, fraud prevention, payment processing, and more. Chargebee offers a variety of built-in integrations (e.g., Stripe, PayPal, SalesForce, and QuickBooks), however, these aren't included in every Chargebee plan.

Chargify

Chargify offers subscription billing solutions for B2B SaaS businesses.

You'll likely need additional solutions for taxes, fraud prevention as well as payment processing and more. However, Chargify does offer simple accounting software to recognize revenue (for different business models).

Chargify will also join forces with SaaSOptics in order to create a brand new companycalled Maxio. With the merger, businesses that subscribe to services will be able to control their financials which include automated expense and revenue recognition and automated reporting.

Zuora

Zuora is an all-in-one monetization system with subscription management software built in. The majority of their customers are that are in the following sectors:

• Manufacturing as well as IoT.
• Software.
• High-tech.
• Entertainment, Media and Entertainment.

Zuora supports typically subscription-based pricing (e.g. the usage-based freemium product that upgrades to a paid plan) However, they include features for streamlined processes for accounting, dunning and payment processing (although there are some businesses that are able to connect to other payment gateways).