Billing as well as Subscription Control: Full Review of Five Options

A majority of billing and subscription management solutions let you:

• Develop a range of trial and subscription models (e.g. either a free or paid trials, usage-based or fixed price subscriptions).
• Manage active subscriptions (e.g. upgrade or downgrades, as well as the addition or removal of products).
• Send invoices and/or payment notifications.
• Provide your customers with an account management portal that they are able to manage their account.
• View reports on the key metrics that affect the revenue.

However, most businesses find that they need to use additional software for other aspects of the payment cycle, including:

• Payment processing
• Tax collection for VAT and sales tax
• Look up translations
• Currency conversion
• Chargebacks
• Plus...

If you need some of these functions it is important to be certain that they're provided by the your billing software (or easy to incorporate with other solutions).

In this guide, we compare five alternatives by taking a look at the billing and subscription management capabilities they offer as well as the other capabilities they have -- starting with a deep dive into our software for SaaS businesses, .

 Table of Contents

1.   Chargebee
2.   Recurly
3.   Chargify
4.   Zoho Subscriptions

1. : Subscription Management, Processing Payments And Much More for SaaS Companies

offers several options for subscription management (which we'll go over below), however, it's not just the platform to manage subscriptionsWe're also our own Merchant of Record (MoR) for software businesses.

 In our capacity as MoR, we accept transaction responsibility on behalf of you, meaning we:

• Collect and pay the correct amount of sales tax, VAT as well as GST on behalf of you.
• Check that all the procedures and documentation are in place so that you remain in compliance with transaction law for each location where that you offer to sell.
• We take the lead on audits.

 Plus offers extensive solutions covering the whole process of making a payment. It includes:

• The localized checkout (i.e., currency exchanges, translations of languages Custom designs, currency conversions and much other features)
• International payment processing (for dozens of preferred payment options)
• Fraud detection
• Chargebacks
• Analytics and reporting
• Plus much more...

In the next sections, we dig into the various options and services in greater in depth.

Custom Subscription and Recurring Billing Models for B2C or B2B

makes it easy to set up nearly any subscription type in just a couple of clicks. It is possible to set up the majority of subscriptions without writing code, but you can develop more complicated subscription logic via our API or webhooks library.

Here's an overview of your options:

 Trials

A few subscription management programs are able to collect the payment information at the time potential customers sign-up to trial, including free trial periods. It can lead some potential customers to lose interest and may not complete the registration procedure. lets you decide whether or not to collect payment details for each trial.

You can also:

• Create trials of any length.
• Design free, paid, or use-based trial.
• You can choose to bill users after their trial ends or allow them to begin a subscription manually.
• Let subscribers reactivate their account that have been cancelled.
• Select the time when you send reminders about closing trials (e.g. 3 days before trial end).
• Automatically detect when one user tries to sign up for several trials. You can only allow just one trial account.

 Subscriptions

Each product in a given business could get greater results with different subscription options. For example, low-tier products could be better off if sold with a subscription that is monthly while top-end products could benefit more if they are sold as an annual subscription.

Also, what was successful at one point in time might not be the most effective option in the near future.

We'll let you know:

• Select the frequency of subscription and billing date (or let your customers choose).
• Set subscriptions to auto-renew and require an manual renewal (i.e., customers have to enter payment details each when they are billed) Or, you can require your team to initiate the charge via the API (this is a good alternative for billing based on usage).
• Offer discounts and coupons.
• Let prorated billing be used if the customer wishes to upgrade, downgrade, or stop the service halfway during the billing process.
• Add one-time purchases to the initial bill but not the recurring bills.
• Create cross-sell or upsell options at checkout.
• Give customers the option of the storage of the information about payment (or make the decision for all customers).
• Automatically renew certain subscriptions for different subscriptions (e.g. in the event of retiring the service or product).

 Recurring billing and invoicing

lets you manage B2B orders along with B2C purchases with Digital Invoicing.

Digital Invoicing can help you:

• Manage and create custom quotes that are updated in real time (including custom tags, coupons, discounts, and many more).
• Set expiration dates for quotes.
• Notes for your client or prospect.

Fully Branded Self-Service Features to Your Customers

provides a self-serve portal where your customers can:

• Subscription renewals
• Monitor billing period durations
• Change payment information
• View payment history
• And much More ...

We handle all the backend maintenance on this website so your team doesn't have to.

As your MoR, we take care of your customer's queries regarding their billing, which include refund requests, billing issues as well as questions related to their subscriptionsand much more. Our platform includes the customer portal which lets your customers to handle their subscriptions.

The picture below illustrates a simple example of the self-service website, but to provide a seamless customer experience, the entire portal can be customized in line with your company's branding.

You can also enable buyer-generated quotes. The feature lets customers make a quote using the content of their cart without contacting the sales department. This feature is very helpful to attract potential buyers who need approval before making an purchase.

Local Transaction and Indirect Tax Compliance Made Easy

There are two main aspects of conformity when it comes to transactions with recurring nature:

1. Conformity to transactions (i.e., the systems that you are using for collecting payments).
2. Tax on sales, VAT and GST compliance (i.e., how you take and pay indirect tax).

In order to avoid penalties and fines You must be aware of taxes and transactional laws applicable to each place you operate within. In the following sections, we cover:

• Examples of transaction laws that affect subscription-based companies.
• Whether or not software companies must be able to collect VAT, sales tax or GST.
• What is the best way to handle all this for you.

Transaction Compliance

Each country, state, and province has its individual laws and regulations on how companies can gather payment and save customer data. Most companies have a good understanding of privacy rules like GDPR. However, there are many transaction regulations that aren't as popularly understood.

For example, in some countries, such as Canada and Korea, customers are eligible under the law to get a prorated refund in the event that they end their subscription prior to the close of their payment term. This is only one instance to illustrate one aspect of the lifecycle of subscriptionsthe laws and regulations are constantly evolving.

In the case of most subscription management software will leave you on yourself to research transaction laws and regulations and to follow the required processes. In addition, certain subscription platforms do not provide alternatives to meet the requirements of law and regulations (e.g. Certain platforms don't support rebates that are prorated).

On the other hand, manages all this for you. Our team of legal experts keeps up-to-date with the relevant laws as well as regulations. We assist you adopt the appropriate procedures to ensure that you are in compliance. We also support all the necessary subscription model for conformity.

GST, Sales Tax and GST Compliance

Software companies weren't required to pay the sales tax or VAT as well as GST. In several jurisdictions, it's the situation. However, tax laws for digital products and services change rapidly in a variety of areas.

More and more nations are now requiring software firms to pay some kind of indirect tax. Additionally, certain countries require digital businesses to fill out tax forms even though they are eligible for tax exemption.

Finally, remitting sales taxes is often more involved than filling out a tax form and then wire the money. More and more nations are imposing additional rules for compliance.

Examples:

• Countries like Colombia, Japan, Mexico, Serbia, and others need local representation, meaning you have to hire someone with an actual presence in the country in order to pay your tax liability. It can range from $5k-$15k annually.
• States like Serbia, United Kingdom, Taiwan as well as others need electronic invoicing from any company selling within their countries. The EU has begun rolling out the worldwide electronic invoicing by 2028.
• States like Taiwan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Vietnam, and others are requiring you to file the tax on your income as well as to indirect tax.

takes care of the entire procedure of collecting and paying sales tax, VAT, as well as GST for you .

We make sure that the right amount (and the correct type) in indirect taxes is paid at the time of check-out (including tax-exempt transactions in the US and no reverse charges when allowed internationally).

Then, our team remits these taxes on your behalf and will ensure that the proper processes are in place to ensure total compliance.

Finally, if a country or state approaches you about tax compliance, our team can help you figure out how best you can respond, even by providing copies and paste answers.

International Pay Processing to Dozens Of Payment Methods

The majority of payment processors concentrate their efforts on a specific location, while all payment processors are limited in their set of payment options that they accept. In particular, some processors have a goal of supporting transactions that are accepted in the U.S. Therefore, they'll support only those payment options that are popular across the U.S. (e.g., Mastercard or Apple Pay) and they will not support anything like UnionPay as it is often employed in China.

Furthermore, many payment processors accept payments only within certain currencies and countries. For example, they might be able to support Amazon Pay but will not take payments coming from Turkey.

SaaS businesses that wish to accept payments around the globe must connect with and manage multiple payment processors, which can be quite a daunting task.

The  SaaS businesses automatically gain access to multiple payment processors that are specialized in international transactions. maintains relationships with many payment processors, as well as hundreds of card networks so that it is not necessary to. Turn on the localized payment feature and start accepting international payments as soon as possible.

also offers multiple features to assist in ensuring successful payment and reduce involuntary churn, including:

• Pay-by-post: Transactions are more likely to be authorized in the event that the payment gateway is located at the same place that the purchaser (e.g. for example, a purchase that originates from Germany is processed through a payment gateway in Germany). Automatically routes transactions through the payment gateway with the best authorization rates in that region.
• Rerouting payments from the gateway If a payment fails on the first attempt, immediately retries to make the payment again by using a second gatewaywith no need for any member of the support team needing to get involved. It is often able to fix payment problems due to connectivity or system issues.
• Proactive payment reminders. If a customer's card is scheduled to expire, will notify the cardholder in advance ofthe expiration date to ensure they are able to change the information on their payment. It is possible to use our already-designed notice template, or design your own notification.
• Multiple follow-up messages. If a recurring payment is rejected it is possible to schedule several payment failure notification messages to be sent two, five, seven 14 and 21 days from the initial error. After sending out every reminder, will retry the payment.

Tailor-Made Checkout to Reflect Your Visual Image

The majority of payment platforms provide a checkout feature with a few choices for personalization, such as adding your logo and choosing the colors. These customization options don't always show your branding, create a seamless experience for your customers, and improve your checkout to increase the highest conversion rates.

 allows you to customize branding tools as well as CSS-overrides to ensure that you can make extensive changes choices for controlling the look as well as feel of the online checkout.

Also, you'll be able to access our store Builder Library -- a JavaScript library which allows customers to modify the process leading to checkout.For instance, you could create a cross-sell or upsell funnel. It allows you to optimize your customer experience to increase rates of conversion.

Checkout is available in three different forms that include popups, embedded or as a storefront on the web. The web storefront redirects your customers to a different website that is hosted by .

In any of these choices (including the web storefront) it is possible modify the checkout experience by using tools for branding and CSS overrides to match your branding.

These are just a few additional features that can assist you to improve your checkout experience

• Localized Checkout:Let customers choose their preferred language and currency or let choose the appropriate language and currency based on the country of purchase. Supports 19+ languages as well as 23+ currencies.
  
• Support for developers that is personalized:Our team is always willing to support you to create the best checkout experience for your business. Some companies only provide personal support for their biggest customers and do not provide support to smaller companies. We believe that every company deserves the same attention and consideration.

Complete Reporting and Analytics

• Which are the most of my top-paying customers?
• Which products are bringing in the most money?
• What discounts generate income as opposed to. taking revenue away?
• and numerous others...

Reports are split in two main dashboards: Revenue Overview and Subscription Overview.

If you can't locate the report you're looking for You can modify every report, and put it on your dashboard. Our team is always available to design custom reports to find the information you require.

Our webhooks and API for data make it easy to pull in revenue and subscription information to any software for business intelligence or CRM you use. The report may also be downloaded as a CSV PNG, CSV, or XLSX files.

All-in-One Pricing (No Hidden Fees)

Many payment system providers will charge a base price for payment processing and a few core features, like embeddable checkout. But, typically, you'll have to pay extra for additional features, such as currency conversions or fraud detection. Few payment processors are an all-inclusive solution, and many companies have to put to their existing software. It is hard to expand globally when your company grows, as costs will rise as you require more features and software.

is a full payment system that is ideal for SaaS companies with everything included as a one-time cost dependent on the number of transactions you move through . Plus, you'll only be paid when transactions occur.

Then, we cover four additional payment options that cater to subscription-based companies.

2. Chargebee

Here are some aspects of Chargebee attributes:

• Usage-based billing, automated invoicing, proration and much more
• Automated procedures for receivables
• Compliant revenue recognition and subscription models
• Support for in-app purchases
• Portal for self-service to customers
• Smart dunning

The Chargebee platform free of charge for the first $100k in revenue earned. Then, they'll offer different pricing plans for different ranges of monthly earnings.

3. Recurly

Recurly is a recurring bill system designed to optimize your growth strategy. Recurly can easily be integrated with multiple credit card processors and merchant accounts, however, you still have to manage and cover these additional services on top of your Recurly subscription.

Below are some more highlights of Recurly's features.

• Customizable subscription models
• Automated recurring invoicing
• Tools for revenue recovery
• Intelligent retention
• Analytics on customer subscriptions

Recurly provides three pricing options However, you need contact their support team for more details.

4. Chargify

Chargify is a subscription billing program that's currently working on a merger with SaaSOptics which is a Revenue management system. The merger will allow you to automate the management of subscriptions accounting for revenue and expenses, and SaaS metrics tracking all from the same revenue management software.

Here are a few of the highlights of the functionalities Chargify offers:

• Usage-based and global billing
• Billing management and revenue recognition tools
• Billing system analytics and metrics
• Built-in integrations with various other software (e.g. accounting software such as QuickBooks as well as Xero)
• Payment gateways from around the world

Chargify offers a price plan for companies earning $75k per month in billings, but, if you are earning more or you want access to every feature, you'll need to speak with the team.

5. Zoho Subscriptions

Zoho Subscriptions is one piece from Zoho's Zoho platform (a collection of applications to help you manage every aspect of your enterprise, e.g., CRMs and ERPs). If you already use this feature of the Zoho platform, this might be an option. However, new users generally find that it comes with a steep learning curve.

Some of the highlights of Zoho Subscriptions comprise:

• Multiple pricing models
• Tax-compliant, customisable invoices that can be customized
• Multi-currency conversions
• 30+ pre-built reports to track each stage of the subscription lifecycle
• Assistance for cash in-person and check transactions (in combination with payment via credit card)
• Integrations out of the box with other bill solutions (e.g., Stripe, PayPal or others.)
• The tools can be used to design specific workflow rules

Every aspect that is part of Zoho's Zoho service is priced separately and includes Zoho Subscriptions. This can make it difficult and expensive to create an end-to-end payment solution.