SaaS Billing Software: 7 Tools in 3 Categories & What to Consider -

SaaS billing software automates any elements of the recurring billing process -- payment processing, dunning, fulfillment, and many more.

In this piece we'll compare 7 SaaS billing options that we've divided into three categories:

1. Subscription administration: This kind of software allows you to automate trial periods, recurring payment schedules, and the dunning process. There's a need for a different system for payment processing and tax refunds. and much more.
2. Payment processing: These solutions gather payment details and facilitate the transaction between two parties. There are a variety of payment processors available, you'll need additional software that can handle the complicated and recurring payment process, including tax, chargebacks as well as dunning.
3. Merchants of Record (MoR): Having your billing software also function as a MoR is to handle the entire payment process through SaaS to your benefit, such as the collection and paying local and international taxes (such such as VAT and local sales taxes) and ensuring compliance with local laws and regulations as well as chargebacks and more. In the absence of a MoR business will need to be aware of and in compliance with all local laws and taxes in any country or region where there are customers.

 Table of Contents

•   Your MoR All-in-One SaaS Billing
•   3. Subscription Management Software
•     Chargebee
•     Chargify
•     Recurly
•   3 Payment Processors
• Verifone (formerly 2Checkout)
•     Stripe
•     Braintree

You can get your MoR from All-in-One SaaS Billing

Here's an overview of what it looks like for the MoR to serve as your representative:

Your customers visit your website to choose their subscription plans. After that, as they proceed to checkout, handles the checkout and completes the transaction. It functions the same way as other SaaS payment processors except for an important aspect: acting as your merchant of record.

 The benefits from this is twofold.

1. takes away the obligation of paying the local consumption tax and keeps you up-to-date on local transactions laws and managing subscriptions, payments processing, and more. If something goes wrong in the area of taxes, local compliance or chargebacks, rates for authorization or chargebacks, etc., takes the lead to solve the issue for you.
2. All of your SaaS billing process can be handled in one location -- the Dashboard. Plus, you're only charged one fixed rate for all services (more on this later).

The next step is to take a closer look at the ways we can assist you in each piece of the billing procedure. Specifically:

•   Checkout
•   Pay Processing
•   Receipt and Transfer of Consumption Tax
•   Subscriptions and Recurring Billing Management
•   Retention Management
•   Analytics as well as Reporting

Checkout: Full Checkout Customization for Higher Conversions

Many companies lose potential clients due to too much friction in their checkout process. For example, if the checkout screen does not visually align with the brand of the of the website, the potential customer is less likely to believe that the payment process is safe. Or, a customer may opt not to purchase since you do not accept the payment method you offer (a particular issue for international customers).

The majority of payment processors provide you with checkout templates and allow for a few easy modifications like adding your logo. But, the templates for checkout rarely provide the customization abilities you need to truly improve your checkout to achieve high rate of conversion.

  On the other hand, provides branding tools, CSS-overrides as well as a JavaScript library of popular e-commerce tools, so that you can have total control over each aspect of your purchase.

Below are some additional options that can assist you in optimizing your shopping experience:

• Preferred payment methods: While Visa or PayPal are popular within the U.S., other forms of payment are utilized in different countries. If you don't offer the most popular payment option that buyers are used to, you'll convert fewer of them into customers. It can also be long and consumes resources to add new payment methods. This makes it easy for users to include a variety of popular payment methods across the globe right away (more on this later in the section).

• Text translations: If your checkout does not use the same languages as other pages on your website and you're not sure if it's a good idea to lose customers. You can allow your customers select the language they prefer at checkout or let them select the correct language based on their location.
• Local currency conversions A few customers might not purchase the product because they do not know (or need to determine by themselves) how much the program will cost them in their currency of choice. solves this by automatically converting the price to the local currency when you check out. Alternatively, you can set a custom price for the currencies of each.
• Flexibility in integration choices: Part of choosing the most appropriate checkout method is deciding whether to embed it on your website or redirect users to an additional site. provides you with three options one of which is to) Integrate the checkout directly on your site,) insert a pop-up over the page, and) redirect customers to a separate webpage that's completely branded with your company's logo. The first two options only require just a couple lines of HTML and Javascript while the third is provided by . We'll host your complete storefront and checkout for you with your branding.

• Personalized support: If you need assistance Our team of engineers in software can assist you to create and implement the best check-out system for your business (regardless of how large or small your business).

Note: We also provide a checkout template that has been optimized to convert, However, many businesses discover that it's simple to set up an individual solution using .

Payment Processing: Improve Authorization Rates with Localized Payment Gateways

Frequently, customers attempt to purchase but the payment method gets declined or takes too long to finish, and they fail to make the purchase.

helps improve authorization rates so you can earn more revenue in several ways:

• Rerouting payments from the gateway If a payment fails in the initial attempt, it automatically retries the payment using a secondary gateway -- all without you or anyone on your support team having to step in. It is often able to fix payment problems due to problems with connectivity or the system.
• managing preferred payment processors: As we mentioned previously, implementing new payment methods can be a huge burden on resources. Each card network and issuing bank has various tolerance levels to deal with charges and fraud, as well as different rules for how transactions are conducted. If you aren't in compliance to these rules The card company is likely to stop approving payments. takes on the responsibility of maintaining compliance with different payment processors, which means that we deal with chargebacks, fraud and other problems for you.
• Localizing payment processing: Card networks are more likely to authorize transactions made through a local payment processor. In the case of example, if the purchaser is located situated in Italy the merchant should have a legal organization in Italy for higher authorization rates. Works with various payment processors across all over the world, to ensure that most payments are localized.

Collecting and Remitting Consumption Tax Increase Globally without Hefty Fines

Certain SaaS billing tools can assist in collecting tax, however, at the end of the day, you're responsible in settling and paying an appropriate amount when it's due. This is an enormous task for any business.

 Because acts as your MOR. We manage all elements of collecting and remitting taxes on consumption for you.

Automatically calculates the correct kind and amount of tax. We then add it to the customer-facing price when you check out (we can also assist with tax-free transactions as well as other unique situations). After every tax year we submit taxes to the appropriate authorities. In addition, we'll take on the leadership on audits.

Manage Recurring and Subscription Billing Design Custom Trials and Subscriptions While Being Compliant with Local Jurisdictions

There are a variety of subscription management programs that offer flexible options to create trials as well as recurring subscription plans. If you choose the best subscription model, including recurring and trial billing, you can attract more customers and boost revenue.

However, your subscription plans will only be successful when they comply with local regulations and laws. For example, numerous states, provinces and countries don't allow automatic payment for transactions exceeding a certain amount.

Many subscription management tools will inform you whenever they are aware of changes to the law and regulations, however you're ultimately responsible. If you do not comply with these changing rules and laws, you could face heavy penalty or ban from doing business in the region.

 takes away this burden by taking full responsibility for adhering to local transaction laws and regulations.

Our legal team remain up-to-date with every legal aspect and make sure that all processes are in place to paying customers. Start selling your products across more than 200 countries in a matter of minutes since we've established the necessary processes in every region.

Additionally, has various pre-configured trial and subscription options so you can create custom solutions with no writing code. Or, you could use the API or webhooks library to create complicated subscription logic as well as integrations.

 Here are some examples of the kinds of trial and billing logic you can create with :

• Free or paid trials
• Tests without or with no payments details
• Trials that automatically upgrade to a paid plan automatically.
• Subscription intervals of any length
• Mid-cycle, mid-cycle.
• One-time purchase is added to regular payment
• Discounts, upsells, cross-sells and many more

Retention Management: Reduce the risk of involuntary churn by implementing proactive dunning.

Since involuntary churn is one of the main ways companies that are subscription-based lose customers. the majority of SaaS billing software offers basic retention management features such as retrying failed payments as well as email notification sent to customers following a failed payment. These features, however, are only helpful when a payment has failed.

allows you to turn on proactive notifications that remind customers to change their data on the payment before the transaction takes place. In our experience, these proactive reminders can drastically reduce the amount of failed payments in the first place.

If a payment fails it is possible to automatically send out reminders two, five, seven, 14 21 days following a payment failure. During the 21 days, your customer's service won't be interrupted. Through periodic reminders and also maintaining your services, your customers will be more likely to refresh their personal information, which can reduce uninvoluntary turnover.

The self-service platform lets customers can change their personal information, and also change or cancel the subscription they have. With customers able to manage their own accounts, you'll have less hassle in your customers' experience, which means higher revenues. The self-serve platform can be tailored to suit your brand identity but it's managed by our team which means your employees don't have to be concerned about it.

Analytical and reporting Consolidate Business Decisions

Analytics and Reporting will help you determine how each product contributes to your bottom line, what coupon or promotion is successful, which subscription model generate the most revenue, and so on.

 The dashboard for revenue gives you a complete overview of cash flow, including:

• Where your customers are located
• Which currencies and methods of payment do customers prefer
• Net sales of the product
• Transactions totals by country
• And more

 The dashboard for subscriptions lets you dig deeper into the monthly recurring income (MRR) and also includes SaaS parameters, including:

• Cross-sells and upsells as well as add-ons
• Value of each customer's long-term relationship
• Customer churn is the total
• In the cycle of billing, it is commonplace for churn to occur
• and more

With 's reporting feature, you can create and save customized reports, which lets you access the data you need, when you need it. Our support team will help you use these reports to discover the information you require to improve and grow your SaaS company. Additionally, you are able to share any report with key stakeholders via the dashboard or as a CSV, PNG, or XLSX spreadsheet export.

Make a Plan for the Future with Flat-Rate Pricing

With most SaaS billing software will require you to install to other solutions, or switch to the least expensive plan to get the functionalities you need.

On the other hand, is a fully-integrated payment service which means you don't require additional billing software. Additionally, all features are offered at a all-inclusive price (without the cost of migration).

Our team works in partnership with you to determine the most affordable cost based upon the amount of transactions , and you'll only be charged when transactions are completed.

3. Subscription Management Platforms

Chargebee: Built for Complex Subscription Logic

Chargebee is a popular choice to manage subscriptions and revenue management. Chargebee is compatible with a range of payment methods and payment gateways, however it's your responsibility to connecting to and configuring every one.

The features of Chargebee's comprise:

• Self-serve and automated subscription models
• Automated billing and invoicing
• Flexible pricing plans
• Quote management tool
• Smart dunning
• PCI-compliant checkout

Chargify: Subscription Management for B2B SaaS

Chargify is a subscription-based billing program specially designed for B2B SaaS. As of the date of this the writing of this article, Chargify is in the phase of partnering with SaaSOptics in order to create the new software business, Maxio. Through this partnership users of Chargify will be able to gain access to payment processing services but you'll require a different solution to deal with taxes and legal compliance.

Other important Chargify attributes are:

• Dozens of pricing and trial models.
• Experiences for signing up that are customized
• Automated dunning
• Self-service Analytics Suite
• Recognition of revenue

Recurly: Supports Multiple Payment Gateways

Recurly is a subscription-based and billing platform that helps you to optimize your growth strategy. Recurly advertises the ability to integrate easily with various payment gateways and merchant accounts but you'll need to be responsible for these services in addition to your Recurly plan.

Recurly's services include:

• Customizable subscription models
• Automated recurring invoicing
• Tools for revenue recovery
• Intelligent retention
• Subscription analytics

3 Payment Processors

Verifone Pay Platform for Enterprises

Verifone (formerly 2Checkout) offers an MoR model or a payment processing models. While startups may be able to use these services Verifone has been designed more to large-scale businesses.

The main functions of Verifone are:

• Reporting and analytics
• Global tax and financial and banking services
• Risk management and compliance
• B2B quote builder
• Channel partner management

Stripe, a well-known and trusted payment processor

Stripe is a payment processor for in-person and online transactions. Though Stripe offers a few services for managing your subscription, they often recommend integrating with Chargebee for more robust feature for billing recurring -- which means you'll need to manage and manage two payment platforms.

Some of Stripe's other features include:

• Checkout
• Fraud and risk management
• Payments online
• Pay in-person
• Controlling subscriptions
• Physical and virtual cards are issued
• Subscription business spend management

Braintree: PayPal's Answer for SaaS

Braintree from PayPal is a processing company that accepts Venmo (in the US), Apple Pay as well as Google Pay. The company also offers SaaS tools for managing subscriptions.

Braintree also has other noteworthy offerings. Braintree include:

• Merchant accounts
• Optimized checkout flow
• Options for risk reduction that are flexible
• Analytical insights on the lifecycle of subscriptions
• Integrations with third party integrations to help you manage recurring bills accounting, recurring billing, and much more