An In-Depth Guide for Subscription Billing Platforms (plus 5 options)

Most subscription billing platforms let you:

• Automate invoices and payment.
• Customize and manage the subscription or trial models.
• Provide a self-service portal to customers to help them control their accounts (including seat information, payment information, and many more).
• Offer and manage one-time add-ons Coupons, discounts, and more.
• Review reports and gather metrics regarding monthly recurring revenue.

However, the vast majority of businesses that use subscription billing will need solutions for different aspects of managing subscription billing, such as:

• Payment processing.
• Chargeback prevention and fraud prevention.
• Remitting and collecting tax on consumption.
• Legal Compliance.
• And more.

Some subscription billing systems don't address these vital aspects in managing subscriptions.

Plus, you'll need take into consideration whether the billing solution is compatible with businesses similar to ones like yours. For example, some billing services solely support SaaS firms, while other solutions support companies selling physical goods and/or services (e.g. gym memberships, monthly food clubs, or remote accounting).

 In this post this article, we review five of the top subscription billing platforms by specifying what areas of the billing lifecycle they are able to support, which alternatives you'll have to add, and what kinds of businesses they support.

Our solution lets worldwide SaaS businesses handle all the details on both lists above. So, we'll start with the deepest dive of . The other options on the list cater to ecommerce as well as companies that sell physical products and services.

 Table of Contents

•   Recurly
•   Chargebee
•   Chargify
•   Zuora

A Comprehensive Subscription Billing Platform Global Software Companies

is a comprehensive payment solution developed specifically for SaaS companies and companies selling products that are digital or downloadable. With , B2B and B2C software businesses can control:

• Different subscription plans, trial versions and one-time add-ons and much more.
• Automated invoices and customer notifications.
• Processing of payments (for many payment options around the world).
• Self-service portal that is fully managed for customers.
• Reporting and analytics.
• And much and more.

Plus, takes on the liability of transactions, that means we handle chargebacks, fraud prevention collecting and remitting consumption tax as well as legal compliance.

When you increase your usage, there won't be no unexpected costs since all features are offered for the same price, based on the amount of transactions that you make- and you'll only be charged after transactions take place.

 In the next sections, we take a closer examine how to:

•   Create Custom Subscription Models and Trials with no Code
•   Allow Customers to Manage account details from a simple Portal
•   Improve Your Checkout Process for More Conversions
•   Secure Your Business from Legal Liability of Transactions
•   Let Gather and Remit Sales Tax and VAT for You
•   Automate Payment Failure Handling and Reduce the Churn
•   Automatically collect Key Metrics and View Detailed Reports

Build Custom Subscription Models and Trials with no code

The majority of companies require a range of recurring billing models as well as trial options to suit different products and different market segments. The models that you are using initially may not be the best long-term models as your business changes.

Some billing platforms permit for custom subscription plans, but you'll need your developers team to configure these custom plans manually (with little or no assistance from the billing service provider).

 has a wide range of built-in options, so that anybody can create personalized subscription plans, even without any knowledge of technology.

Here are just a few examples of the types of trial and subscription plans you can set up:

• Paid, free, or use-based trial.
• Automatic billing when the trial period has expired (or allow customers to manually begin the paid subscription).
• Set up your billing frequency and/or date (or allow your clients to choose).
• Usage-based billing.
• Discounts, coupons Prorated amount, discounts, as well as once-off add-ons.
• Automatically store payment information (or allow customers to decide).
• Auto-renew to a different subscription plan.
• And more.

If you're in need of more customizations, you can use 's API and Webhooks Library to build your own subscription model. The developers are on hand to assist you in creating your ideal solution and address all questions that you might have.

Help customers manage account information through a user-friendly portal

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

• Subscriptions active and inactive (or trials).
• History of orders (and identification numbers).
• License keys and download history.
• Payment details.
• Contact details.
• and more.

Through this website, users can manage changes, upgrades, or downgrades to their credit card or bank account details, and more without contacting your team.

manages the entire portal to ensure that your staff doesn't have to. However, you'll have full control over the look and feel of the portal. It allows you to create an unified experience for your customers without straining your team of developers.

Improve the Checkout Process of Your Business for greater conversion

In the case of most subscription billing platforms, you'll require a separate solution for checkout and payment processing (which means additional fees and software that you have to control).

 allows you to manage subscriptions, checkout, and payment processing in only one tool.

With nearly 20 years of working with software companies, we have gained valuable insight into how you can optimize checkout for increased conversions. As an example, customers are more likely to follow to complete a purchase when:

• You accept the preferred method of payment.
• The money is accepted after the very first attempt.
• Checkout takes place in the local currency and language.
• The look and feel of checkout match to the overall design of the website.

Each of these areas is built into the platform

• Preferred payment methods: lets you accept the most commonly used method of payment around the globe.
• high approval rate for payments: Each card network and the bank that issued it has distinct acceptability levels for fraudulent transactions as well as chargebacks. Be sure that your transactions are compliant with the regulations in order that you are able to keep high authorization rates. In addition it is more likely for transactions to be approved when the gateway is a legal entity in the same location as the buyer. It works with multiple payment gateways all over the world, and transfers each payment to that gateway that has the highest rate of approval for the area.
• Automatic currency conversions: automatically converts prices into the buyer's local currency. You may choose to either select an exact amount for each place or do the conversion instantly.
• Checkout language translations: also helps you translate the checkout process into local languages. You can choose to have pick the correct one based on the customer's place of residence, or let the buyer choose which preferred language.
• Fully-branded checkouts: With , you have three options for checkout which include an embedded checkout, a pop-up checkout and a storefront managed by our staff. In each case, you can completely control the appearance and experience of the checkout or webpage. The majority of checkout options offer a few options for customization (e.g., add the logo, or pick from a pre-set list of colors) However, checkouts can be tailored to just the millimeter.

Guard your Company from legal Liability of Transactions

As experienced SaaS companies know well, it's necessary to outline the terms and conditions for the subscription. Customers must agree to those terms before collecting payments. The challenge is knowing the right terms to add in that contract. This becomes more difficult for international businesses because the exact details of what a contract must contain will differ with every nation, state, territory, and province. If you don't include certain elements correctly, you could face severe penalties or be disqualified from doing business within the jurisdiction.

Additionally, many states have extra laws and regulations for automatic recurring payments beyond what's specified by the agreement. As an example, India limits automatic payments up to 15,000 rupees (approximately $180 as of the date of writing). If the recurring amount is above that threshold users will need to approve the transaction manually each time. To avoid fines, you also have to submit an electronic Mandate to the Reserve Bank of India that describes how you'll be able to be in compliance.

Staying current with rules like these in every jurisdiction is a huge challenge for any business.

Customers, this is not an issue as we manage the compliance of local laws and rules. Our legal team keeps up to date with all transaction legalities and makes sure all the necessary procedure and documentation is put in place to process automated payments.

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

Allow Us to Gather and Pay GST and Sales Tax for You

SaaS businesses didn't have to collect consumption tax but tax regulations for software companies are changing and being more strongly enforced.

Most payment solutions will help to collect the consumption tax but you're still responsible for making sure that it's the right amount, and then remitting the tax at the conclusion of every tax period. If you fail to collect and remit the correct amount (and type) of consumption tax at the correct dates, you may be subject to severe penalties and be banned 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 the tax for you..

We support tax-exempt transactions and others special situations. We also serve as the primary representative on any audits.

Automate Payment Failure Handling and reduce churn

Between the initial transaction and each subsequent rebill, many things can go wrong that prevent the payment from going through and cause customers to turn. Working with hundreds of businesses, we've developed automatic processes that address the most common issues that cause churn and get back most payments that failed.

 Here are a few features that can help you reduce churn and failed transactions:

• Proactive reminders:In our experience, informing customers of upcoming payments and notifying them of the expiration date of payment methods is one of the most efficient ways to reduce involuntary churn , as well as the failure of transactions. You can also create automatic reminders for future payments.
• Reminders in multiple formats: When a transaction has failed, customers typically require multiple reminders until they can fix the problem (e.g. adding funds into their accounts, change their payment process, etc.). You can choose to send out follow-up reminders two five, seven, or 21 days after the first failure of the payment ( you can retry the transaction after each reminder).
• Continued service: Another effective way to reduce involuntary churn is to run the service while you attempt to make the payment. It will provide a better customer satisfaction since they have a chance to resolve issues without having to endure the unpleasant experience of a paused service. The more pleasant the experience for customers and the better the likelihood that they are to stay.
• Easy reactivation: After all reminders have been sent, you can choose to stop instead of cancelling the client's subscription. This will allow customers to restart their subscriptions without having to onboard yet (onboarding is often a significant barrier to restarting a service).

We have already discussed, also automatically retries every payment using a different payment method (without anybody on your team needing to lift one finger) to fix any failed payments caused by network issues.

Automatically Gather Key Metrics and review detailed reports

Analytics and Reporting lets you tackle questions such as

• How does each product contribute to my bottom line?
• Which are the products that have been most successful and which consume resources?
• Which promotions, coupons, and deals are drawing new customers?
• Which subscription model is most efficient?
• Which are the markets that have proven to be the most successful and which have the highest potential?

It has two dashboards in the main that include the revenue overview dashboard as well as the dashboard for subscription overview.

The Revenue Overview Dashboard gives you an overall view of your business's progress, such as:

• Your customers' locations.
• Which payment options and currencies do clients prefer.
• Net sales per product.
• Total transactions by country.
• and more.

Subscription overview dashboard subscription overview dashboard lets you track the monthly recurring income (MRR) and dig deeper into what's impacting your MRR over time. The dashboard provides statistics about:

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

It is possible to customize your report, save it and share reports with key stakeholders via the dashboard or as a CSV, PNG or XLSX spreadsheet export.

Four more subscription management platforms

Recurly

Recurly is a recurring-billing and management platform designed by companies that sell:

• Software for B2C and B2B.
• Mobile app.
• Entertainment and Media.
• Retail and consumer goods.
• Professional service.
• eLearning.

Recurly allows easy integration with various payment gateways, but you're accountable for setting up and managing each one. Many companies who use Recruly also end up adding programs to:

• Taxes (e.g., Avalara).
• Accounting (e.g. Accounting (e.g., for example, QuickBooks).
• Fraud protection (e.g. Sift- customers are automatically protected through Sift).

You'll also be responsible for taxes and transaction costs, so there's a good chance you'll require a separate department that is responsible for compliance. (With  all this, everything is covered in one package and fully handled by our staff.)

Chargebee

Chargebee is a subscription-based billing and revenue management system designed to:

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

Like Recurly, Chargebee is predominantly an application for billing subscriptions, so you'll probably require other solutions for taxes, fraud prevention payments, fraud prevention, and much more. Chargebee has a number of built-in integrations (e.g., Stripe, PayPal, SalesForce, and QuickBooks), however, these aren't included in the plans of any Chargebee package.

Chargify

Chargify provides subscription-based billing services to B2B SaaS businesses.

You'll likely need additional solutions for taxes, fraud prevention payments processing, tax prevention, and many more. Yet, Chargify does offer simple accounting software to recognize revenue (for various types of business).

Chargify has also joined forces with SaaSOptics in order to create a brand new company, Maxio. Through the merger, businesses that subscribe to services will benefit from more tools to manage their finances which include automated expense and revenue recognition, as well as automated reports.

Zuora

Zuora is an end-to-end platform for monetization that includes subscription management software in. They primarily serve companies that are in the following sectors:

• Manufacturing and IoT.
• Software.
• High tech.
• Media and Entertainment.

Zuora offers typically subscription-based pricing models (e.g., a usage-based freemium plan that is upgraded to a paid-for plan) however, they offer features to streamline accounting workflows, dunning, and payment processing (although certain companies do are able to connect to other payments gateways).