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The Best Billing Subscription Software In 2024

If your business offers services on a subscription model, you need a robust payment system to accommodate your needs. Discover our top choices for recurring payment systems.

    Davina Ward
  • Last updated onUpdated

  • Frank Kehl
  • REVIEWED BY

    Frank Kehl

    Expert Contributor

Our content reflects the editorial opinions of our experts. While our site makes money through referral partnerships, we only partner with companies that meet our standards for quality, as outlined in our independent rating and scoring system.

Some of the best small business credit card processing companies offer recurring billing features, but there’s no real replacement for dedicated recurring billing software for subscription business models.

Whether you offer magazine subscriptions, a grocery delivery service, a subscription box company, or software-as-a-service (SaaS), a good subscription billing service will meet all of your needs.

We reviewed the top subscription billing software, invoicing software, and payment gateways. We chose the best options based on their feature set, accounting integrations, reporting and analytics solutions, and payment gateway compatibility.

Learn More About Our Top Picks

CompanyHighlightsNext StepsHighlights
Square

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  • Integrated within the Square ecosystem
  • Flat-rate pricing (2.9% + $0.30 per online transaction)
  • No monthly/annual fees
  • Integrated within the Square ecosystem
  • Flat-rate pricing (2.9% + $0.30 per online transaction)
  • No monthly/annual fees

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FreshBooks Payments

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  • Seamless FreshBooks Accounting integration
  • Pricing starts at $17/month
  • 30-day free trial available
  • Seamless FreshBooks Accounting integration
  • Pricing starts at $17/month
  • 30-day free trial available

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PayPal

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  • Very easy to use
  • Online credit card processing starts at 2.59% + $0.49
  • PayPal Payments priced at 3.49% + $0.49/online transaction
  • Very easy to use
  • Online credit card processing starts at 2.59% + $0.49
  • PayPal Payments priced at 3.49% + $0.49/online transaction

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Zoho Subscriptions

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  • Highly-rated mobile app
  • Pricing starts at $49/month/organization billed annually
  • Free plan available
  • Highly-rated mobile app
  • Pricing starts at $49/month/organization billed annually
  • Free plan available

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Stripe Payments

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  • Excellent developer tools
  • 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction + Recurring payment fee
  • Two pricing plan options
  • Excellent developer tools
  • 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction + Recurring payment fee
  • Two pricing plan options

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Chargebee

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  • Generous free pricing tier
  • Monthly/annual billing — starts at $599/month
  • Startups can use Chargebee for free until hitting $250K in revenue
  • Generous free pricing tier
  • Monthly/annual billing — starts at $599/month
  • Startups can use Chargebee for free until hitting $250K in revenue

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Recurly

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  • Extensive feature set
  • Pricing starts at $249/month + 0.9% of revenue
  • Free trial available
  • Extensive feature set
  • Pricing starts at $249/month + 0.9% of revenue
  • Free trial available

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Zuora

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  • Extensive customization options
  • Pricing is dependent on the package you negotiate with the company
  • Free trial available
  • Extensive customization options
  • Pricing is dependent on the package you negotiate with the company
  • Free trial available

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Maxio

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  • Customizable usage-based subscription models
  • Pricing starts at $599/month
  • Free trial available
  • Customizable usage-based subscription models
  • Pricing starts at $599/month
  • Free trial available

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Show Fewer Options

Read more below to learn why we chose these options.

Table of Contents

What Are The Different Kinds Of Billing Subscription Software?

Option Features Offered Complexity Pricing
Payment gateways with integrated tools Basic Simple Low/No Monthly Fees
Invoicing platforms Strong Complex Medium ($5-100/month)
Specialized subscription managers Very Strong Quite Complex High ($100-$600/month)

There are multiple ways to manage subscriptions as a business. Fortunately, small businesses don’t have to opt for expensive subscription management platforms just to offer subscription options. Invoicing platforms and payment gateways with integrated solutions offer a more affordable option for basic subscription billing needs.

Check out our article to learn more about recurring billing and how you can implement it as a small business owner.

The 9 Best Recurring Payment Systems & Subscription Billing Platforms

The best subscription billing software offers strong reporting features, multiple payment gateway options, and many third-party integrations.

Our picks for the best subscription billing platforms are:

How The Best Subscription Billing Services Compare

Currency Conversion PCI Compliant Recurring Billing & Subscriptions Native eCommerce Integrations Native POS Integrations
Square Payments
Freshbooks With Freshbooks + Stripe
PayPal
Zoho Subscriptions With Zoho Commerce
Stripe Payments
Chargebee
Recurly
Zuora
Maxio

Square: Best All-In-One Payments Platform & Online Store

Total Rating 4.8
Fees & Rates5.0

Products & Services4.7

Contract4.3

Sales & Advertising Transparency5.0

Customer Service4.9

User Reviews4.9



Get a free card swiper from Square at no cost when you create a free account. Claim your card reader.

Pros

  • All-in-one payment system
  • Simple flat-rate pricing
  • Easy to use
  • Customizable online store options

Cons

  • Expensive for higher volume merchants
  • Requires add-ons for complex subscriptions
  • Account stability issues
  • Not suitable for high-risk industries

Why Square Payments Is The Best Choice For An All-In-One Payments Platform & Online Store

We chose Square Payments as one of the best subscription billing software because we believe it offers small businesses the most bang for their buck as a full-stack payment processor.

Like Stripe, Square combines payment processing with billing, invoicing, an mPOS app, employee management, and even an online store builder (something Stripe does not offer). Included in Square's payments ecosystem is support for subscription billing.

Square Payments Pricing

Square Payments online transactions are priced at a rate of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

If you’re offering subscriptions through the Square Online Store, you’ll have to buy at least the Premier plan, so you’ll be paying $29/month plus 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

If you purchase the Premium subscription plan, your rate will decrease to just 2.6% + $0.30/transaction, but you’ll also be on the hook for $79/month.

As with Stripe, Square’s flat-rate pricing is ideal for new businesses and lower-volume merchants. However, large merchants who sell at scale should still come out ahead using the Premier Plan’s discounted rate compared to Square’s standard rate.

Square Payments Features

Square Payments offers plenty of features for small business payment processing, including all the essential subscription management features one would expect from a full-stack payment processor. Here’s a look at Square Payment’s features:

  • Flat-rate pricing with discounts on higher-tiered Square subscription plans
  • Built-in invoicing features, including recurring invoices and automatic charges
  • Free ACH processing
  • Customizable online store building with Square Subscriptions API
  • Customizable Square checkout templates with BigCommerce, Wix, BigCommerce, Magento, and more
  • Affordable flat-rate pricing and no chargeback fees
  • Built-in PCI compliance
  • Offer customers buy now, pay later options through Afterpay
  • Seamless integration within Square’s ecosystem and tons of third-party software options

Square’s Subscriptions API allows you to review the invoices generated by subscriptions in your dashboard. You can also offer subscriptions via Square Online Checkout, a service that allows you to accept customers’ payments by simply sharing a link. Square Invoices also offers recurring invoicing with options for customers to opt into automatically recurring charges.

What To Watch Out For

Square may not be ideal for larger merchants with high-volume sales or for those who don’t wish to integrate with third-party subscription management software to access more advanced subscription management functions.

Choose Square Payments If You Want...

  • An all-in-one payment platform and online store
  • Flat-rate transaction fees
  • A system that is easy to use and connect to other Square products

Get Started With Square

Read our in-depth review

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FreshBooks Payments: Best Accounting Software With Support For Recurring Payments

FreshBooks Payments


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Pros

  • Good accounting and billing combination
  • Includes in-house payment processing along with Stripe and PayPal
  • Much cheaper than dedicated subscription billing apps

Cons

  • Relatively expensive for accounting software
  • Less robust than Recurly or Chargebee
  • Limits on users and clients

Why FreshBooks Payments Is The Best Choice For Accounting Software With Support For Recurring Payments

We chose FreshBooks Payments as one of the best billing subscription software options because of its impressive accounting features and integration.

While FreshBooks Payments doesn't offer a multitude of subscription-specific features like other specialized subscription billing solutions, it does offer support for recurring payments for a fraction of the cost of a software package like Chargebee.

FreshBooks Payments Pricing

You can use FreshBooks Payments (a rebranded version of WePay) to process payments from your customers at a rate of 2.9% + $0.29 per transaction, but if you’d rather use Stripe or PayPal as your payment processor, you’ll be charged 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

FreshBooks offers four different subscription tiers, with pricing starting at $17.00/month or $204/year when you pay annually.

To set up recurring billing profiles, schedule subscription payments, and save credit card details for your clients, you’ll have to purchase FreshBooks’ Advanced Payments add-on, which starts at $20/month for the Lite, Plus, and Premium plans.

FreshBooks Payments Features

Through FreshBooks’s recurring payments system, you can automatically charge a customer’s credit card, bank account, or PayPal account on a recurring basis. Here’s a look at some additional FreshBooks Payments features:

  • Accept international payments with FreshBooks + Stripe
  • Handle late payments with custom reminders and fees
  • Share secure checkout links available online or via text
  • Set up recurring payments through FreshBooks’ auto-billing feature
  • Optional yearly payment for discounted FreshBooks subscription
  • Very highly-rated popular mobile app
  • Built-in invoicing with advanced features such as invoice view notices, auto-charged late fees, and automated recurring invoices
  • Automatic expense tracking and receipt data capture

What To Watch Out For

FreshBooks can be an expensive option for businesses that are just looking for recurring billing or subscription features — but that’s because you’re paying for the fully-fleshed FreshBooks software suite.

As such, we think FreshBooks would be an ideal fit for businesses that need a combination of strong accounting features and subscription billing options, such as a subscription box company.

Choose Freshbooks Payments If You Want...

  • To start a subscription box company
  • Seamless integration with an accounting platform
  • In-house payment processing

Get Started With FreshBooks Payments

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PayPal: Best For Ease Of Use

Total Rating 4.2
Fees & Rates3.8

Products & Services4.2

Contract4.6

Sales & Advertising Transparency5.0

Customer Service4.1

User Reviews3.3



Pros

  • Easy to use for merchants and customers
  • No monthly fees and reasonable credit card processing costs
  • Built into PayPal Checkout

Cons

  • May not be suitable for complex subscription billing needs
  • High PayPal Payments processing fees
  • Account stability issues

Why PayPal Is The Best Choice For Ease Of Use

We chose PayPal as one of the best subscription billing platforms because of its ease of use, especially compared to similar options like Stripe. Not only is PayPal easy to use for merchants, but it's easy to use for your customers, too.

PayPal Pricing

PayPal’s subscription billing solution is built into its PayPal Checkout plan, so you’ll pay 2.59% + $0.49 for online credit card transactions or 3.49% + $0.49/transaction when using PayPal Payments. The lack of a monthly fee puts PayPal ahead of the pack compared to Square or Stripe, but PayPal Payments’ high fees even the playing field.

PayPal Features

We believe that PayPal’s features are best suited to small to mid-sized subscription-based businesses because it offers less customization and support for complex subscription billing needs compared to options like Chargebee or Maxio.

Here’s a breakdown of PayPal’s features:

  • Transparent pricing starting at 2.59% + $0.49 for online card transactions
  • PayPal Payments buttons for your checkout page, including Venmo and Pay Later options
  • Option to offer new subscribers promotions, including free trials or discounted trials
  • Support for fixed and variable subscriptions, including per-use charges
  • PayPal developer options, including Subscriptions API
  • Subscription reports, including new activity and MRR
  • Support for international payments and 100+ currencies
  • eCommerce integration with sites like Wix, BigCommerce, Shopify, WooCommerce, and GoDaddy
  • Easy-to-use interface

The PayPal brand, including Venmo and PayPal Pay Later, provides your customers with recognizable options. Hitting the Pay with PayPal, Venmo, or Pay Later buttons tends to be easier and faster than manually inputting card info. There’s a chance that those payment options could increase conversion based on checkout ease alone.

What To Watch Out For

While PayPal offers no monthly fees, its 3.49% + $0.49 fee for using PayPal Payments is on the higher end, especially when compared to Square or Stripe.

Some users also report withheld funds, frozen accounts, and unexpected account terminations, meaning account stability is one of the biggest concerns when using PayPal. This isn’t a problem unique to PayPal, other aggregators like Square and Stripe receive similar complaints.

Choose PayPal If You Want...

  • An easy-to-use customer interface
  • No monthly fees
  • A recognizable and trustworthy brand name

Get Started With PayPal

Read our in-depth review

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Zoho Subscriptions: Best Mobile App

Zoho Subscriptions


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Pros

  • Generous free trial with multiple billing models
  • Great international support
  • Free integration with Zoho Books

Cons

  • Limited to one hosted payment page for all your offerings
  • Difficult to integrate with third-party accounting software
  • Some syncing issues reported between Zoho products

Why Zoho Subscriptions Is The Best Choice For A Mobile App

We chose Zoho Subscriptions as one of the best subscription billing software because it offers one of the strongest mobile subscription management platforms on the market.

While other options on this list (including Square) offer mobile apps, we think that Zoho is the best as it's only dedicated to subscription billing management.

Zoho Subscriptions Pricing

You can begin using Zoho Subscriptions to test the features and functions (and even sell a few subscriptions) for free. Once you’ve sold more than 20 subscriptions, you’ll need to choose one of the paid plans on offer.

Pricing starts at $59/organization/month if you choose to pay monthly or $49/organization/month if you choose to pay annually. As Zoho works with a variety of payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net, processing fees will vary depending on the gateway you use.

Zoho Subscriptions Features

As a subscription management software, Zoho Subscriptions’ vast feature set comes as no surprise. Zoho Subscription’s features let you manage your customers’ billing experience, view key metrics, and customize the software to best fit your business’s needs. Here’s a look at Zoho Subscriptions’ standout features:

  • Supports multiple payment gateways, including Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, and more
  • Zoho Subscriptions mobile app that puts subscription creation, metrics, and management at your fingertips
  • Solid selection of third-party integrations, including Zapier, Slack, Google Workspace, Office365, and more
  • Completely customizable subscription management, including branding, automations, pricing tables, invoice tables, and more
  • 30+ reports, including MRR, LTV, and churn rate
  • Customizable Zoho billing API
  • Supports managing multiple subscriptions
  • Automatic prorated billing
  • Supports payment in multiple currencies and payment methods, including ACH, card, bank transfer, and more

Zoho Subscriptions offers recurring billing, subscription management, and invoicing crafted for the entire billing life cycle. The software is compatible with numerous payment gateways and can handle currencies from countries around the globe, making Zoho Subscriptions a good subscription billing solution for international eCommerce.

One great feature you’ll get with Zoho Subscriptions is a free integration with Zoho Books, Zoho’s online accounting software. Any business already using Zoho Books to balance its books should consider using Zoho Subscriptions as a subscription management solution. You’ll be able to integrate with other Zoho software packages (such as Zoho CRM) as well.

What To Watch Out For

There aren’t many reviews out there on Zoho Subscriptions specifically, but as always, we recommend reading your merchant agreement carefully before signing any kind of document. There’s nothing like an unexpected fee or stipulation to ruin your relationship with a software partner.

Choose Zoho Subscriptions If You Want...

  • A long-term free trial
  • International eCommerce support
  • The ability to integrate with other Zoho products

Get Started With Zoho Subscriptions

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Stripe Payments: Best All-In-One Payments Platform

Stripe Payments

Total Rating 4.7
Fees & Rates4.7

Products & Services4.5

Contract5.0

Sales & Advertising Transparency5.0

Customer Service4.5

User Reviews4.1



Pros

  • Strong developer tools
  • Built on the highly rated Stripe Payments platform
  • Affordable flat-rate payment processing

Cons

  • Flat-rate pricing gets expensive for high volume merchants
  • Additional per payment fee
  • Requires some technical skills to implement

Why We Choose Stripe Billing As The Best All-In-One Payments Platform

We chose Stripe as a top subscription payment software because it offers strong subscription billing management features built on top of one of the best-known online payment processing services — Stripe Payments.

You can create billing plans based on usage, the number of users, flat fees, or any other business model that suits your operations. You'll also get support for coupons, free trials, automated failed payment emails, automatically generated reports, and more.

Stripe Billing Pricing

Stripe Billing offers two pricing plans: Starter and Scale. Starter offers basic subscription management features and costs 0.5% on recurring payments. Scale boasts automation and strong reporting features and costs 0.8% on recurring payments and one-time invoices.

Stripe’s “full-stack” payment services package comes with no monthly charges or extra fees. Instead, similarly to other payment aggregators, Stripe charges a flat rate of 2.9% + $0.30 from each successful card charge.

For smaller businesses, in a head-to-head Stripe versus PayPal comparison, we’ve found that Stripe is the far more affordable option, while PayPal is far easier to use.

Stripe Billing Features

Stripe Billing builds on the excellent Stripe Payments platform with several impressive subscription management solutions. Here’s a look at the subscription management features you can expect from Stripe Billing:

  • Set up subscriptions through payment links, Stripe Checkout, or via custom integration
  • Revenue recovery tools, including customizable payment reminders for missed and overdue payments
  • Stripe-hosted customer billing portal
  • One-time and recurring invoices
  • Automatic retry for failed payments
  • Automatic revenue reporting to streamline accrual accounting
  • Create custom quotes and estimates for customers

What To Watch Out For

Stripe’s simple pricing scheme is beneficial to startups and smaller businesses, as it allows them to keep down expenses. However, for larger businesses, Stripe’s pricing model becomes increasingly expensive as transaction volume increases.

Choose Stripe Billing If You Want...

  • Simple pricing plan options
  • Flat-rate payment processing
  • Customizability with developer tools

Get Started With Stripe Payments

Read our in-depth review

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Chargebee: Best For Startups & Growing Businesses

Chargebee


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Pros

  • Startups can start using Chargebee for no cost
  • Extremely versatile
  • Compatible with many different payment gateways

Cons

  • Can’t manage more than one currency per dashboard
  • Interface isn’t optimized for mobile use
  • Can get expensive for larger businesses

Why Chargebee Is The Best Choice For Startups & Growing Businesses

Chargebee made our list of the best subscription payment software because we believe it provides a lot of value for both startups and scaling businesses.

Chargebee's capacity to handle multiple payment methods and tax profiles, large quantities of subscriptions, and the ability to tailor subscription packages to fit the needs of different kinds of businesses make it a great subscription payment software option.

Chargebee Pricing

Chargebee is designed to scale with your company as you expand, offering subscription packages for each stage of a growing business.

A startup can use Chargebee’s recurring billing software for free until $250,000 has been invoiced, after which you’ll be charged a fee of 0.75% on billing. Compared to Zuora or Maxio, this free trial period is very generous and best suited for newer businesses.

Chargebee’s Performance plan starts at $599/month until $100,000 has been billed, then adds a fee of 0.75% on billing.

Chargebee Features

Chargebee is one of the leading subscription billing management software and offers a strong collection of features best suited to supporting the needs of growing businesses and startups. Here’s a look at Chargebee’s subscription management features:

  • Advanced billing features such as coupons, gift subscriptions, advance invoices, and more
  • Support for multiple billing models and custom contract terms
  • Create custom payment pages and domains
  • Offers one-click payment method, offline checkout, and multiple payment methods for customers
  • Solid reporting features, including SaaS metrics, A/R aging, abandoned cart tracking, tax reports, and more
  • Dunning options for payment recovery and custom emails
  • Solid developer API options and filters
  • Xero, QuickBooks, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite, and Intacct integration options

Support for SaaS metrics and integration with Xero and QuickBooks is included with Chargebee’s lower-tier subscription plan.

What To Watch Out For

Chargebee doesn’t include a payment gateway or merchant account in its services. Thankfully, Chargebee integrates with a wide array of payment gateways, including Stripe.

Choose Chargebee If You Want...

  • Your choice of different payment gateways
  • A chance to start a business without massive payment fees
  • Tailored subscription packages for nontraditional businesses

Get Started With Chargebee

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Recurly: Best For Enterprise Businesses

Recurly


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Pros

  • Free trial offered
  • Several different subscription billing models offered
  • Support for over 140 currencies

Cons

  • Some customer service complaints from users
  • Limited native reporting features
  • Glitches can occur when the system is updating

Why Recurly Is The Best Choice For Enterprise Businesses

For larger businesses with complex subscription management needs, Recurly is the best of the best.

With its wide array of integrations, compatibility with 20+ payment gateways, support for several different billing models, and international business support (140+ currencies are supported), Recurly has a lot to offer enterprise-level businesses.

Recurly Pricing

Recurly is adaptable to a wide range of businesses, as customers can be charged in a number of different ways, depending on your chosen model. The system lets you test different pricing types so you get a sense of what best matches your customers’ needs.

Recurly offers three pricing plans: Core, Professional, and Elite. Recurly’s Core Plan starts at $249/month + 0.9% on all total processing volume (TPV), while the Professional and Elite plans utilize quote-based pricing.

While this promotion is generous, Chargebee’s free trial offers a more generous free trial period for startups or newly established subscription-based businesses.

Recurly Features

Recurly has an extensive feature set designed for the needs of larger businesses. If your business has any complex or even just slightly unusual subscription processing needs, odds are that you’ll be able to handle them with Recurly. Here’s a breakdown of some of Reculry’s standout features:

  • Multiple pricing models, including fixed recurring, usage-based, one-time purchases, volume pricing, and more
  • Offer promotions, including coupons, discounts, trials, and gift subscription options
  • Subscriber management actions, including pausing, upgrading, postponing, canceling, and more
  • Communicate with subscribers via custom email templates, dunning campaigns, and more
  • Configure multiple gateways, including a test gateway and custom gateway routing
  • Tax-inclusive pricing, sales tax support, and VAT and GST support
  • Zapier integration which connects another 2,000+ apps
  • Excellent reports dashboard, including MRR, plans, churn analysis, recovered revenue, trial performance, and more
  • Single sign-on access and user-based roles

What To Watch Out For

Smaller businesses will find much to like about Recurly as well, including the fact that you can sign up for Recurly and test out its features for free. You’ll need a paid account — and a connection to a payment gateway and merchant account — before you can begin taking payments from customers, however.

Choose Recurly If You Want...

  • A full-access free trial
  • Customizable subscription billing models
  • International eCommerce support

Get Started With Recurly

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Zuora: Best For Complex Billing Needs

Zuora


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Pros

  • Supremely flexible and customizable
  • Bills can be customized for each customer
  • Sophisticated analytics

Cons

  • Not for smaller companies
  • Significant learning curve
  • Limited annual subscription options

Why Zuora Is The Best Choice For Complex Billing Needs

We chose Zuora as one of the best subscription payment platforms because we believe Zuora offers the flexibility and comprehensive feature set necessary for handling complex billing needs.

Compared to simpler subscription billing options like FreshBooks or PayPal, you're going to get more customization options and built-in subscription management features with Zuora.

Zoura Pricing

Zuora software isn’t offered as a single package but as a collection of features that businesses can pick and choose from to create a tailored package that fits their particular needs.

As such, Zoura is a solution primarily for very large businesses with complex subscription management needs, and no pricing information is given on the website. This is a bit unusual, as both Chargebee and Maxio offer transparent pricing for at least one of their plans.

You can sign up for a free trial of the recurring billing software, however.

Zuora Features

Larger businesses or those with complex billing needs will find that Zuora’s feature set runs the gauntlet, from the decidedly basic support for card payments to the advanced AI-driven payment retries.

Additional Zuora features include:

  • Support for 20+ payment gateways
  • Multiple payment methods, such as digital wallets, cards, bank debits, and more
  • Strong fraud protection, including acceptance rule management
  • Extensive payment recovery features, including AI-driven retry scheduling and payment recovery metric tracking
  • Support for 180 currencies
  • Recurring invoicing with Zuora Billing

What To Watch Out For

Zuora is a subscription management platform that bills itself as a complete order-to-revenue service, letting you manage quotes, orders, and billing for the whole customer lifecycle.

A business using Zuora is likely to be offering products to large companies that require varied, customizable service packages. An ordinary subscription management service won’t be able to offer such flexible solutions. You’ll still have to connect Zuora to a payment gateway and merchant account, however.

Choose Zuora If You Want...

  • Robust customization capabilities
  • In-depth reporting
  • Integrations with popular payment gateways and merchant accounts

Get Started With Zuora

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Maxio: Best For B2B Businesses

Maxio


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Pros

  • Excellent features for B2B SaaS businesses
  • Compatible with a wide variety of processors and gateways
  • Excellent customer service

Cons

  • Relatively expensive
  • The merger has caused problems for some users
  • Reports are not always useful

Why Maxio Is The Best Choice For B2B Businesses

We chose Maxio (formerly known as Chargify and SaaSOptics before the merger) as one of the best subscription billing platforms because we believe it offers the best B2B payments experience of all the options on this list.

While other subscription billing software, such as Zuora, support B2B subscription payments, Maxio is specifically designed for those payments and offers a more drilled-down experience.

Maxio Pricing

The lowest-tier Maxio subscription goes for $599/month for up to $1 million in annual billing. Maxio’s Growth and Scale plans offer quote-based pricing. All of Maxio’s plans offer access to the Maxio platform, including financial automations, invoicing, and advanced reporting, advanced billing, collections, advanced revenue management, expense management, project tracking.

Additional services are offered as Maxio modules, which are essentially add-ons that make it possible to create custom service packages based on your business’s needs.

Maxio Features

With the power of Chargify and SaaSOptics, Maxio offers what is possibly the most extensive feature set of all the subscription billing options on this list. Here’s a look at Maxio’s comprehensive feature list:

  • Invoice for contract renewals, price increases, and more
  • Set flexible payment terms for your customers
  • Customizable invoice themes
  • Extensive reports with configurable dashboards
  • Integration with Salesforce, Hubspot, QuickBooks, and Xero
  • Supports 150+ currencies internationally
  • Advanced billing with automated dunning, support for parent or child invoices, and multi-attribute and usage billing options
  • Offer self-service billing portals for your customers
  • Designed to make the implementation process as easy as possible

Maxio lets you offer a wide variety of recurring billing models, along with events-based billing and offer management. Maxio is set up specifically to take advantage of Stripe’s features, should you use Stripe for payment processing. However, you also have the option of using any one of a host of other processing providers, including Braintree, Authorize.net, GoCardless, and more.

What To Watch Out For

Maxio is a recurring billing and subscription management software platform that, like most of the options listed in this article, requires connections to a payment gateway and/or merchant account. If you want an all-in-one experience, you need to look into providers like Square or Stripe.

Choose Maxio If You Want...

  • B2B SaaS business features
  • A choice of payment processors and gateways
  • Extensive subscription billing features

Get Started With Maxio

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Payment Processing Rating Methodology

Merchant Maverick has been researching the payment processing industry since 2009. Our writers have reviewed hundreds of credit card processors, merchant account services, and mobile payment apps, evaluating each provider carefully on several different metrics.

Weighted Rating Breakdown

Fees & Rates 35%
Contract 20%
Products & Services 15%
Sales & Advertising Transparency 15%
Customer Service 10%
User Reviews 5%

When comparing different payment processing companies and applications to one another, we consider numerous data points. Our experts start by comparing credit card processing rates, the presence of additional fees, contract length, sales practices, and the presence or absence of additional features and services, like point of sale software. Each provider is judged on its own merits and how well it stacks up to industry standards; then it is weighed against the other providers on the list.

We spend an average of 10-15 hours researching and updating each one of our lists, making sure every company or application included meets our internal standards for quality and reputation. Any list of recommended payment processors on our site might contain a mix of standard merchant accounts, third-party payment processors, mobile payment devices, and high-risk payment processors, depending on what our expert feels is the best fit for certain scenarios or business types.

For additional details about Merchant Maverick’s review and rating processes, please refer to any or all of the following methodology pages:

15

Years reviewing payment processors

100+

Providers evaluated

25

Attributes and features assessed per vendor

40+

Years combined experience


What To Look For In Subscription Billing Software

Not all subscription billing software is created equally — but that’s a good thing. Depending on your business’s needs, there are some key factors you should keep an eye out for when choosing a subscription billing software. Not all of these options will apply to your business, but we think they represent the gold standard of subscription billing software features.

Here’s a look at the key features for subscription billing software.

Support For Multiple Payment Types

Any subscription billing software worth its salt will be able to accept credit cards and bank (ACH) transfers. Support for mobile wallets and offline payment methods, such as wire transfers and checks, is also a plus. Essentially, you want to be able to accept payment in as many ways as possible. Otherwise, you’re just leaving money on the table.

Support For Multiple Payment Gateways

The benefits of supporting multiple payment gateways aren’t as obvious, but using multiple payment gateways helps ensure that you can accept payments in as many countries as possible. Also, it’s best not to have your entire billing system dependent on a single gateway.

Support For Multiple Currencies

Unless you’re selling solely to the domestic market (and do not intend to expand your customer base internationally), you’ll want subscription billing software that supports many different currencies.

A Customizable Checkout Page

A customizable checkout page allows you to make your checkout page match the rest of your site’s theme and branding, thus reassuring your customers. Anything that builds trust among your customer base can only help sales.

Accounting Integrations

To keep the books balanced, you’ll want to connect your billing software with an accounting platform, assuming you don’t use the same service for both functions. Many billing solutions offer integrations with accounting software, such as QuickBooks and Xero.

Reporting & Analytics

A good subscription billing platform should give you analytics and reporting capabilities. Cart abandonment reports, churn reports, subscription metrics, detailed revenue reporting — these things are all invaluable in building your business strategy.

Which Subscription Billing Software Is Right For Me?

There are plenty of subscription billing management options on the market, so it’s important to know what subscription billing features you need to support your operations and which features you may not need, depending on your business.

When choosing the subscription billing solution that works best for your business, be sure to consider your budget and the customer experience. Overpriced solutions that your customers dislike won’t do your business any favors.

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Davina Ward

Davina Ward

Expert Contributor
Davina began writing for small businesses in 2018 and has since gained expertise in the SaaS industry. She earned her Bachelor’s of Arts in English Literature from SUNY Geneseo in 2018. She currently resides in New York.
Davina Ward
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