Which Subscription Billing Software Suits You The Best?
Are you looking for the best subscription billing software? Whether you are a startup with a small volume of invoices to process, or a big company in full development, know that there is always a solution to match your needs! 🤝
Subscriptions are a real plus in a commercial offer, as long as they are in line with your customers' expectations, right?
These expectations are also changing, which means companies might want to renovate their subscription billing process. The question is, how?
To help you make your way through, we selected 10 of the best subscription billing tools, each one adapted to different types of companies and with various functional coverages.
Let's get into it! 👇
10 of the Best Subscription Billing Software
1 of 10
 Billsby |  Chargebee |  Chargify |  Invoicely |  Sticky.io |  Stripe Billing |  Wave Accounting |  Xero |  Zoho Billing |  Zuora |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| For all companies | For companies with 2 to 250 employees | For all companies | For all companies | For all companies | For companies with more than 1 employees | For companies with 1 to 250 employees | For companies with more than 1 employees | For all companies | For companies with 2 to 5000 employees |
| See software | See software | See software | See software | See software | See software | See software | See software | See software | See software |
| Learn more about Billsby | Learn more about Chargebee | Learn more about Chargify | Learn more about Invoicely | Learn more about Sticky.io | Learn more about Stripe Billing | Learn more about Wave Accounting | Learn more about Xero | Learn more about Zoho Billing | Learn more about Zuora |
Billsby
🔍 What is Billsby?
Billsby is subscription billing software suitable for any business type. Trusted by hundreds of companies worldwide, it offers easy integration and customizable features.
Once customers sign up for your service, they gain access to a self-managed account with various options. If they decide to leave, Billsby's client retention tool helps you retain them.
⚒️ Features
- Create your own platform: Billsby gives you the opportunity to offer your own products adapted to your needs with advanced pricing models, advanced billing options, flexible add-ons and allowances, discounts and coupon push, etc. Billsby respects your brand identity. It also allows you to update brand elements and customize your platform at a glance.
- Integrate with other tools: If you are not a multitasker, don't worry! You can easily integrate other accounting solutions such as Freeagent, QuickBooks, Xero, and more than 2000 applications into Billsby with no extra fees. You can also add Billsby to your website to better handle technical problems by using their own WordPress plugin.
- Reporting: All the statistics you need to manage your subscription are in one place! Billsby offers a dashboard that collects all the information on activity summary, taxes, and exit reasons to help you stay on top of your subscription management.
- Obtain and retain customers: Regularly improving your service is the best way to keep customers. Understanding this need, Billsby provides customers with a simple and flexible checkout to make their subscription easier than ever. Furthermore, Billsby also manages sales tax and compliance, in-life account management, and churn reduction by using the accounting management tool.
💰 Pricing
When it comes to pricing, Billsby has two offers:
- The core plan costs $35 per month with unlimited.
- The custom plan depends on various factors and is available upon quotation.
Billsby
Chargebee
🔍 What is Chargebee?
Chargebee is subscription billing software that extends beyond billing and invoicing. It enables businesses to scale strategies globally. Trusted by over 4,500 partners worldwide, Chargebee is renowned for its powerful features and efficiency.
⚒️ Features
- Subscription management: Chargebee gives you the possibility to plan and price the way that you want. The subscription plans can be changed rapidly and automatically with a flexible billing rhythm. You can use Chargebee for subscriptions, but also for discounts and coupons push, dunning management, bill management, checkout, and a self-serve portal for customers.
- Billing automation: All you need to do is focus on your SaaS business strategy, and leave the rest up to Chargebee. Everything is digitalized. The software streamlines your recurring billing and eliminates manual errors. You can also structure customer accounts as Parent-Child relationships to better manage them.
- Recurring payment: You can accept subscription payments from anywhere around the world using any payment method (credit card, digital payment platforms such as Google Pay, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, etc.). Chargebee supports 23+ payment gateways and 100+ currencies. When common payment failures occur, you can recover them easily with Chargebee.
- Accounting and taxes management: Not only for subscription billing management, Chargebee also handles tax management. It regularly updates the tax regulations for each country, EU-VAT complications, and GAAP-compliant accounting standards. Furthermore, Chargebee integrates with other solutions such as Sage Intacct, Oracle NetSuite, Xero, and QuickBooks in order to optimize your work as much as possible.
- Reporting and analytics: Reporting helps you know where your business has to improve. Chargebee gives you great tools such as subscription churn reports, acquisition analytics, deferred revenue reports to manage the churn rate, and custom reports.
💰 Pricing
In terms of pricing, Chargebee offers a freemium plan for 3 users for your first $100k revenue. Once $100k is invoiced, you will be auto-converted to $99/month with a 0.5% average fee (if your revenue is more than $25k/month).
Pricing also increases based on the number of users. There is a custom plan if you want to get a platform tailored to your company’s needs.
Chargebee
Chargify
🔍 What is Chargify?
Chargify is subscription billing software for fast-growing B2B SaaS companies. Many large companies choose Chargify as their primary billing solution because it simplifies the billing process. The software also offers blogs, webinars, and guidance to support companies in their setup and usage.
⚒️ Features
- Billing: Chargify gives you the possibility to create different billing scenarios. For example, a freemium plan to increase adoption and drive traffic, a targeted promotion plan to drive new lead acquisition, and keep existing customers. Beyond that, Chargify also can help you make a personalized offer and modify your offer portfolio at a glance.
- Subscription management: Enhancing the relationship with your customers is always important. Chargify simplifies the billing process from the sign-up step to the payment step. Your customer is always informed about any changes, renewals, promotional offers, etc. These simple actions will make the client experience better than ever!
- Accounting: More than just a subscription billing software, Chargify is also an accounting management solution that works with any go-to-market model. It allows you to configure your revenue recognition, calculate journal entries, build financial reports, and integrate your financial system.
- Data analytics: With the help of stream, an event streaming & analytics platform, and business intelligence tools, you can fully manage all the analytics and get real-time reports to improve the services you offer.
- Integrations: Chargify integrates with more than 36 CRM, sales, marketing, workflow, and accounting tools such as Salesforce, QuickBooks, Zendesk, Hubspot, etc. to optimize your work.
💰 Pricing
Unlike other software on the market, Chargify’s pricing is quite high, but the price accounts for the high quality.
The paid plan starts from $599/ month.
Chargify
Invoicely
🔍 What is Invoicely?
Invoicely is a free online subscription billing software designed for small businesses. Over 250,000 companies use Invoicely for its freemium plan, intuitive interface, and excellent features.
⚒️ Features
- Seamless invoicing: Create professional invoices and estimates within seconds with Invoicely. You can send unlimited invoices to your clients and require subscription payment without paying extra costs. Moreover, Invoicely makes it easy to customize an invoice and create a financial statement.
- Online payment: Invoicely accepts online payments from anywhere around the world, in any currency, and from any client. You can pay with PayPal, credit card, or any other popular payment method. The taxes, discounts, and shipping fees will be added automatically to customer subtotals.
- Tracking: With a click of a button, you can track time, expenses, and miles and convert them into an invoice. All you need to do is follow two simple steps: send invoices and get paid.
- Branding: Add a piece of your brand to the platform by customizing the interface with your own color codes and logo. Businesses can then personalize not only the interface but also invoices and their business domain!
- Teamwork: Invoicely makes teamwork more efficient than ever. You can set up multiple businesses, set permissions for each member, view employee’s activity status, and manage your customers from anywhere.
- Reporting: Always stay on top of your finances by accessing an overview of your financial health. Use monthly and annual reports of your estimates, invoices, and bills to keep track of every account and track every step of your business activities.
💰 Pricing
Concerning the pricing, besides the free plan, Invoicely also offers good paid plans that start from $9.99 per month.
The professional plan costs $19.99 per month, and the enterprise plan costs $29.99 per month with unlimited users.
Invoicely
Sticky.io
🔍 What is Sticky.io?
Sticky.io is a full-stack subscription billing software for commerce and e-commerce. No additional plugins or software are needed for setup. Sticky.io goes beyond the 'buy' button, helping you:
- fight fraud,
- reduce churn,
- gain insights and reports,
- and enhance the customer purchase experience.
Trusted by thousands of businesses, Sticky.io is used daily to elevate billing and orders.
⚒️ Features
- Flexible subscription: Sticky.io accepts any subscription billing model and payment option. It gives the client convenience and flexibility. Moreover, this software allows you to create promotions, discounts, and surprise gifts for clients in order to decrease the churn rate. Clients will also receive product recommendations at checkout as an upselling strategy.
- Billing management: You don't have to worry about subscription payments because Sticky.io will manage them for you. It facilitates the customer’s payment by integrating with worldwide leading payment gateways. In case of failure, the client can be paid back and remake the payment.
- Client retention: Client acquisition is hard, don’t let them leave just because of a failed payment or a complicated payment process. To avoid that, Sticky.io regularly updates the customer’s information and sets payment reminders based on the customer’s behavior data.
- Customer management: Sticky.io helps customers stick with you! This software gives the customer all the freedom they need: They can manage their own subscription (update, cancel, or skip a payment), and your company can reward them for their loyalty, accompany them if they change their location, and give customers free templates.
- Data analytics and reporting: Reporting will help you visualize where you have to improve for better service. It gives you information about revenue, customer behavior, taxes, etc.
- Integrations: Sticky.io has more than 400 partners in e-commerce, CRM, payment processing, and HR such as Salesforce, Shopify, Big commerce, etc. You can integrate this software easily with the other tools that you use.
💰 Pricing
In terms of pricing, Sticky.io doesn't offer public pricing on the website. You’ll have to provide further information to request a quote.
Sticky.io
Stripe Billing
🔍 What is Stripe Billing?
Stripe Billing is a leading solution in the online subscription payment industry, renowned for its extensive experience. While it is designed for developers, third-party plugins and applications enable users to benefit from Stripe's services without coding.
One of Stripe Billing's key advantages is its support for a wide range of languages, currencies, and payment methods, including local options specific to each country. This makes Stripe an excellent choice for selling services or products globally.
⚒️ Features
- Accelerate your integration and deployment: In fact, as an API, Stripe Billing is a tool that can be easily integrated into your website. So whether it's on your website, on a mobile application, or even on a customer relationship management system, it can be easily integrated. The API is modifiable, so any developer who wants to customize the billing can do so as they wish.
- Modify invoices: The invoicing process is simplified as well as the possibility to modify these invoices. Moreover, most currencies are taken into account which is very useful. This feature allows you to save time by not having to change the currencies each time for each payment made.
- Customer management: Stripe Billing offers your customers the possibility to pay invoices on the dates they want. Thanks to this feature, you can create punctual invoices. This will reduce the abandonment and rejection rate of your customers' shopping carts. After creating your account, you will be able to check, review, and design all invoices and subscriptions. In addition, you will have detailed reports to monitor everything that is happening.
💰 Pricing
Pricing for Stripe Billing is tailored to your usage and the functionality you need.
If your company processes a high volume of payments or has a unique business model, you have to contact the client support team.
Stripe Billing
Wave
🔍 What is Wave?
Finding good, free subscription software can be challenging, but Wave is an exception. This cloud-hosted software is completely free, supported by advertising banners, and requires no local installation on a server or workstation. Its modern interface is easy to navigate and use.
⚒️ Features
- Optimize your revenue, monetization, and reduce churn: It helps you understand the dynamics of your business and visualize where you need to focus your efforts. You can explore subscription data, including MRR, MRR movements, MRR breakdown, net cash flow, etc.
- Customer support: The Live Chat service is very responsive, if you need help you can ask them questions directly in the application. However, the service is currently only in English.
- User Interface: Waveapps interface is super ergonomic and very easy to understand. Like other invoicing platforms, you will also be able to do your tax remittances and accounting through the application. Waveapps is not as extensive as Quickbooks in this respect, so it is essential to check with your accounting department to see if it has all the features your business needs.
- Integration: Wave allows for several integrations with CRM systems. You can therefore easily automate processes and use other tools to optimize the performance and efficiency of your business.
💰 Pricing
This software is 100% free, with lots of good features, including a possible add-on for payroll management, which is a very good option for any size of business.
Payroll ($20/$35), and advisor support ($149/$329) come at additional monthly costs.
Wave Accounting
Xero
🔍 What is Xero?
Xero is a cloud-based subscription billing software offering extensive accounting management features, including:
- over 800 integrations,
- numerous reports,
- and unlimited users.
Trusted by over 2,000,000 users, Xero is the leading subscription billing solution.
⚒️ Features
- Streamlined transactions: Take advantage of its multiple approval model and two-factor authentication to minimize the possibility of financial fraud.
- Reporting: It comes with an easy-to-use dashboard that allows you to easily track the status of invoicing across the company.
- Integration with a wide range of tools: It offers reliable integration with many popular third-party solutions including Kabbage, ZenPayroll, Evernote, Deputy, Vend, Stitch Bill, Labs, Synergy, Mogul, Workflow Max, Carbon Analytics, among others.
- Inventory management: Track your inventory and maintain detailed records. These records include purchase costs, descriptions, committed quotes, tax status, and more.
- Templates: Speed up invoice production by using existing invoice templates and defining recurring invoicing.
- Instant payement: Integrate a "Pay Now" option into your online invoice to allow the customer to make instant payments.
💰 Pricing
Xero offers a great customer experience with a free trial.
The paid plan starts from $12 per month and can go up to $65 per month. This is great for businesses and professionals looking to try the solution before making their final purchase.
Xero
Zoho Subscriptions
🔍 What is Zoho Subscriptions?
Zoho Subscriptions is a comprehensive SaaS subscription management system by Zoho. Integrated with Zoho Books for billing, it relieves companies of managing and collecting recurring payments. This service includes a subscription management module, provided the subscription plans are available for sale on the company's website.
⚒️ Features
- Automate your recurring invoices: Optimize the billing of your company’s subscription sales by offering an online subscription solution to your customers. Businesses can also manage invoice tracking and recurrence, send them to customers with an online payment link, and automatically activate the main related tasks.
- Set up your subscription catalog: Create products, best-in-class pricing plans, and add-ons as you design them and manage the entire subscription lifecycle in Zoho Subscriptions from billing to payment.
- Optimize customer payments: Choose the payment methods best suited to your target customers to help them pay for their online subscriptions: checks, credit cards, online payment, and even local methods in other countries.
- Analyze key subscription metrics: Get key information about the status of your subscriptions on your homepage. With Zoho Subscriptions, you can measure your net revenue, churn rate, MRR, new activations, free subscriptions, and cancellations.
- Offer a portal to your customers: Provide your customers with easy access to their subscriptions, invoices, and payments. They will be able to cancel their subscriptions directly, modify their contact information (billing and shipping addresses) and forward their invoices to other people to activate payment.
- Integrations: Take advantage of integrations with third-party solutions such as CRMs, accounting management platforms, etc. With Zoho or Zapier, you can connect your subscriptions to more than 1,000 web applications on the market.
💰 Pricing
Pricing is available on demand.
You have to request a quote so that Zoho can help choose a plan that suits your needs.
Zoho Billing
Zuora
🔍 What is Zuora?
Zuora is a software for managing:
- subscriptions,
- memberships,
- and recurring payments, used by many companies worldwide.
Designed to assist with subscription billing and financial operations, Zuora helps businesses serve customers, introduce new products, and boost sales. As a leading SaaS solution in the subscription billing software market, Zuora is a top choice globally.
⚒️ Features
- Complete subscription model: It provides a complete subscription model allowing you to manage your recurring invoices easily.
- One payment: It integrates links to the invoices to make payments online.
- Dashboards and control: It generates dashboards representing the status of your subscriptions; thus you can better control your recurring invoicing.
- Automation and simplification: It automates and simplifies many billing processes, including complex transactions and unpaid processing.
- Secured billing: It offers a number of options to personalize the management of your recurring invoices as much as possible (contract duration, manual or automatic contract renewal, billing frequency, etc.).
- Personalization: It allows you to customize your subscription, having an ergonomic, responsive, and easy-to-use interface.
- Reporting: It issues reports allowing an efficient follow-up of customer accounts, and thus of recurrent invoicing.
- Additional information: It allows you to automatically add information on invoices and subscriptions.
💰 Pricing
Pricing is available upon request. It is also possible to test this software package for free (with limited functions, or a limited time period).
Zuora
Frequently Asked Questions About Subscription Billing Software
What is Subscription Billing Software?
Subscription billing software, also known as recurring billing software, is an online business management system designed for companies offering subscription-based products. This software enables businesses to create and securely store:
👉 In addition to invoicing, subscription billing software provides solutions for managing customers and schedules. It streamlines the billing process by transitioning from manual, physical methods to automated systems, enhancing convenience and efficiency in document delivery to customers.
What are the Benefits of Subscription Billing Software?
Its primary objective is to support accounting tasks and provide a comprehensive view of the company’s financial health. Sales departments can leverage this software to analyze best-selling products and adjust their offerings to align with sales trends, optimizing their business strategies.
- Time-saving. Firstly, electronic invoice delivery is faster than traditional methods, and the time required to create invoicing documents is significantly reduced. Additionally, these documents can be stored online, ensuring easy and organized access.
- Data security. In terms of security, your financial data is automatically backed up on servers, minimizing the risk of losing information and documents even if your free or paid accounting software malfunctions.
- Increase productivity. Subscription billing software can be operated from any computer with an Internet connection, allowing you to share access and information with your employees and accountant. This solution optimizes productivity and enhances collaboration between different departments, especially the marketing and post-sales teams, which benefit significantly from this software.
- Cost control. One of the key advantages of subscription billing software is cost control. There is no need for hardware installation; your business can simply install the software or access it online. The subscription payment model allows you to use various features of the software, ensuring that companies only pay for the functionalities they require, thereby minimizing wasted money on unused services.
- Better customer retention. Better service and improved customer retention are key benefits of subscription billing software. It enables companies to plan flexible payments, send coupons and invoices on time, and avoid errors. The goal is to provide efficient service and enhance the customer relationship. Satisfied customers are more likely to remain loyal, leading to higher revenue.
💡 Willing to know more about how subscription leaders are investing, winning, and growing customers in the retention era? Check out our report, made in collaboration with Chargebee. 👇
2023 State of Subscription Industry Report by Chargebee
Download the ReportWhat are the Main Features of a Subscription Billing Software?
These are the main features that you’ll find in almost every subscription billing software.
- Automatically generate recurring invoices, in particular through the management of subscription contracts and customer estimates;
- Issue reports allowing an effective follow-up on customer accounts, and thus of recurring invoices;
- Automatically add information on invoices and subscriptions.
- Easily create invoices with a personalized design;
- Include links to invoices for online payment;
- Generate dashboards showing the status of your subscriptions, so you can better control your recurring billing.
- Manage promotions and gift coupons effectively.
What is the Best Software for Billing?
There's actually no proper answer to that question.
Let's say, a given software could e considered as the best one for large firms. Yet, would it be the best for freelancers?
👉 The best software will be the one tailored to your needs:
- Does it match my needs?
- For who is it meant?
- Can I afford it?
Ask yourself those questions, that's how you'll find out which one is the best for you.
What is the Difference Between Recurring Billing and Subscription Billing?
Recurring billing and subscription billing both involve charging customers at regular intervals, but they serve different business models and have distinct characteristics. ☝️
Recurring billing refers to the process where customers are automatically charged for a product or service on a regular basis, such as monthly or annually.
This model is commonly used for services like utilities, where the customer is billed regularly for the continued use of the service without any specific commitment to a fixed term.
And, as we've seen, subscription billing involves charging customers a recurring fee in exchange for access to a product or service over a defined period.
👉 While both models involve regular charges, recurring billing is more about continuous service usage, and subscription billing typically involves a commitment to ongoing access to a product or service, often with additional benefits and structured terms.
Key Takeaways
Making recurring invoices goes hand in hand with subscription management, but it can be more complicated than it seems. A mistake or oversight has double consequences: it costs you money and reduces your credibility with customers! 😮💨
As such, a rigorous follow-up of invoices is necessary, which is greatly facilitated by using subscription billing software.
There isn't a single best software; you have to choose the one that suits your business the most. Remember to compare your needs and your budget before selecting a subscription billing platform!
⚒️ Looking for more tools? Check out our list of billing and invoicing software.