SaaS Billing Software: 7 Tools in 3 Categories & How to Choose -

SaaS billing software is a software that automates any of the various aspects of the billing cycle including payment processing, dunning, fulfillment, and more.

In this post, we'll be comparing 7 SaaS billing services which we categorize into three categories:

1. Subscription administration: This type of software lets you automate free trials, recurring payment schedules, and also the dunning process. There's a need for a different system for payment processing tax, chargebacks, and many more.
2. Processing of payments: These solutions gather data about payments and enable the transaction between two parties. Since there are many payment processors, you'll need additional software that can handle complicated recurring payments, taxes, chargebacks Dunning, and many more.
3. Merchants of Record (MoR): Having your billing system also act as the MoR implies that they manage the entire payment process through SaaS for you, including collecting and remitting local and international taxes (such as VAT and local sales tax) as well as ensuring that you are in compliance to local regulations and laws including chargebacks, tax refunds, and more. If you don't have a MoR, your business will need to be aware of and in that you are in compliance with local regulations and taxes within any country or region where you have customers.

 Table of Contents

•   The MoR you need for 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 Payment

Here's an overview of what you'll need to do acting as your MoR:

Customers visit your site to choose their subscription. Then, when they go to pay, it handles the checkout and closes the purchase. It operates the same as other common SaaS payment processors except for an important aspect: acting as the merchant in your account.

 The benefits from this is twofold.

1. relieves you of the responsibility of paying the local consumption tax, staying up to date in local laws governing transactions, managing subscriptions, payment processing, and more. If something goes wrong regarding taxes, local compliance or chargebacks, rates for authorization and so on. takes over to solve the issue on your behalf.
2. The entire SaaS billing process can be handled in one location -- Your account dashboard. Plus, you're only charged a flat fee for all services (more on this later).

Next, we'll take closer at how helps you with each piece of the process. Specifically:

•   Checkout
•   Process Payment
•   Collecting and Remitting Consumption Tax
•   Subscriptions and Recurring Billing Management
•   Retention Management
•   Analytics, Reporting and Analysis

Checkout: Customization of the Checkout for greater conversion

Many companies lose potential clients due to too much confusion in their checkout procedure. As an example it's a problem if the checkout display isn't in a way that matches the branding of the of the website, the potential buyer is less likely to feel confident that the transaction is safe. Or, a customer may opt not to purchase due to the kind of payment option you offer (a particular issue for international buyers).

Many payment processors will supply the checkout template and allow for a few simple customizations such as including your company logo. However, these checkout templates rarely provide the customization abilities necessary to fully improve your checkout to achieve high efficiency and conversion.

  however, on contrary, offers branding tools, CSS overrides, as well as a JavaScript library of common ecommerce options, allowing you to have complete control of every aspect of your shopping experience.

There are other options that can help you optimize your checkout:

• The most popular payment method: While Visa or PayPal may be common across the U.S., other forms of payment are utilized across other nations. If you don't provide the payment method of choice that buyers are used to then you'll lose fewer of them into buyers. However, it's laborious and draining on resources to add different payment options. This makes it easy for users to include a variety of preferred payment methods around the world right now (more on this in a subsequent section).

• Text Translations: If your checkout doesn't use the same with other pages on your website and you're not sure if it's a good idea to lose customers. You can allow customers choose the language they prefer at checkout or let choose the appropriate one based on where they are.
• Local currency conversions Certain customers may be unwilling to purchase because they do not know (or must figure out for themselves) how much the program will cost in local currency. solves this by automatically converting prices to local currency upon checkout. You can also create a customized price to each currency.
• Flexibility in integration choices: Part of choosing the right checkout flow is deciding whether to embed it on your website or redirect users to a different site. It offers three options that include: 1)) Integrate the checkout directly on your website, or) place a pop-up onto the page, and) redirect users to a separate webpage that's completely branded with your company's logo. These two options require just a couple lines of HTML and Javascript while the third is managed by . We'll host your complete shopfront as well as the checkout using your logo.

• Personalized support: If you need additional support, our team of software engineers can help design and develop the right checkout for your business (regardless of how large or small your company is).

Note: We also provide a checkout template that has been optimized to convert, however, many businesses find that it's easy to implement an individual solution using .

Pay Processing: Increase Authorization Rates with Localized Payment Gateways

In many cases, people are tempted to purchase, but their payment method is rejected or is too slow to process, so they can't make the purchase.

Improves authorization rates, so you can earn more revenue by a variety of methods:

• Rerouting of payments by the payment gateway: If a transaction fails on the first attempt, instantly retries it with a different gateway- all without you or anyone on your support team being required to intervene. It is often able to fix payment problems because of connectivity or system issues.
• Manage preferred payment service providers: As we mentioned previously, implementing the new methods of payment can result in an enormous burden on resources. Every card network and issuing bank have different levels of tolerance for charges and fraud, as well as different guidelines for when the transaction is conducted. If you aren't in compliance with these regulations then the network of your card is likely to stop approving payments. We are responsible for keeping up with the various requirements of payment service providers, and we take care of chargebacks, fraud as well as other issues for you.
• Localizing payments processing: Card networks are more likely to accept transactions made via a local processor. For example, if the purchaser is located in Italy the merchant has to be an official organization located in Italy in order to have higher authorization rates. collaborates with processors across all over the world to make sure that the majority of transactions are made locally.

Collection and Remitting of Consumption Tax: Expand Globally Without Hefty Fines

Some SaaS billing software will help you collect tax but, in the end, you'll be accountable to collect and pay exact amounts at the right time. It's a major job for any company.

 Because serves as your MoR. We manage all details of collecting, and paying consumption tax on your behalf.

automatically calculates the right kind and amount of tax. We then add the tax to the cost for the customers at checkout (we additionally support tax-exempt transactions, as well as other specific circumstances). At the end of each tax period we submit taxes to the appropriate authorities. Additionally, we will lead when it comes to audits.

Subscription and Recurring Billing Management Design Custom Trials and Subscriptions While Making sure you are in compliance with local jurisdictions

There are a variety of subscription management programs that offer flexible options for creating trials and recurring subscription plans. If you choose the best trial and recurring billing model it is possible to win more customers and increase revenue.

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

Most subscription management solutions will notify you when they are aware of changes to the law and regulations, however you are ultimately accountable. If you don't adhere to these ever-changing laws and regulations You could be subject to heavy fines or be prevented from conducting business in that area.

 relieves you of this responsibility by taking complete obligation to adhere to local laws and regulations for transactions.

Our experts in legal matters keep up-to-date on all relevant legalities and make certain that the proper processes are in place to paying customers. It is possible to begin selling products in 200+ regions almost instantly because we've already established the processes required in each region.

Additionally, has a variety of pre-configured trial and subscription options so it is possible to create customized solutions with no code. Or, you can use the API and webhooks to design sophisticated subscription logic and integrate it into.

 Here are some examples of of trials and billing logic you can design using

• Trials for free or with a fee
• Tests without or with no payment details
• Trials which automatically renew until an active plan
• The duration of subscriptions can be any length
• Mid-cycle adjustments to the cycle
• One-time purchases are added to recurring payment
• Cross-sells and upsells and many more

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

Involuntary churn being one of the main ways businesses that use subscriptions lose customers. most SaaS billing applications offer the basics of retention management, such as retrying failed payments or email notifications sent to clients following an unsuccessful payment. However, these features are only helpful following a payment has failed.

lets you turn on active notifications which remind the client to correct their information about their payment prior to when the transaction can take place. In our experience, these proactive reminders can dramatically reduce the number of failed payments initially.

After a failed payment it is possible to automatically send out reminders for two, seven, five, 14, and 21 days after an unsuccessful payment. During the 21 days the customer's services won't be affected. With frequent reminders and continuing the service, customers will be more likely to change their details, which will reduce the rate of involuntary turnover.

offers a self-service portal through which customers can change their information and upgrade or downgrade their subscriptions. When customers can manage their own accounts, you'll have less hassle in your user experience, which results in more revenue. Self-service portals can be customized to match your brand identity but it's run by our team which means your employees don't have to think about it.

Analysis and reporting: Consolidate Business Choices

's analytics and reporting feature lets you understand the way each product affects your bottom line, what coupons or promotions are working, which subscription models bring in the highest revenue and much more.

 The revenue overview dashboard gives you a complete view of your cash flow including:

• Which areas are your clients located
• What payment options and currencies do consumers prefer?
• Net sales of the product
• The total transactions per country
• and more

 The dashboard for subscriptions lets you dig deeper into your monthly recurring revenues (MRR) as well as SaaS indicators, for example:

• Cross-sells, upsells, as well as other add-ons
• Value of each customer's long-term relationship
• Total customer churn
• When the billing cycle is in progress, the churn is most likely
• and more

By using's reporting features it is possible to create and save your own custom reports that allows you to have the necessary information at the time you require it. Our team can help users use these reports to find the answers you need to improve and grow your SaaS company. You can also communicate any report to key people via the dashboard. Or, you can export the report in the form of a PNG, CSV, or XLSX spreadsheet export.

Make a Plan for the Future with Flat-Rate Pricing

For the majority of SaaS billing software it is necessary to either add to other solutions, or upgrade to the most expensive plan to access all the features you require.

On the other hand, is a full payment system which means you don't require additional billing software. Furthermore, all offerings are provided at one cost (without any migration fees).

Our team will work together with you to come up with an affordable price that is based on the volume of transactions you move through  You'll only be charged for transactions that are completed.

3. Subscription Management Platforms

Chargebee: Built for Complex Subscription Logic

Chargebee is a popular choice for subscription billing and revenue management. Chargebee has a variety of payment options and payment gateways, however it's your responsibility to partnering with and configuring each one.

Some of Chargebee's features comprise:

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

Chargify: Subscription Management B2B SaaS

Chargify is subscription billing software specially designed for B2B SaaS. At the time of 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 the customers of Chargify will gain access to payment processors but you'll require a different solution to deal with taxes and compliance with the law.

Other important Chargify characteristics comprise:

• Dozens of trial and pricing models
• Experiences for signing up that are customized
• Automatic dunning
• Analytics suite for self-service
• Recognition of revenue

Recurly: Supports Multiple Payment Gateways

Recurly is a subscription and billing platform that helps you to optimize your growth strategy. Recurly claims to be able to integrate easily with various merchant and payment processors, however, you still need to pay for these third-party solutions on top of the Recurly plan.

The services offered by Recurly comprise:

• Customizable subscription models
• Automated, recurring invoices
• Revenue recovery tools
• Intelligent retention
• Analytics on subscriptions

3 Payment Processors

Verifone Pay Platform for Enterprises

Verifone (formerly 2Checkout) allows you to choose between an MoR model or a payment processing models. While startups may benefit from the services of Verifone, Verifone has been designed more toward large enterprises.

Verifone's main features include:

• Analytics and reporting
• Global tax and financial services
• Compliance and risk management
• B2B quote builder
• Channel partner management

Stripe is a well-known payment processor.

Stripe is a processor for payments that allows transactions online as well as in person. Although Stripe provides a handful of services for managing your subscription and features, they usually recommend that you integrate with Chargebee to offer more extensive feature for billing recurring that means you'll need to manage and pay for two different platforms.

Other features offered by Stripe comprise:

• Checkout
• Management of risk and fraud
• Payments online
• In-person payments
• Controlling subscriptions
• Card issuing both physical and virtual
• Business spend management for subscriptions

Braintree: PayPal's Solutions for SaaS

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

Braintree also has other noteworthy offerings. Braintree are:

• Merchant accounts
• Optimized checkout flow
• Flexible risk mitigation solutions for risk
• Analytics on the subscription lifecycle
• Integrations from third-party companies for recurring billing as well as accounting and accounting.