The subscription-based business model has quickly gained acceptance in every industry and sector of the digital economy. They started with the service-based subscription models such as software as a service (SaaS) or streaming platforms, up to the more tangible physical goods that businesses rely upon in order to create recurring revenue.
Powerful yet efficient subscription billing software is what firms will require if they are to successfully operate in these kinds of subscription-based models. This article will cover what is known as subscription billing software, the things to look out for when picking one, some of the benefits that come with using such systems, and highlight 15 best subscription billing software.
What is Subscription Billing Software?
Essentially, subscription billing software is developed to automate and make smooth the process concerning recurrent payments pertaining to subscription-based businesses. Various solutions handle all aspects of the entire billing cycle, comprising invoicing, payment processing, revenue recognition, and subscription management. Upon becoming automated, businesses get to focus more on growth and customer satisfaction with the assurance of the right job at the right time regarding the billing process.
What to Look for in Subscription Billing Software
When weighing your options in best subscription billing software, here are some of the most important features that you’ll want to look for:
1. Flexibility
Ideally, it will support multiple pricing models like fixed-rate and usage-based but also hybrid models.
2. Integrations
You want to find platforms that integrate easily with all the other tools that you’re already using such as your CRM systems, accounting software, and payment gateways.
3. Scalability
It should be a solution that scales up because it should match the growth in business and transaction volumes as well as customer base.
4. Personalization
Your invoices, pricing plans, as well as your billing cycles, ought to be personalized according to your business requirements.
5. Reports and analytics
Proper reporting will give you enough information about subscription metrics and financial performance of your company.
6. Revenue recognition
Ensure that the system complies with accounting rules on the recognition of periodic revenue.
Benefits of Using Subscription Billing Software
There are many benefits in the sense of implementing the best subscription billing software for companies.
1. Productivity
The number of errors by manual entry is reduced, and the task of billing is completed efficiently without much time loss.
2. Cash flow
The inflow of revenue is steady by proper and timely invoicing.
3. Customer Experience
Self-service portals and flexible billing options enhance customer satisfaction
4. Scalability
Easy growth can be handled without the increase in administrative overheads to high levels
5. Data-driven decisions
Analytics are elaborate to inform and optimize price increases and determine opportunities for growth.
6. Compliance
Ensure that the accounting standard, tax or other applicable regulation are met.
15 Best Subscription Billing Software
This article speaks of 15 best subscription billing software available in the market so that you would learn each one of them in detail, thereby helping you make an informed decision for your business.
1. HubSpot Payments
HubSpot Payments is considered as one of the best subscription billing softwares. Its in-house payment options are offered natively within the HubSpot CRM system. You would be empowered to take payments and even manage subscriptions fluently right from within your CRM. This allows for a central view of the customer’s data that involves payment history, subscription status among others.
HubSpot Payments accommodates all the types of payments as well as currencies; this makes the platform easy to use by international customers. The other features in the platform include those which facilitate recurring subscription billing software plans, auto-invoicing, and financial reporting.
Key Features:
- Rollout part of HubSpot CRM
- Compatibility with recurring billing/subscription
- Compatibility with multiple currencies
- Automated subscription billing software
- Sending payment links
Pricing:
- 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for credit cards
- 1% per ACH transaction (max $10)
- No monthly fees
Best for
- Small to medium-sized businesses already using HubSpot CRM and looking for a payment solution that integrates with what they are currently using
Website:
www.hubspot.com/products/payments
2. Wave
The online subscription billing software reviews says that Wave is an integrated suite of financial software. Which provides tools for accounting and payments, including the generation of invoices and processing of payments. Even though Wave is not a subscription billing app by design, it’s pretty good with recurring subscription billing software invoices and payments.
Nevertheless, this application has a tremendous amount of opportunity for small businesses and freelancers because of the amicable interface and cheap pricing plan. The customizable invoice template and possibility of automated recurring billing along with multiple payment methods make Wave interesting.
Key Features
- Recurring Invoicing
- Multiple payment gateways
- Customizable invoice templates
- Basic accounting features
- Bank reconciliation
- Financial reporting
- Banking reconciliation
Pricing:
- Free for invoicing and accounting
- 2.9% + $0.30 per credit card transaction
- 1% per ACH transaction
Best for:
- Small businesses, freelancers, and entrepreneurs who want an accessible, all-in-one financial management solution that includes recurring billing.
Website:
www.waveapps.com
3. Zoho
Zoho Subscriptions offers fully-featured subscription management and recurring subscription billing software. It automatically manages the entire lifecycle of a subscription. You can provide quite a variety of pricing models using Zoho Subscriptions for fixed, quantity-based, and usage-based billing. The application also allows the support of trial subscriptions, upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations with tool support.
The application also features excellent reporting and analytics capabilities to know subscription metrics as well as revenue trends. The application integrates well into other Zoho products and third-party applications to provide so much functionality.
Key Features:
- It offers varied pricing models
- It offers dunning management
- Customer portal
- Supports proration and credit management
- Multilingual and multi-currency support
- API that can help in customizing most of the features
Pricing
- Basic: $49/month
- Standard: $99/month
- Professional: $249/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing depends
Best suited for
- SMEs mainly if they have other Zoho products, require a subscription management system which scales.
Website:
www.zoho.com/subscriptions/
4. Recurly
Recurly is the best subscription billing software for businesses operating in the range of small to large-sized organizations. It allows flexible billing options including fixed as well as usage-based pricing models and accommodates different payment methods as well as currencies. Advanced features offered in the Recurly platform include revenue recognition, dunning management, and churn prediction tools.
In addition, powerful analytics and reporting tools are included in the software package for better understanding of subscription metrics and customer behavior by businesses.
Key Features
- Flexible billing models
- Revenue recognition
- Dunning management
- Churn prediction
- Strong analytics and reporting
- Rich API and integrations
Pricing:
- Core: from $149/month
- Professional: from $499/month
- Elite: Pricing is custom.
Best Suited for:
- Mid to large companies with complicated subscriptions, or companies requiring advanced features with customization options.
Website:
www.recurly.com
5. Sage
It is a cloud-based finance management solution that further supports solid subscription billing capabilities. It is free subscription billing software. The tool carries the suite of comprehensive tools to manage complicated billing scenarios such as multi-element arrangements and contract modifications. Sage Intacct has advanced revenue recognition according to the ASC 606 and IFRS 15.
Powerful reporting and analytics provide business facts for any type of business to understand financial performance well. It might be overkill for a small business enterprise but for large enterprises with diverse needs about financials, Sage Intacct would indeed be the way to go.
Key Features:
- Complex billing management
- Revenue recognition for ASC 606/IFRS 15
- Multi-entity and multi-currency
- Advanced financial reporting and analytics
- Order management
- Custom dashboards
Pricing:
- Custom pricing based on business needs
Best suited for
- Medium-sized to large businesses with unique financial requirements especially when having strict requirements of regulatory compliance in some sectors
Website:
www.sage.com
6. FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a cloud-based accounting software that can offer you the features of invoicing and also subscription billing. While it is primarily used for its user-friendly interface and powerful invoicing, FreshBooks also has a series of resources that cater to recurrent billing and subscriptions. This facilitates automatic payments, automatic sending of recurring invoices, automatic tracking of time, and expenses.
It has more basic features about project management, including client portals, to make it easier to collaborate with a client. The integrations from multiple payment gateways and third-party applications make it strong for small businesses and freelancers.
Key Features
- Account Management
- Invoicing and Billing
- Track Time/expense
- Client portal
- Basic Project Management
- Multi-currency support
- Manage your mobile app on the go
Pricing
- Lite: $15/month
- Plus: $25 / month
- Premium: $50 / month
- Select: Custom pricing
Best suited for
- Small businesses, freelancers and service-based professionals who were looking for an easy to use platform with integrated accounting features and basic subscription billing capability.
Website:
www.freshbooks.com
7. Chargebee
Chargebee is actually the full feature subscription billing and revenue management product for any business, small or large. Chargebee can handle multiple complex billing scenarios such as usage-based billing, proration, and multi-currency. Chargebee supports subscriptions in varied scenarios like multiple phases of a subscription including trial, upgradation, downgradation, and cancellation.
It also guarantees complex revenue recognition and supports integration with all the payment gateways and most other business tools. It is versatile and scalable; the charge can accommodate any business size, from small and just starting up to being at the enterprise level organization.
Key Features:
- Flexible pricing model
- Subscription lifecycle management
- Revenue recognition
- Dunning management
- Deep API and webhooks
- Multi-currency and tax management
Pricing:
- Launch: $0/month up to $100k in revenue
- Rise: $249/month
- Scale: $549/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Best suited for:
- Scalable growth-from a startup to a larger business-for companies that need scalable, feature-rich subscription billing platforms.
Website:
www.chargebee.com
8. Square
Although Square is primarily utilized as a point of sale, it also features some quality recurring payment and subscription management tools. Included among its features are recurrent invoices, information on accounts, and automatic payments processing. Some of the other features, in addition to those listed above, are inventory management and appointment scheduling, along with marketing tools for businesses managing in-person sales and subscription-based online sales.
Key features:
- Recurring subscription billing software with invoicing and billing
- Customer management
- Integrated payment processing
- Inventory management
- Appointment scheduling
- Marketing tools
Pricing:
- 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for online invoices
- 3.5% + $0.15 per transaction for card-on-file and recurring payments
Best suited for:
- Small to medium-sized businesses that conduct in-store sales and subscription-based services, especially retail and service companies.
Website:
https://squareup.com/us/en/invoices
9. ChargeOver
ChargeOver is a recurring subscription billing software and subscription management tool, exclusively for privileged use, especially created to automate and make the billing process of business easier. It encapsulates multiple features that also control several models of subscription such as tiered pricing, usage-based billing, and one-time charges.
ChargeOver offers tools to manage every stage of the subscription lifecycle, including sign-up, through to cancellation and also ranges in a broad category of management and revenue recognition capabilities. ChargeOver is flexible, which means it’s customizable. It will fit companies that are geared to complex billing very well.
Key Features
- Flexible pricing
- Automated recurring billings
- Dunning management
- Customer self-service portal
- Revenue recognition
- Thorough API and integrations
Pricing
- Starter: $65/month
- Small Business: $299/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Best suited for:
- Its target are small to medium-sized businesses the companies with complex billing requirement or those who look for a dedicated solution to manage subscriptions
Webpage:
www.chargeover.com
10. Stripe
Stripe is the largest payment processor and offers highly powerful tools for subscription billing through Stripe Billing. Stripe Billing will enable businesses to manage all their recurring payments and supports very complex pricing models and fully automated invoicing. The company also supports various types of subscriptions such as fixed price, usage-based, as well as tiered pricing.
It has a very finely customizable and very granular API with lots of documentation and is appropriate for companies that have very particular needs. Great functionalities like smart retries on failed payments, proration, good analytics. What is also fantastic about Stripe is that it suits businesses in different regions of the world as it supports numerous currencies and different methods of payment.
Key Features:
- Flexible subscription models
- Automated invoicing
- Smart payment retries
- Proration handling
- Comprehensive API and documentation
- Global payment support
Pricing:
- 2.9% + $0.30 per successful card charge
- 0.5% for recurring payments additional to standard fees
Best suited for:
- Those that are of any size, especially if they have developers to tweak the platform or if they need worldwide payment gateway capabilities.
Website:
www.stripe.com
11. Invoicera
Invoicera is a powerful invoicing and billing application that offers recurring billing and management of subscriptions. Tools are available to generate and send highly professional invoices, track expenses, and job management. Invoicera has support for several languages and currencies; hence very perfect for a business that serves international clients.
The portal accommodates periodic automatic sending of invoices and overdue payment reminders in order to facilitate the process of billing businesses. It further offers time-tracking amongst many features. The portal integrates many payment gateways.
Key Features
- Has recurring invoice options
- Supports a variety of currencies accompanied by languages
- Tracks expenses
- Projects management
- Time-tracking
- Has several integrations with payment gateway
Pricing:
- Free: Free with a monthly limit of 3 clients
- Pro: $15 per month
- Business: $29 per month
- Infinite: $149 per month
Best suited for:
- Small and medium-sized businesses and freelancers who need an invoice application which is free and flexible with the possibilities to do recurring billing.
Website:
www.invoicera.com
12. Zuora
Zuora is enterprise-class subscription management and billing, which was designed to handle large operations and complex billing situations. It provides tools from quotation to cash point of the subscription life cycle. Zuora is advanced regarding pricing and packaging, where usage-based billing and complex rating algorithms can be supported.
The platform developed rich revenue recognition capabilities, which will help businesses follow accounting standards like ASC 606. The API and integration ecosystem is really very extensible and easy to connect with other business systems. Zuora might be a bit too much for small businesses, but it can be an excellent choice for large enterprises with complex subscription models.
Key Features
- Advance Pricing and Packaging
- Supports usage-based billing
- Revenue Recognition
- Quote-to-cash Automation
- Has an Enlarged API and Integration Ecosystem
- Features of this product are
- Advanced analytics and reporting
Pricing
- Custom Pricing according to business requirements
Best suited for
- Enterprise and corporate businesses that deal with intricate subscription models requiring a scalable and flexible solution.
Website:
www.zuora.com
13. Billwerk+
Billwerk+ is a European subscription management and recurring billing platform to assist companies in numerous sectors. This further enables the complete life cycle of subscription-the acquisition of customers and the subsequent billings. Finally, retention is taken care of.
There are a multitude of facilities on the Billwerk+ platform such as sophisticated pricing models handling tier, and usage-based pricing. Dunning management along with transactions across multiple currencies is some other core feature. Strict follow up with European regulations like GDPR and PSD2 helps business in the European marketplace.
Key Features:
- Customizable pricing models
- Dunning management
- Multi-currency support
- GDPR and PSD2 compliance
- Self-service portal for customers
- Full API and integrations
Pricing:
- Fine-tuned to the needs of the business
Best suited for
- Medium-sized businesses up to large enterprises that do their business within Europe or strongly need to comply with European regulations.
Website:
www.billwerk.plus/
14. Cleverbridge
Billspy is a highly modern, extremely user-friendly subscription-billing application that makes recurring revenue management much easier. In brief, it offers a super-intuitive interface for producing and managing subscription plans, signing up new customers, and processing payments. Billspy manages everything in the subscription lifecycle from trials, downgrades, upgrades, and cancellations.
It supports multiple price models with auto-prorating and built-in dunning management. On top of all that, Billsby offers a customer portal for self-service management and integrates with popular business tools as well as payment gateways.
Key Features:
- Easy interface
- Flexible pricing models
- Customer Self-service portal
- Dunning management
- Proration Management
- Integrations with business applications
Pricing
- Starter – $29/month
- Growth: $199/month
- Scale: $499/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Best suited for:
- Companies with small to medium-sized business needs, in terms of looking for user-friendly and feature-rich subscription billing solutions.
Website:
https://grow.cleverbridge.com
15. 2Checkout (now Verifone)
2Checkout, now Verifone is a complete digital commerce platform that comes equipped with the power of subscription billing capabilities. It is flexible enough to manage one-time or recurring payment across the world. The product supports multiple subscription models that include fixed recurring, quantity-based, and usage-based billing. 2Checkout will be given all the resources necessary to manage every phase of the subscription process-from sign-up to renewal or cancellation.
Key Features:
- Global Payment Processing
- Multiple Subscription Models
- Multi-currency and multi-language
- Taxes automation
- Fraud protection
- Fully customizable checkout experience
- Comprehensive reporting and analytics
Pricing:
- 2Sell: 3.5% + $0.35 per successful sale
- 2Subscribe: 4.5% + $0.45 per sale
- 2Monetize: 6.0% + $0.60 per sale
- Custom pricing is available for enterprise plans
Best suited for
- Is suitable for businesses of all sizes that need the most advanced e-commerce and subscription billing, especially large enterprises around the globe.
Website:
www.2checkout.com
Growing demand of Subscription Billing Software
There are many reasons for the ever-growing demand for subscription billing software:
1. Subscription models:
Companies experiment with a wide variety of models in terms of subscription, like the tiered pricing and usage-based billing, and so on. That means the billing system must be made complex enough to be used over multiple pricing structures.
2. Geographic Coverage:
When the businesses expand geographically, the billing solutions required should be capable enough to accommodate multiple currencies, languages, and regional tax compliance.
3. Customer Experience:
Customers are now looking forward to easy experiences, ranging from sign-up to renewal processes. The advanced billing software can present self-service portals along with flexible options for payment and more options with added convenience to customers.
4. Revenue Recognition Compliance:
New accounting standards such as ASC 606 and IFRS 15 will require the recognition and reporting of recurring revenues. The appropriate billing system ensures proper recognition and reporting of revenues.
5. Data-Driven Decision Making:
Most companies rely on subscription data for business decision making; modern billing software has much to offer in advanced analytics and reporting that is required by this need.
6. The Need for Integration:
If business houses are to exploit all the tools and platforms that they are, then integrated billing software would be a must. That is because it should seamlessly integrate with the current tech stack.
How Subscription Billing Software Can Transform Your Business
Subscription billing software might just be one of those things that could revolutionize your business concerning operations and growth. There are key ways through which it may help bring in great positive changes:
1. Automation and Efficiency:
Automating recurring bills saves firms hundreds of hours, not to mention preventing errors that might crop up in the line of manual invoicing and collection of payments. Efficiency leaves a lot of room for strategic work rather than administrative work.
2. Cash Flow Improved:
Automated billing and collections ensure that invoices come out on time and payments arrive without delay. This could meaningfully improve the cash flow of a firm since revenue generation patterns become predictable.
3. Scalability:
With the growth of your business, you are assured that customers along with transactions go up; the case is totally reversed for overheads of administration through subscription billing software.
4. Pricing and Packaging Flexibility:
Advanced billing systems allow experiments at the price and packaging level for businesses and can respond readily to market demands or requirements in short time frames, thus becoming a big competitive advantage.
5. Better Customer Insight:
Greater insight into customer behavior, preferences, and trends can be drawn from the detailed data on your subscriptions in terms of how to further develop your products, influence marketing, and perfect the carrying out of retention efforts to customers.
Open-Source vs. Paid Subscription Billing Software: What’s Best for Your Business?
Open Source Subscription Billing Software
Advantages:
1. Cost-Effective: Open-source solutions are generally free of cost, and this is a major advantage to start-ups or small firms with only a very limited budget.
2. Customization: Availability of source codes allows a firm to customize it according to the firm’s specific business requirements.
3. Community: There are open-source projects with very active communities that offer support and even develop it.
4. Open Code: The security audits can be performed and even hidden functionalities remove them. This makes the code open.
Disadvantages:
1. Technical Expertise Involved : A high level of technical understanding is required for installing and maintaining open source software.
2. Basic Functionality: Free products normally will lack all the multiple advanced features that the paid version possesses.
3. Support Time: The company itself would have to support the product with updates and bug fixes and with changing regulatory issues.
4. Indirect Hidden Charges: The company would absorb its free software implementation, customization, and upkeep charges.
Paid Subscription Invoicing Software
Advantages:
1. In-depth Functionality: Commercial products often have loads of advanced features ready for use, out-of-the-box.
2. Automatic Upgrades: Nearly all service providers update the software in relation to changes in industry or regulation.
3. Customer Support Team: Paid solutions generally support customer support teams to cut the load off your internal IT team.
4. Ready-made Integration with other Systems: Most paid software provides integration with other business tools and platforms.
5. Scalability: Enterprise-grade paid software is designed to process enormous volumes of transactions while also supporting sophisticated billing scenarios.
Disadvantages:
1. Subscription Fees: Recurring expenses can be too expensive for even smaller businesses or new companies with their startup ventures.
2. Slow processing: There’s a chance that customizability is possible, but is decidedly much less agile than with open-source
3. Vendor Lock-in: If it proves troublesome and costly to migrate between paid-for solutions, then this usually coincides with vendor lock-in
Choose the Best Solution For Your Business
Of the following, which is considered when determining which is the best solution to implement in a business?
- Cost: What does your organization budget for in the form of upfront and ongoing costs?
- Resources: Can you do it in house, with the expertise needed to install and then maintain an open source solution?
- Needs: Does your business require sophisticated capabilities that are only possible in a commercial solution? How fast is your organization growing, and will the solution scale with that growth?
- Integration Needs: How will you connect the billing software to others?
- Compliance Needs: Is there special compliance by the industry that will make the software in your industry necessary?
Quick Comparison
| Name of the Company | Ratings (out of 5) | Pricing | Website |
| HubSpot Payments | 4.2 | 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for credit cards; 1% per ACH transaction (max $10); No monthly fees | www.hubspot.com/products/payments |
| Wave | 4 | Free for invoicing and accounting; 2.9% + $0.30 per credit card transaction; 1% per ACH transaction | www.waveapps.com |
| Zoho Subscriptions | 4.5 | Basic: $49/month; Standard: $99/month; Professional: $249/month; Enterprise: Custom | www.zoho.com/subscriptions |
| Recurly | 4.6 | Core: $149/month; Professional: $499/month; Elite: Custom | www.recurly.com |
| Sage Intacct | 4.4 | Custom pricing | www.sage.com |
| FreshBooks | 4.3 | Lite: $15/month; Plus: $25/month; Premium: $50/month; Select: Custom | www.freshbooks.com |
| Chargebee | 4.7 | Launch: $0/month up to $100k in revenue; Rise: $249/month; Scale: $549/month; Enterprise: Custom | www.chargebee.com |
| Square | 4 | 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for online invoices; 3.5% + $0.15 per card-on-file recurring payments | https://squareup.com/us/en/invoices |
| ChargeOver | 4.3 | Starter: $65/month; Small Business: $299/month; Enterprise: Custom | www.chargeover.com |
| Stripe | 4.8 | 2.9% + $0.30 per successful card charge; 0.5% for recurring payments additional to standard fees | www.stripe.com |
| Invoicera | 4.1 | Free: 3 clients limit;Pro: $15/month;Business: $29/month; Infinite: $149/month | www.invoicera.com |
| Zuora | 4.5 | Custom pricing | www.zuora.com |
| Billwerk+ | 4.2 | Custom pricing | www.billwerk.plus |
| Cleverbridge | 4.1 | Starter: $29/month; Growth: $199/month; Scale: $499/month; Enterprise: Custom | www.grow.cleverbridge.com |
| 2Checkout (Verifone) | 4.4 | 2Sell: 3.5% + $0.35 per sale; 2Subscribe: 4.5% + $0.45 per sale; 2Monetize: 6.0% + $0.60 per sale | www.2checkout.com |
Conclusion
The subscription billing software continues to evolve through 2025, no one will disagree with how powerful the best subscription billing software has become. But these are always helpful for a business that streamlines its operations to provide richer customer experiences while growing.
When considering options, you may want to think about the kind of business needs that you have and the rate at which it will be growing, if you have the resources to make such a decision now and later.
FAQs
Q: What is subscription billing software?
This is one of the subscription management softwares that would automatically manage recurring payments, invoice payments, and subscriptions for business ventures.
Q: How much does subscription software cost?
The open source options are free of cost, while the enterprise solutions will run into thousands of dollars per month.
Q: Does my current system integrate with subscription software?
Most of these modern subscription software turns out to be offering an integration with all common business tools and platforms.
Q: What would you find the most desirable characteristic of subscription software?
Flexible pricing models that accommodate more than one type of subscription and adjust on need.
