SaaS Billing Software: 7 Tools across 3 Categories and How to Choose -
SaaS billing software automates some or all aspects of the recurring billing process including payment processing, dunning, fulfillment, and more.
In this article, we'll be comparing 7 SaaS billing options which we categorize into three categories:
- Subscription management: This type of software allows you to automate free trial as well as recurring payment scheduling and also the dunning process. You'll still need a separate solution for payment processing tax, chargebacks, and more.
- Payment processing: These solutions gather payment details and facilitate the transaction between two parties. With many payment processors, you'll need additional software for managing the complicated and recurring payment process, including taxes, chargebacks Dunning, and many more.
- Merchants of Record (MoR): Having your billing system also act as a MoR is to manage the whole bill-paying process in SaaS to your benefit, such as taking care of collecting and paying international and local taxes (such such as VAT and local sales taxes) and ensuring compliance with local laws and regulations, chargebacks, and much 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 every country and region in which you have customers.
Table of Contents
- Your MoR all-in-one SaaS Billing
- 3. Subscription Management Software
- Chargebee
- Chargify
- Recurly
- 3 Payment Processors
- Verifone (formerly 2Checkout)
- Stripe
- Braintree
: Your MoR for All-in-One SaaS Payment
Below is an overview of how you'll need to do to act as your MoR:
Customers visit your site to select their software subscription plans. When they get to pay, it handles the checkout and closes the purchase. It works just like most other common SaaS payment processors except for one crucial aspect: it acts as the merchant in your account.
The advantage from this is twofold.
- eliminates the burden of paying local consumption tax keeping up-to-date in local laws governing transactions, managing subscriptions, payment processing and much more. If something goes wrong regarding local taxes, compliance with local laws or chargebacks, rates for authorization and so on., takes the lead to resolve the problem in your name.
- All of your SaaS billing process can be handled all from Your account dashboard. Plus, you're only charged a flat fee for all services (more on this later).
Next, we'll take an in-depth look at the ways we can assist you in each piece of the billing process. Specifically:
- Checkout
- Pay Processing
- Receipt and Transfer of Consumption Tax
- Subscriptions and Recurring Billing Management
- Retention Management
- Analytics and Reporting
Checkout: Full Checkout Customization for Higher Conversions
Some businesses lose customers because there's too much friction in their checkout process. As an example it's a problem if the checkout display does not visually align with the brand of the rest of the site, the prospective client is less likely trust that the checkout is secure. Also, the customer might choose not to purchase because you don't accept the kind of payment option you offer (a problem especially common with international buyers).
Many payment processors will supply the checkout template that allow for basic modifications, such as the addition of your logo. However, these checkout templates do not offer the flexibility to customize you need to truly maximize your checkout and achieve higher rate of conversion.
On its own, comes with branding tools, CSS overrides and a JavaScript library of common ecommerce features so you have full control of each part of your shopping experience.
Below are some additional tools that will aid you with your checkout:
- Preferred payment methods: While Visa or PayPal are popular in the U.S., other forms of payment are utilized across other nations. If you do not offer the preferred payment method which buyers use and you don't convert more of them into customers. But it can be very laborious and draining on resources to create different payment options. It allows users to incorporate a wide range of popular payment methods across the world in a matter of minutes (more on this later in the section).
- Text Translations: If your checkout doesn't use the same with the rest of your site, you may lose some customers. With , you can let customers choose the language they prefer at checkout or let them select the correct local language according to their place of residence.
- Conversions to local currencies: Certain customers may not purchase the product when they aren't sure (or must figure out by themselves) what the software is going to cost in their local currency. solves this by automatically converting prices to local currency when you check out. You can also create a customized price for the currencies of each.
- Options for flexible integration: Part of choosing the best checkout process is choosing whether to integrate it on your website or direct customers to a separate web page. It offers three options: 1) Embed the checkout directly onto your website, or) insert a pop-up over your website, and) redirect customers to a different page that's completely branded with your company's logo. The first two options only require just a couple lines of HTML as well as Javascript and the third option is provided by . We'll host your whole shopfront as well as the checkout with your branding.
- Personalized assistance: If you need additional support Our team of software engineers can help in the design and development of the perfect payment system for your company (regardless of how large or small your business).
NOTE: We also provide a checkout template that has been optimized to convert, However, many businesses discover it easy to create a custom solution with .
Pay Processing: Increase Authorization Rates With Localized Payment Gateways
Frequently, customers are tempted to purchase, but their payment method fails or takes too long to complete so they don't complete the purchase.
assists in improving authorization rates so that you earn more money in several ways:
- Payment gateway rerouting: If a payment fails at the first try, the system instantly retries it with a different gateway- all without any member of your support team having to intervene. This often solves payment failures caused by connectivity or system issues.
- Managing preferred payment providers: As we mentioned earlier, supporting new payment methods can be an immense resource drain. Every card network and issuing bank have various tolerance levels to deal with charges and fraud, as well as different regulations for the way a transaction takes place. If you aren't in compliance with these regulations, the card network will likely stop authorizing payments. We are responsible for maintaining compliance with different payment processors, which means that we take care of chargebacks, fraud, and more to your benefit.
- Localizing payments processing: Card networks are more likely to accept the payment via a local processor. For example, if the buyer is in Italy and the processor should have a legal company located in Italy to get higher rates of authorization. Works with various payment processors across the globe to ensure all payments are localized.
Recognizing and remitting consumption tax Increase Globally without Hefty Fines
Certain SaaS billing software will help in collecting tax, however, at the end of the day, you're responsible for collecting and remitting an appropriate amount when it's due. It's a major job for any company.
Because acts as your MOR. We take care of all the details of collecting, and remitting consumption tax on your behalf.
automatically calculates the right kind and amount of tax, and then adds it to the customer-facing price at checkout (we additionally support tax-exempt transactions and other special situations). After each tax period We file tax returns with each jurisdiction. In addition, we'll take on the leadership on audits.
Subscription and Recurring Billing Management: Create Custom Trials and Subscriptions While Staying Compliant With Local Jurisdictions
There are many subscription management programs with flexible plans for trial and recurring subscription plans. If you choose the best subscription model, including recurring and trial billing it is possible to win more customers and increase revenues.
But, your subscription plans can only succeed in the event that they conform to local laws and regulations. For example, many states, provinces, and countries don't allow auto-pay for transactions over the amount of.
The majority of subscription management software provide you with a notification when they learn about changes to rules and laws, but you are ultimately accountable. If you fail to follow these constantly changing laws and regulations, you could face heavy fines or be prevented from transacting in that region.
takes away this responsibility by taking complete responsibility for adhering to local laws and regulations for transactions.
Our experts in legal matters stay up to date on the latest legal issues and makes certain that the proper processes are in place to collecting payments. Start selling your products across more than 200 countries in a matter of minutes because we've already established the required processes for every single region.
In addition, it offers a variety of pre-configured trial and subscription plans so that it is possible to create customized solutions without programming. Or, you could use the API or webhooks library to create complex subscription logic and integrations.
Here are a few examples of the types of billing logic and trials that you could create using
- Trials for free or with a fee
- Tests without or with no payments details
- Trials that automatically upgrade to an active plan
- Subscription intervals of any length
- Prorations mid-cycle
- One-time purchase is added to regular installment
- Discounts, upsells, cross-sells and much more
Retention Management: Limit Churn that is not voluntary by using proactive and proactive methods.
Since involuntary churn is one of the main ways subscription-based companies lose customers, the majority of SaaS billing programs offer basic retention management features for example, retrying unsuccessful payments or sending email messages to customers following the payment has failed. However, these features are only helpful following a payment has failed.
lets you turn on proactive notifications that remind customers to change their data on the payment before the transaction occurs. In our experience, these proactive reminders can significantly reduce the number of failed payments initially.
Once a payment has failed it is possible to send reminders automatically for two five, seven, 14, and 21 days after the failure of a payment. For the next 21 days you can ensure that your customers' service will not be interrupted. With frequent reminders and continuing your services, your customers will be more likely to change their details, which will reduce involuntary churn.
offers a self-service portal through which your customers can update their personal information, and also modify or upgrade the subscription they have. When customers can manage their own accounts it's easier for them to manage their customers' experience, which means higher revenues. The self-serve platform is customizable to fit the branding of your company, however it's managed by our team so your team doesn't have to be concerned about it.
Analysis and reporting: Make it easier to make Business Making
The analytics and reporting function will help you determine what each product does to your bottom line, what coupons or promotions are successful, which subscription model generate the most revenue, and much more.
The dashboard of revenue provides a comprehensive view of your cash flow which includes:
- Where your customers are located
- Which currencies and methods of payment do customers prefer
- Net sales by product
- Total transactions by country
- and more
The dashboard for subscriptions lets you dig deeper into your monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and includes SaaS metrics, such as:
- Upsells, cross-sells, and add-ons
- Long-term value of each customer
- Churn of the entire customer
- When the billing cycle is in progress, the churn is most likely
- And more
With 's reporting feature, you can create and save customized reports, which lets you access the data you need, at the time you require it. Our support team will help you use these reports to get the answers you're looking for to expand and improve your SaaS business. You can also share any report with key users via the dashboard, or 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 solutions will require you to install to other solutions, or switch to the least expensive plan to access all the features you require.
On the other hand, is a full payment system that means you'll not require additional billing software. Plus, all of 's offerings are provided at one flat-rate price (without the cost of migration).
Our team will work together with you to come up with the most affordable cost based upon the amount of transactions You'll only be charged when transactions occur.
3 Subscription Management Platforms
Chargebee: Built for Complex Subscription Logic
Chargebee is an extremely popular option to manage subscriptions and revenue management. Chargebee supports several payment types and payment gateways, however it is your responsibility to setting up and partnering with each one.
The features of Chargebee's comprise:
- Auto-serve models and self-service
- Automated billing and invoicing
- Flexible pricing plans
- Tool for managing quotes
- Smart dunning
- PCI-compliant checkout
The Chargify Subscription Management System for B2B SaaS
Chargify is subscription billing software designed specifically for SaaS B2B. In the moment of publication, Chargify is in the process of joining forces with SaaSOptics in order to create the new software business, Maxio. With this alliance, Chargify customers will have access to payment processing services but you'll require a separate system for tax compliance and legal requirements.
Other notable Chargify attributes include:
- Dozens upon dozens of trial and pricing models.
- Experiences for signing up that are customized
- Automated dunning
- Self-service Analytics Suite
- Recognizing revenue
Recurly is a payment gateway that supports multiple Payment Gateways
Recurly is a subscription-based and billing platform that helps you to optimize your growth strategy. Recurly boasts of the capability to seamlessly integrate with a variety of merchant and payment processors, however, you still must manage and be responsible for these services on top of your Recurly plan.
Recurly's services consist of:
- Customizable subscription models
- Automated recurring invoicing
- Revenue recovery tools
- Intelligent retention
- Subscription analytics
3 Payment Processors
Verifone: Payment Platform for Enterprises
Verifone (formerly 2Checkout) allows you to choose between a MoR model and payment processing models. Although startup companies may be able to use their services, Verifone tends to be more towards large corporations.
Verifone's main features include:
- Reporting and analytics
- Global tax and financial and banking services
- Risk management and compliance
- B2B quote builder
- Channel partner management
Stripe, a well-known and trusted payment processor
Stripe is a processor for payments that allows transactions online as well as in person. While Stripe has a couple of options for managing subscriptions and features, they usually recommend that you integrate with Chargebee for more robust feature for billing recurring that means you'll have to manage and manage two payment platforms.
Other features offered by Stripe include:
- Checkout
- Management of risk and fraud
- Payments online
- Payments in person
- Controlling subscriptions
- Card issuing both physical and virtual
- Business spend management for subscriptions
Braintree: PayPal's Solution for SaaS
Braintree by PayPal is a processing company that supports Venmo (in the US), Apple Pay as well as Google Pay. They also offer some SaaS tools for managing subscriptions.
Some other notable offerings from Braintree includes:
- Merchant accounts
- Optimized checkout flow
- Flexible risk mitigation solutions for risk
- Analytics on the subscription lifecycle
- Third-party integrations for recurring billing as well as accounting and accounting.