Top 6 Recurring Competitors as well as Alternatives: An In-Depth Review The Top 6 Recurring Competitors and Alternatives

Mar 12, 2023

In this guide we review six Recurly competitors and alternatives according to several areas:

  • Subscription management and recurring billing
  • Checkout
  • Global payment processing
  • Reporting and analytics
  • Pricing
  • Customer reviews

This will begin with a thorough look at our end-to-end payment solution (i.e. subscription management, payment processing, and other features) to SaaS firms. Then, we'll cover five additional Recurly options available to businesses across all sectors.

This guide describes:

  1. :Subscription Management, Payment Processing, and More SaaS and Software Companies
  2. Chargebee: Robust Subscription Management Software
  3. Chargify:Subscription Billing solution for B2B SaaS
  4. Zuora: Monetization Platform for Any Business
  5. Stax Bill Reccurring billing for small Businesses
  6. Zoho Subscriptions online subscription Billing Software

Controlling Subscriptions, Payment Processing, and Much More to SaaS and Software Companies

 homepage: The Leading Merchant of Record Payment Platform for SaaS and Software Companies

assists SaaS businesses (and firms that offer digital products or single-time downloads) control the whole payments lifecycle from subscription management to remitting tax due at the end of the year.

Create Custom Trial, Subscription and Recurring Billing models That Are Fully Compliant with Transaction Laws and Regulations

In setting up subscription plans and recurring billing models, one point that's oft overlooked is whether or not the plan you choose to use is in compliance with transaction laws and regulations. Most companies are aware of regulations such as GDPR, as well as various other privacy legislation. Yet, many do not know about the transaction laws of each location where they do business.

As an example, in certain nations (e.g., Canada and Korea) customers can be eligible under the law to get an accelerated refund in the event that they opt to end their subscription before the time of expiry of their time period for payment. Another example is that the Reserve Bank of India limits the amount of automatic payments that can be made to (approximately $180) and anything more than that amount has to be manually approved by the customer.

Two examples. Since the law is constantly changing, it's understandable that many businesses have a hard time staying up-to-date to keep up. But, you could face massive fines or even be barred from doing business in a particular area if you fail to adhere to these rules.

Some subscription management platforms will send out mass updates when they discover the latest laws or regulations however ultimately, the company is held accountable.

In contrast to most subscription management firms, takes on transaction liability for you, which means our team:

  • Be up-to date on all the current rules and laws governing transactions in every jurisdiction you transact in.
  • Makes sure your billing models comply with the laws of each state.
  • Leads audits.
GDPR and PCI DSS

Alongside aiding you to stay on track, provides flexibility for setting up trials, subscriptions and recurring billing plans. For example, you could setup:

  • Paid, free or discounted trial for any duration (with or without the need to collect payment details).
  • Fixed, per seat metered, tied, and bundled bill.
  • The prorated billing system allows for upgrades and downgrades mid-cycle.
  • Automatic or manual renewal.
  • One-time fees, discounts, and presents.
  • And there's and more ...

Most pricing and billing models can be set up without code but you'll also get access to our webhooks API as well as webhooks library, which can be used to build custom models. Our developers are also available to aid you in developing the ideal solution and address any questions.

Edit Subscription Pricing: Standard or Managed

Customer Portal for Customers

Customers who sign up with you will have access to self-service access to a portal on which they will be able to manage their payments data and their plans (e.g. upgrades, downgrade, add users, and so on).

The site is totally customisable and can be adapted to your brand's visual identity, and it's run by an administrator, which means that your staff can concentrate on more strategic tasks.

Your Example Store: Manage Active and Inactive Subscriptions

You are in complete control of every Aspect of Checkout

The site offers sophisticated options to customize checkouts to create a modern, intuitive, personalized checkout experience that boosts sales. This is a brief overview of the options:

  • Three versions of checkout: You can choose to embed checkout directly onto your webpage, have an checkout pop-up within your site or direct customers to a completely branded website storefront hosted by . Both Embedded Checkout as well as Popup Checkout are easily implemented by using a few lines of pre-written code. The Web Storefront is located via a website (so the team won't need to create everything completely from scratch) however, you'll have a variety of choices to modify the website.
Embedded Checkout with
  • Customization tools: To change the color, font, and more of your checkout, it is possible to use tools for branding as well as CSS overrides. For customizing the customer journey leading up to the checkout it is possible to use the JavaScript Store Builder Library (SBL). The JavaScript SBL allows you to include elements to create upsell funnels, a dynamic pricing slider, and much more, to make the most of every purchase.
  • Localization features: supports dozens of currencies and languages around all over the world. Your customers can pick their preferred language or currency, or let them make an suitable choice according to their location.
Choose Country/Language: With , you can translate your shopping in cart into different languages and automatically convert the customer facing price to local currencies.
  • Personalized developer support: Numerous payment services provide individualized support for their larger clients, leaving the smaller enterprises to handle themselves. At , our developers (and our entire staff) will be happy to assist you build the right payment solution and answer any questions you may have, regardless of your monthly income.

Accept Dozens of Payment Methods All Over the World

There are many SaaS companies try to increase conversion rates through offering additional payment options. But, adding additional payment methods is more complicated than adding the logo of the payment network to the checkout screens. Every payment service will be subject to different regulations regarding fraud, chargebacks, privacy , and more before they're willing to accept transactions from your business.

When you're dealing with international card networks as well as banks that issue them, the process gets even more complicated. In particular, credit card networks are more likely to approve transactions if the payment gateway is in the same location as the buyer, so you'll need be able to use multiple payment gateways to ensure high conversion rates.

Most recurring billing platforms have pre-built integrations that are compatible with a variety of payment processors, however you'll need to purchase and maintain each one of these processors on your own.

 You will have access to several payment processors that specialize in worldwide transactions without additional charges.

It is easy to accept many payment options within the first few days after joining us. Automatically routes every payment to the payment gateway with the highest authorization rates for that area and then retries unsuccessful payments using a secondary payment gateway.

Payment Methods around the world

Plus, we take the lead on:

  • Conformity with the card networks as well as issuing banks.
  • Fraud detection.
  • Chargebacks.

Bonus: Let Handle VAT, Sales Tax, as well as GST, for You!

SaaS and software companies did not always need to collect and remit sales tax or VAT. But many states, nations as well as other countries have enacted new laws to alter these laws. Today, SaaS and software companies have to file and remit VAT and sales tax to numerous jurisdictions. In addition, numerous jurisdictions enforce the laws with more force than before.

A few payment processors on the internet allow you to collect sales tax or VAT, but only a few are able to handle all types of tax on consumption SaaS businesses run into when they transact internationally. In addition, it's the own to pay and pay taxes. If you don't complete them the right method, on the proper moment, or in the correct amount, you could face heavy fines.

Customers don't need to be concerned about anything because we takes the lead on calculating, gathering, filing and remitting sales tax, VAT, and GST on your behalf. Additionally, we take over on any tax-related audits.

Examine What isn't working with built-in reporting

Analytics and Reporting automatically tracks important metrics about the revenue and subscriptions you have, such as monthly regular revenue (MRR) net sales per product or region as well as refund rates and many more.

takes these metrics and displays the results in a meaningful way so you always have the information that you require at hand. These reports are divided into two major monitors: Revenue Overview and Subscription Overview.

's Revenue Overview Dashboard
's Subscription Overview Dashboard

If you don't find the report you require then you are able to create (and save) custom reports. Our support team is there to help you create your ideal report and address any questions you may be having.

Transactions, Transaction Currencies, Net Sales and Net Sales by Country in

In the end, all reports can be downloaded as a CSV, PNG, or the XLSX format.

All features for one flat Price Fee

The whole platform is accessible for one flat-rate fee determined by the amount of transactions you move through . Plus, you'll only be charged when a transaction takes place.

Customer Reviews

At present, it has 4.5 stars currently has 4.5 stars G2 and has 184 reviews.

This is what a few of our customers had to say:

 review on G2:  is an all-in-solution for software vendor
 review on G2: Good features and excellent and quick support team
 review on G2: Automated the entire sales process with , simply awesome
 review on G2:  - A Pleasure Doing Business

Five More Recurly Competitors

Five more Recurly competitors that compare according to these areas: subscription management, recurring billing, checkout, global payment processing reports and analytics pricing, feedback from customers.

Chargebee homepage: The revenue engine that powered MakeSpace to launch a B2B model overnight.

Chargebee is a popular choice to set up subscription plans. Chargebee offers built-in integrations with various kinds of software such as ERPs, accounting software like QuickBooks as well as other.

Here's the way Chargebee compares in each category:

  • Subscription management and recurring billing: This is what Chargebee is most well-known for. Chargebee offers diverse billing and pricing choices, and users report that the platform is easy to navigate.
  • Checkout: Chargebee provides two versions of checkout -- in-app (their version of the pop-up checkout) and a complete web page. The full web page is currently in beta.
  • Global payment processingChargebee only deals with subscriptions and recurring billing that means you'll require an additional payment processor, taxes, revenue management, and more.
  • Analytics and reporting Chargebee offers an inbuilt reporting option that comes with filters that will help you locate the information you want.
  • Pricing:You can use the Chargebee platform for free to start with the $100k income you earn. Following that, they provide three plans ranging from $249/month to $549+/month.
  • Customer Review: Chargebee has 4.6 ratings on G2 with more than 560 customer reviews. Read those reviews here.

Chargify: Subscription-Billing Solution for SaaS B2B

Chargify homepage: Subscription Billing for B2B SaaS

Chargify is currently in the process of integrating with SaaSOptics to make it easier to automate subscription management as well as expense and revenue recognition as well as SaaS metric tracking all from the same platform.

Here's the way Chargify deals with each one of the categories:

  • Subscription management and recurring bill: Chargify concentrates more on recurring billing for B2B SaaS firms, however, they also offer various alternatives for managing subscriptions. They claim to support any ecommerce go-to-market strategy.
  • Checkout and global payment processing: Chargify works with Stripe Billing for checkout and payment processing.
  • Reporting and analytics: If Chargify and SaaSOptics have completed their merger you'll have access to an entire suite of tools for reporting and analysis.
  • Price: Chargify's pricing plans start at $599/month for companies who earn $75k in monthly billings. If you have more income or require access to all features it's best to talk to their team.
  • Customer Reviews: Chargify and SaaSOptics as Maxio is rated 4.2 ratings on G2 with over 288 reviews. You can read those reviews here.

Zuora is a Monetization Platform that can be used by All Businesses

Zuora homepage: Subscriptions are just the beginning

Zuora can be used for offline and online subscription companies. Although they accommodate B2B and B2C transactions, users suggest that they're more suited for monthly rather than annual billing model.

This is a brief outline of the services offered by Zuora:

  • Subscription management and recurring bill:Zuora has a range of 50+ pricing models for subscriptionsand products and services. Additionally, they offer customized billing features to support B2B transactions.
  • Checkout: Zuora collaborates with Checkout.com to provide safe payment collection.
  • Global processing of payments: Zuora offers 35+ prebuilt payment gateways.
  • Analytics and reporting Zuora provides a collection of financial reports that are pre-built and a report builder that lets you make reports your own.
  • Prices: You can reach the team of their company for pricing details.
  • Customer Review: Zuora has 3.9 stars on G2 with more than 258 reviews. You can read those reviews here.

Stax Bill: Recurring billing for small Businesses

Stax Bill homepage: Do Billing Better.

Stax Bill (formerly Fusebill) is a component of the Stax Payment solution. Stax Bill offers simple automation for recurring billing and invoicing. They are compatible with the most popular CRMs such as Salesforce and HubSpot, so you can handle payments from any of them.

This is what we think of when Stax Bill measures up in every category:

  • Management of subscriptions and recurring billing:Stax Bill offers several of the most popular recurring billing model options, however, they focus on flexibility in catalog management as well as their own customer portal that is self-serve.
  • Checkout: Pay with Stax comes with an online shopping cart that is pre-built and the option of creating your personal.
  • Global payment processing: Stax Bill allows integrated payment gateways for multiple global payment processors, however, you'll be charged additional fees for these features.
  • Analytics and Reporting: Stax Bill provides forty reports pre-built and ready to instantly update in real-time.
  • Prices: Stax Payment pricing starts at $99 a month for small enterprises.
  • Customer Reviews: Stax Bill has 4.2 stars on G2 with more than 90 reviews. Read those review here.

Zoho Subscriptions Online Subscription Billing Software

Zoho Subscriptions: Subscription billing software, crafted for growing businesses

Zoho Subscriptions is one part of the Zoho platform. If you're already on this feature of the Zoho platform, then this might be an excellent option. Users who are brand new to the platform often find it difficult to navigate.

This is what Zoho Subscription is compared in every subject:

  • Manage subscriptions and recurring bill:Zoho Subscriptions has more options than many other options in the way you setup the free trial. As an example  the other options, it is not required to record payment details. With regards to subscription and recurring billing models, Zoho offers many of the same features as other software.
  • Checkout Zoho Checkout another part of Zoho's ecosystem. Depending on the option you select, the two services may be priced separately.
  • Global payment processing: Payment processing is also provided by Zoho Checkout.
  • Analytics and reporting: Zoho Subscriptions comes with a built-in report tool which displays the most important statistics like overall subscribers or the total number of churns. Additionally, you can review financial reports like a break-even sheet.
  • Price: Zoho Subscriptions is FREE for the first 20 months, and after that it starts at $49/month. You'll have to keep in mind the additional services you need, such as Zoho Checkout and Zoho Checkout, will be priced separately.
  • Customer Review: Zoho Subscriptions has 4.4 rating on G2 with over 42 reviews. Read those customer reviews right here.