Recurring billing for an app, product, or service subscription is the lifeline for any online business. Businesses like video streaming, game streaming, online magazine, physical magazine, gym, food packages from eCommerce sites, etc., mainly rely on subscription payments. If you are also into the subscription billing system and looking for a web app that will offer effortless recurring payments, you have found the right article. Continue reading to explore some handpicked subscription billing software that will assist you in boosting customer experience and, thereby revenue.
Subscription Management and Billing for Businesses
The primary challenge for any online business with only a payment gateway is they rely heavily on the customer for timely payments. Your users also into their professional and personal lives. They are sure to fail on payments or just ignore paying the second month if the payment process is manual. The problem piles up when the consumers also need to manage their subscriptions by emailing or calling your sales team. Here comes subscription management services and subscription billing tools. They ensure that your customer securely subscribes and pays for the first month or year. And, then, recurring payments keep on coming unless they cancel or modify the subscription from their own profile. Thus, you and your sales team can focus on acquiring new users, resolving product/service issues, or coming up with upselling ideas.
What is Subscription Billing Software?
Subscription billing software is a payment processing tool that works closely with your subscription management tool and payment gateway. Such systems allow your users to set up automatic payments for weekly, monthly, yearly, etc., billing plans. The tools securely save all the payment method details with dual encryption (in-transit and at-rest) security system. Thus, customers can pay effortlessly without facing any service disruption issues. These tools also automatically assign billing cycles for new users so that you can efficiently collect payments, submit tax fillings, plan business expansions, and more. At this juncture, it is good to clarify that a subscription billing system itself can not process payments. You still need an eCommerce payment processing solution to collect the payment in your business checking account. In a nutshell, a subscription billing tool ensures that you have got a steady stream of revenue from your genuine customer base. Now, discover some trending subscription billing software that most successful eCommerce websites and other digital businesses rely on:
Zoho Subscriptions
If you are a growing business having a hard time managing the end-to-end subscription billing cycle, let Zoho Subscriptions handle the whole process for you. You can take help from this platform to manage subscriptions, automate recurring billing, send professional invoices, and receive your payments on the due date. Using features like automatic proration and billing cycle setup, you can automate the billing process across the globe, being tax compliant at the same time. It also supports online and offline payment collection. Moreover, companies can accept multiple currencies for subscription payments. Apart from these, Zoho Subscriptions offers a tailored subscription experience to your customers with features including a self-service portal, coupon offers, consolidated invoices, white-label payment pages, widgets for pricing tables, metrics dashboards, and webhooks.
FreshBooks
When it comes to small businesses, FreshBooks provides complete accounting solutions, including recurring payments. This software can handle your invoice, payments, and other financial tasks. Moreover, you can use it to track your employees and clients. The platform offers an easy-to-use client portal to help you manage the clients and their subscriptions. You can also use its free trial version before opting for any of its plans.
Chargebee
You do not have to go through customized codes for managing recurring billing operations as we introduce you to Chargebee. This platform handles your whole billing process from setting up the workflow to automating invoices. By using this tool to automate your invoicing and billing, you can get rid of the chance of manual errors. Even in complex scenarios such as global audiences and multiple revenue channels, Chargebee can save you back like a pro. Using this software, businesses can offer quotes and create advance invoices for a simplistic approval process. It also offers the calendar billing feature that lets you set the billing date for individual customers, no matter when they signed up for services.
Wave
As you let Wave automate the recurring billing process of your company, your team can focus on something more important and pressing. This application allows you to switch between manual and automatic billing and makes it super-fast to set up credit card payments. Users can not only use this software to send invoices to multiple recipients but also tailor those with your company logo and brand color. Using Wave, companies can also customize invoices for any date, timezone, and frequency. Automatic payment receipts, filter invoices by status, and drag-and-drop editing are other highlighted features of this platform.
SuiteDash
SuiteDash is an all-in-one business software that comes with all the necessary solutions for sending invoices and receiving payments. Using it, creating and sending estimates and invoices become a seamless process. Companies can set up customized subscription plans that will automatically charge them on a schedule. If necessary, you can use it to generate recurring invoices on a regular schedule. SuiteDash stores your data in a PCI-compliant third-party payment processor. Hence the subscribers can store their payment information in the portal without any worries. It also uses bank-level encryption while sending requests to customers asking for payment information.
Zuora
Zuora subscription also comes with billing solutions that organizations can leverage to monetize their innovations. It lets you automate billing operations and put flexible pricing strategies in place to make things simple for the customers. Whether you want to choose plans for recurring, one-time, or usage-based charges, it offers you more than 50 pricing models. Using Zoura, you can provide customers with smart pricing and a smooth experience, regardless of their marketing channel. This platform can also combine subscriptions and other one-time fees in one order. It also reduces manual operations and centralizes complex billing operations.
Chargify
Are you looking for an application that offers flexible and automated recurring billing solutions as you scale up your business? Go for Chargify, an application that helps you do away with writing and maintaining custom billing codes. Whether your business model is B2B, B2C, cross-sell, or resell, you can use this tool to perform complex calculations. It uses configurable recurring billing rules to accommodate thousands of permutations across different business models. Using Chargify, you can offer your customers multiple payment options such as credit cards, PayPal, manual payment, and more. It also supports integration with 20+ popular payment gateways and global currencies.
Billsby
If you are into the subscription business, you can depend on Billsby for accurate and effortless recurring billing. This robust software simplifies your revenue operations for you through customization and integration. Using its advanced billing feature, companies can collect more recurring revenue. They can also introduce business rules and logic to the workflow while offering flexible plans to their customers. What’s more, all these can be done with no-code or low-code. Before choosing any Billsby plans, you can also book a demo to check out how the platform works. Also, the platform is completely PCI-DSS compliant to ensure enhanced security.
2Checkout
Are you looking for a recurring billing solution for simplistic subscription billing? 2Checkout is the application that will maximize customer lifetime value by managing the process across the whole lifecycle of subscriptions. This single platform is enough for you to manage customers, subscriptions, invoices, and recurring billing. It also helps you set up and customize the seamless customer experience across various channels. Verifone lets you sell subscriptions of any flexible pricing and packaging on different sales channels. You can also automate the order, invoicing, and recurring billing processes for quick customer onboarding. Using this tool, companies can also readily manage upgrades and downgrades. In addition, it offers you extensive global payment support for recurring billing and automatic renewals.
FastSpring
FastSpring is a dedicated platform for SaaS and software companies for global subscription management and billing. This complete eCommerce solution aids companies to manage the entire client lifecycle, including activation, upgrades, and renewal. Now, get hold of every potential sales opportunity with its flexible recurring subscription models, and billing schedules. This tool lets you create the subscription or billing plans best suited for your business with essential features, such as freemium and pay-per-user: tiered users, fixed price, and pay-as-you-use pricing. FastSpring also provides a self-service portal for your users to view their order history and manage subscription and payment methods. Also, this platform offers localized payment options for the global audience.
Square
With Square, the process of getting paid repetitively becomes a lot easier. This application helps you create predictable revenue streams. You can join this platform for free, and there are no monthly charges— just pay a processing fee for each transaction. As this tool is suitable for all industries, one can use it to set recurring payments for membership fees, donations, professional services, etc. Moreover, you can seamlessly add, pause, edit, and resume subscriptions. Also, companies can customize billing models and leverage flexible billing and invoicing methods. If you belong to a traditional business, you can create QR codes and share them with the customers. Also, businesses can allow users to subscribe through email, SMS, and social media.
Benefits of a Subscription Billing Software
The primary benefit of a subscription billing tool is effortless recurring payment from the client’s side and payment collection on the recipient’s end. Other notable benefits are:
You can avoid human errors in recurring billing through manual invoices and thus save revenue leakages. Since the subscription billing app automatically calculates upgrade charges, prorated refunds, ad-hoc purchases, etc., you avoid manual invoice adjustments. Most of these tools come with PSD2/SCA, PCI Standard, etc. Hence, you can comply with customers’ payment method storage regulations. Professionals and tech-savvy customers prefer online billing with autopay. If you can satisfy these needs, users will stay with your brand for the long term. Customize the payment plans, service features, add-on purchases, etc., according to customers’ preferences. If you cater to thousands to millions of subscribers, these applications are your only option to bill customers efficiently.
Features to Look in a Subscription Billing Software
The right subscription billing system must offer the following features and functionalities:
Automated recurring billing with coupons, discounts, prorations, calendar billing, etc. An easy transition of freemium users to premium subscribers A/B testing opportunity with pricing plans Subscription grandfathering option to keep existing users on your old pricing plan. Additionally, new customers automatically see the new price charts. Various invoicing options like consolidated, customized, advanced, and automated invoices Effortless migration of all the products under one roof with easy-to-understand pricing charts One-click checkout options with autopay. Also, offers OTP and manual authentication for customers who are highly skeptical about auto payments. The tool can efficiently capture all the ad-hoc purchases and bill those in the right billing cycles. Stringent security, encryption, and privacy compliance for payment method storing Minimize failed payments by offering the best payment option to the user when they save multiple cards
Subscription Billing Software: The Author’s Note
Since you are into business, I know it is highly challenging to invest in researching the web for the best subscription billing software. Hence, I have researched and picked some of the leading recurring billing tools that any business can rely on. It will save you time. You learn about the features, functionalities, and more about 11 popular subscription billing tools in one concise article. All the apps are good to go. However, you can start with apps like Zoho Subscriptions, FreshBooks, FastSpring, and Verifone. If you find these lacking the features you are looking for, do not forget to try the rest.
Wrapping Up
Subscription billing software enabled today’s cloud businesses to scale up recurring payment acceptance from anywhere globally. Furthermore, such apps assist you in creating customized subscription plans for your website or app users to show them that you care. You can also craft complex subscriptions, ad-hoc payments for plug-ins, payment cycle adjustments, prorated refunds, and more. Use any of the tools from above and see the difference yourself! Next up are the best readymade invoice templates and invoice generators that businesses can use to collect payment with style!
