• Chargebee offers a number of subscription management features, but their customers are still responsible for handling key tasks like connecting to payment gateways, taxes, payment reconciliation, and chargebacks.
• As your merchant of record (MoR), FastSpring takes on the responsibility for these tasks, including payment processing, remitting taxes across jurisdictions, and more.
• Other Chargebee alternatives include Stripe, Maxio, Zoho Billing, Stax Bill, Zuora, Sticky.io, PayPal Enterprise Payments, Recurly, and Paddle.

Chargebee is a robust subscription management platform —  and if you’re looking for Chargebee alternatives, you’re likely already aware of many of its key features.

However, there are certain aspects of collecting recurring payments that you would still be responsible for when using Chargebee, such as:

• Connecting to payment gateways manually. While Chargebee supports several different payment gateways, you have to set up and configure each one.
• Remitting taxes at the end of the year. They will collect taxes for you, but you are ultimately held responsible for filing and paying taxes correctly within each jurisdiction you do business.
• Reconciling payments, fulfillment, refunds, etc. While Chargebee lets you automate many mundane accounting tasks and integrate with account software, you still have to track and record every transaction, refund, etc.
• Responding to and processing chargebacks. Chargebee only offers full chargeback support for limited vendors, so other vendors will need to manage chargebacks for themselves.

In this guide, we present 10 alternatives to Chargebee that help relieve some of these burdens for users, starting with an in-depth review of our solution, FastSpring. 

FastSpring handles the entire payment process from checkout to remitting end-of-year taxes for SaaS companies. To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

10 Chargebee Alternatives

1. FastSpring.
2. Stripe.
3. Maxio.
4. Zoho Billing.
5. Stax Bill.
6. Zuora.
7. Sticky.io.
8. PayPal Enterprise Payments.
9. Recurly.
10. Paddle.

1. FastSpring

As your merchant of record (MoR), FastSpring takes on the responsibility for payment processing, remitting taxes, and more for your software or SaaS business.

To compare, most Chargebee alternatives are either subscription billing platforms or payment gateways. 

Some of these providers may be able to help you connect to international payment gateways, alert you to chargebacks, and help you collect VAT and sales taxes. However, you’ll still be responsible for paying taxes, processing chargebacks, and for things like legal compliance, dunning, and more. 

FastSpring, on the other hand, handles everything from optimizing your checkout flow to remitting end-of-year taxes by acting as your merchant of record (MoR).

Next, we explain how an MoR is different from other payment service providers. 

What It Means to Have FastSpring as Your Merchant of Record

A merchant of record, or MoR, is the business entity that sells goods or services to the buyer. You can act as your own MoR, or you can outsource the entire process to FastSpring. Companies that haven’t thought about who their MoR is are probably acting as their own MoR.

When you outsource your transactions to FastSpring, your customers still visit your website to choose their software and/or subscription, but FastSpring takes over when the customer gets to the checkout. They’ll receive a receipt from FastSpring, and FastSpring will be listed on their bank or credit card statement.

The profits are yours, but FastSpring is the liable party for the sale.

That’s why FastSpring can do more than other types of service payment providers can:

• Collect and remit VAT, sales taxes, and other consumption taxes.
• Comply with local laws and regulations.
• Monitor chargebacks in real time.
• Reconcile transactions, payments, refunds, etc.
• And more, all on your behalf.

If something goes wrong with local or tax compliance, chargebacks, accounts not balancing, etc., FastSpring takes the lead to solve the issue on your behalf.

Instead of juggling multiple platforms and providers for a complete payment solution, you can work with just one provider: FastSpring. 

Plus, you can start selling in 200+ jurisdictions almost instantly — because we’ve already established the necessary processes in each region. You can learn more about how FastSpring helps you with international recurring payments here.

In summary, FastSpring focuses on the selling, so you can focus on making a great product.

In the next sections, we’ll dive deeper into how FastSpring helps you: 

• Create flexible free trials and recurring billing logic without code.
• Minimize payment failures with advanced payment routing and smart dunning.
• Increase conversions with branded, localized checkout.

We’ll also cover how FastSpring provides all features for one flat-rate price designed to fit your budget. 

Flexible No-Code Free Trials and Recurring Billing Logic

Not every business can use the same free trial model. Some businesses will see more success if they let customers sign up without payment details, while others will see more success if they require a payment method to sign up but don’t automatically charge the customer at the end of the trial.

Additionally, what worked for your small business to start may not be the right solution for you long term as you grow and adopt more complex billing. That’s why many software, gaming, digital product, mobile app, and SaaS companies need payment software that can support many different types of trial models, subscriptions, etc. 

However, most payment processors (sometimes interchangeably referred to as “payment gateways,” while technically being slightly different) only offer limited recurring billing and basic trial options — e.g., a free trial that automatically turns into monthly billing. This makes it difficult to optimize your trials and subscription plans for high conversions and what works best for your customers. It also makes it difficult to adapt as a business in the long run. 

FastSpring, on the other hand, delivers advanced features and a wide variety of flexible options for how you can set up trials, subscriptions, and more. Below, we provide an overview of FastSpring’s subscription management tools. 

Trial subscription options:

• Free or paid trial periods of any length.
• Set up free, paid, or usage-based trials.
• Choose whether or not to require a payment method when signing up for a trial.
• Choose to automatically bill the user after the trial has ended or let them manually start a paid subscription.
• Allow subscribers to reactivate expired trial accounts.
• Choose when FastSpring will send reminders of ending trials (e.g., three days before the trial ends).
• Offer a discounted trial period.
• Automatically detect when a single user tries to sign up for multiple trials, and only allow one trial account.
• And more.

Recurring billing options:

• Choose subscription frequency (weekly, monthly, yearly, or custom) and billing date (or let your customers choose).
• Set subscriptions to auto renewal, manual renewal (i.e., customers have to re-enter payment information each time they’re billed), or managed renewal (i.e., your team initiates the charge via the API, which is great for usage-based billing).
• Offer discounts and coupons.
• Allow prorated billing if a customer wants to upgrade, downgrade, or pause the service part-way through the billing cycle.
• Add one time purchases to the initial bill but not recurring billings.
• Manage upsell and cross-sell products at checkout.
• Give customers the option of whether or not to store payment information (or make the decision for all customers).
• Auto-renew to a different subscription.
• Offer subscription add-ons.
• And more.

Fulfillment options:

• Choose whether to share products and resources via a license key, product download, signed PDF, or email.
• Configure multiple fulfillment actions for one subscription (e.g., send a license key and product manual PDF via email).

FastSpring also provides your customers with an easy-to-access self-serve Customer Account Portal, where they can view their entire order history; upgrade, downgrade, or pause their subscriptions; and add or edit payment methods.

This self-serve portal is entirely managed by FastSpring but reflects the visual branding of your checkout for a cohesive and user-friendly interface and customer experience. 

Finally, some subscription management tools require a lot of technical skills to set up and use. 

But with ease of use in mind, FastSpring lets you set up many of the options mentioned above without code. If you have unique subscription management needs, you can also use our API and webhooks library for more control — our experienced developers are readily available to help you create the best solution for your subscription business model.

Don’t forget: Rules around recurring billing vary across the globe. Without a global MoR like FastSpring, it’s your responsibility to keep track of current and evolving local transaction laws and regulations and ensure your recurring billing model complies.

FastSpring handles this — and the liability for recurring transactions — for you.

Note: If you already have multiple subscriptions set up in another platform, we can help you easily migrate over to FastSpring. For subscription data migration with payment information included, click here for more info. For subscription data migration without payment information, click here for more info.

Advanced Payment Routing and Smart Dunning to Minimize Payment Failures

From the initial purchase to each subsequent rebill, failed payment is one of the main reasons for lost revenue.

Many payment service providers will automatically retry failed payments once or notify customers of failed payments. This is a good place to start, but there are more ways to meaningfully reduce involuntary churn due to failed payments. 

FastSpring helps you proactively minimize payment failures and reduce churn with flexible dunning management, which includes:

• Proactive reminders to update payment information (e.g., “Your subscription is due soon”).
• Multiple follow-up notifications (e.g., two, five, seven, 14, and 21 days after their payment method fails).
• A pre-made email template for reminders — or the ability to customize your own messages.
• Multiple payment retries before each follow-up notification is sent out.
• Automatic payment gateway rerouting (this solves many payment failures due to network or system errors.
• An intuitive self-serve portal (customers can easily update payment information from the same portal where they manage their subscription plan).

Plus, you can choose whether to pause or continue the service when a payment fails. If you keep the service going after a failed payment and give your customers a chance to update their payment information, you’ll have less churn and increase retention.

You can also choose to apply a pause rather than a full cancellation of their service after all reminders have been sent out. Pausing makes it easier for your customer to restart their subscription without the hassle of onboarding again.

You can read more about how one of our customers reduced churn by 50% in this case study. 

Branded, Localized Checkout to Increase Conversions

Friction at the purchase step can cause customers to fall off before completing a purchase. For example:

• If the price at checkout is different than it was on the website (e.g., different currency or different amount because additional fees have been added without a clear label), customers may decide not to buy.
• If the checkout is visually very different from the website, or if the checkout is on an entirely different website, the customer is less likely to believe the checkout is authentic and secure.
• If they have to create an account in order to purchase but don’t want to.
• If checkout translation and localization is incorrect, inconsistent, or missing, so the customer questions the store’s legitimacy.

These are just a few examples, but there are many reasons why a customer may decide against completing a purchase at the last minute.

FastSpring helps you anticipate objections and reduce friction at checkout in the following ways:

• Customizable checkout UI.
• The most popular payment methods.
• Local currency conversions and language translations.
• Conversion-optimized embedded, pop-up, or web storefront checkout experiences.
• Personalized developer support.

Read on for more details about each.

Customizable Checkout UI

Many subscription management platforms or payment processors only provide checkout templates where you can add your logo and choose basic color schemes. These solutions usually fail to match your visual branding and may not be optimized for increasing conversions. 

To create the best experience for your customers and get the highest conversion rates, you need more custom abilities.

FastSpring lets you customize the look and feel of your checkout with pre-built branding tools and CSS overrides. You have complete visual customization with our Store Builder Library (SBL), a JavaScript library that lets you customize, brand, and streamline your entire checkout workflow to build trust and eliminate friction throughout the buyer’s journey. This allows you to create the checkout experience that most aligns with your brand and highlights your product. 

The Most Popular Payment Methods

One of the biggest reasons customers fail to complete a purchase is because they can’t use their preferred payment method. 

However, offering different payment methods isn’t as simple as adding their logo to your checkout screen. 

You have to agree to certain terms and conditions before a payment network or issuing bank will approve transactions with your business. Each payment provider will have different regulations regarding fraud, chargebacks, privacy protection, etc. It can be a huge task to stay in good standing with many different payment providers on your own. 

If you want to transact internationally, there will be even more to manage.

While Visa and Mastercard may be popular payment methods in the U.S., buyers in other countries prefer different payment methods. To convert international customers, you need to provide many different types of preferred payment methods — which means more payment providers to maintain. 

For instance, Pix is a preferred payment method in Brazil, while AliPay is a preferred payment method in China.

FastSpring takes care of all of this — from staying in good standing with payment networks, to managing fraud and chargebacks — for you.

FastSpring already has good relationships with many different payment networks and issuing banks around the world, which means you can accept your customers’ preferred payment methods right away. 

Local Currency Conversions and Language Translations

Customers are more likely to trust a checkout experience that uses the same language and currency as what’s shown on your website. That’s why FastSpring lets you translate checkout into the local language and convert prices to the local currency. 

You can let each buyer select their preferred language from a dropdown menu featuring 21+ supported languages. Or, you can lock the language and FastSpring will automatically select the appropriate language based on the buyer’s location. 

You also have the option to set custom pricing strategies in each currency or let FastSpring automatically convert prices to the local currency (FastSpring supports 23+ currencies).

If you choose to let FastSpring convert product prices for you, we match the format of the original price. For example, if the original price is $12.99 and the conversion to Euros is €14.29, FastSpring would change it to €14.99.

Learn how Nelio increased growth by 50% with localized checkout in this case study.

Embedded, Pop-Up, or Web Storefront Checkout

With FastSpring, you can embed checkout directly on your website, insert a pop-up checkout, or send customers to a secure web storefront managed by FastSpring. This gives you the flexibility to choose the solution that’s best for your team and customers.

To compare, embedding checkout directly on your webpage ensures less disruption and typically decreases the likelihood of your buyers abandoning. Pop-up checkout requires less setup — simply insert a few lines of pre-written HTML and Javascript in your webpage.

Learn how DaisyDisk was able to spend less time managing their checkout while significantly increasing conversions by using FastSpring’s pop-up checkout, in this case study. 

To outsource the entire checkout process to FastSpring, you can choose the web storefront option.

With the web storefront option, customers will be redirected to a webpage entirely managed by FastSpring — but customized to match your visual brand identity — where they can view their cart and complete the purchase.

Personalized Developer Support

Many payment service providers only help with the initial setup and when something goes wrong with the software. Some companies only provide personalized support to their largest clients. This leaves you on your own to manage ongoing payment operations.

FastSpring is dedicated to providing you with the best experience throughout the entire engagement.

Our team is always available to help — regardless of how big or small your operation is. Whether that’s helping you build the best checkout experience for your business or expanding into a new region, our friendly customer support team will help you find and build out the best solutions for your business.

Robust Analytics and Reporting Dashboards

FastSpring’s Reporting and Analytics is a robust suite of reports and visualizations to keep you informed of important stats such as MRR, churn rate, new customers by product type, and more. 

For example, our Subscription Overview dashboard shows key subscription analytics including subscription churn, subscriber loss, MRR churn rate, active customers, and more. 

Use our Subscription Overview dashboard, Revenue dashboard, data export reporting and data API features, and more to better understand:

• How each product contributes to your bottom line. 
• When customers are most likely to drop off.
• What coupons or promotions are working.
• How individual trials are performing.
• Which subscription models generate the most revenue.
• Where your customers are located.
• What currencies and payment methods customers prefer.
• Chargeback rates by customer segment.
• Chargeback rates by product line.
• The status of your active webhooks.
• And much more.

All-in-One Pricing Without the Need for Additional Software

Chargebee separates its Billing features into three pricing plans, so you may eventually need the most expensive plan to get the features you need. For example, chargeback automation is not offered in Chargebee’s Starter plan. 

Plus, you’ll still have to pay for additional software solutions like payment gateways (sometimes interchangeably referred to as “payment processors,” although they are technically different) or tax software for a complete payment management system. Even with seamless integrations, it’s a hassle, an additional cost, and may even require additional headcount to manage it all. 

FastSpring, on the other hand, offers one flat-rate price that includes the entire platform — every feature and all services. Our team works with you to find an affordable price based on the volume of transactions you move through FastSpring (you’ll only be charged when successful transactions take place).

If you think FastSpring could be the right payment solution for your subscription-based business, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

2. Stripe

Stripe’s main service is payment processing; however, they do offer a few other services, such as: 

• Checkout.
• Fraud and risk management.
• Automated invoicing.
• In-person payments.
• Subscription management.
• Virtual and physical card issuing.
• Business spend management.

Stripe billing has fewer options than Chargebee for recurring billing, but you can easily integrate the two software solutions if you want to use (and pay for) both. Stripe works with companies of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises. 

3. Maxio

Maxio (formerly Chargify and SaasOptics) is another cloud-based financial operations platform for B2B SaaS. They offer solutions to automate financial systems on the back end, and features to help improve the order-to-revenue process. Their main services include: 

• Subscription management.
• Usage-based and global billing.
• Revenue recognition and revenue management tools.
• Billing system dashboard and metrics.
• Built-in integrations with various other software (e.g., accounting software such as QuickBooks and Xero).
• International payment gateways.

Maxio advertises their ability to accommodate any go-to-market strategy (such as product-led or sales-led approaches).

4. Zoho Billing

Zoho offers a large suite of software to run your business, from a CRM and ERPs to a video meeting platform. Zoho Billing (formerly Zoho Subscriptions) is their payment processing and recurring billing solution. Some of their key features include: 

• Invoicing and invoice templates.
• Multi-currency support.
• 50+ pre-built analytic reports.
• Automatic online payment retries.
• Out-of-the-box integrations with other billing platforms (e.g., Stripe, PayPal, etc.).

Zoho Billing offers more pre-made solutions than other options on this list, which some companies may find limiting. However, Zoho Billing may be a good choice if you’re already embedded in the Zoho ecosystem.

5. Stax Bill 

Stax Bill (formerly Fusebill) provides subscription management software and a payment gateway in one platform. Other than offering a payment gateway with each plan, Fusebill offers many of the same features as Chargebee, including: 

• Dunning management.
• Flexible recurring billing options.
• Recurring revenue recognition features.
• Billing analytics.

Fusebill also offers flexible catalog pricing and inventory tracking tools. 

6. Zuora

Zuora is a monetization platform for B2C and B2B companies. Zuora’s key functionalities include: 

• Customer subscription management.
• Revenue reconciliation tools.
• Revenue analytics.
• Built-in integrations with lots of business software.
• Low-code SDKs and APIs to build your own integrations.
• Quoting software.

Zuora provides a lot of flexibility for building out your own solution on top of their platform; however, non-developers may find it difficult to manage.

7. Sticky.io

Sticky.io (formerly Limelight) is a subscription management platform that integrates with popular ecommerce platforms such as Salesforce Commerce Cloud, BigCommerce, and Shopify. They advertise the ability to: 

• Support nearly any subscription or pricing model.
• Create coupons, discounts, and special promotions.
• Offer add-ons, upsells, etc.
• Fight fraud and chargebacks.
• Manage automated dunning.

Like Chargebee, Sticky.io doesn’t provide a payment gateway; however, they do offer pre-built integrations with several payment gateways. 

8. PayPal Enterprise Payments

PayPal Enterprise Payments (formerly Braintree by PayPal) is a payment gateway provider that also provides merchant accounts. Other features include: 

• Subscription billing management.
• Optimized checkout flow.
• Flexible risk mitigation options.
• Reporting and analytics.
• Third-party integrations for recurring billing, accounting, and more.

PayPal Enterprise Payments supports payment from PayPal, Venmo (in the U.S.), Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

9. Recurly

Recurly is a subscription management software and recurring billing platform. Recurly offers features such as:

• Multiple pricing models.
• Item catalog.
• Recurring billing.
• Payments orchestration.
• Subscriber management.
• Churn management.
• Reporting dashboards and analytics.

Like Chargebee, Recurly doesn’t include a native payment gateway, but the platform does offer pre-built integrations with popular gateways such as Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, and more. Recurly also allows you to connect multiple gateways.

10. Paddle

Paddle is another Chargebee alternative that’s an MoR with a subscription billing platform, appropriate for use by SaaS and software companies. Paddle has features including: 

• Multiple payment gateways.
• Secure checkout.
• Recurring billing management.
• A robust payments toolkit.
• Fraud protection.
• Transaction and subscription reporting.
• Invoicing. 
• And more.

Learn more about Paddle alternatives.

Frequently Asked Questions About Chargebee Alternatives

What’s the Difference Between Chargebee and FastSpring?

In short: Chargebee is a subscription management platform for SaaS companies, while FastSpring is an all-in-one payments and digital commerce platform (and merchant of record) built for digital-first businesses.

Who Are the Top Competitors to Chargebee in 2025?

Top Chargebee competitors include:

• FastSpring.
• Stripe.
• Maxio.
• Zoho Billing.
• Stax Bill.
• Zuora.
• Sticky.io.
• PayPal Enterprise Payments.
• Recurly.
• Paddle.

What Should I Consider When Choosing a Subscription Management Platform to Replace Chargebee?

The most important considerations include:

• Your business size, industry, and transaction volume.
• Support for localization and preferred payment methods in the jurisdictions where your customers live.
• Integrations with other tools in your payments and tech stack.
• Security and compliance.
• Budget, costs, and scalability.
• Customer support.

How Difficult Is It to Migrate From Chargebee to Another Platform?

In short, the complexity of migrating from Chargebee to another platform depends heavily on factors including:

• Your current Chargebee setup.
• The complexity of your subscription model.
• The platform you’re migrating to.

If you’re looking to migrate from Chargebee to FastSpring, FastSpring can import your subscriptions with payment details or without payment details. Either way, our team is always available to help — regardless of how big or small your operation is.

Need a Chargebee Alternative for Your SaaS, Software, Video Games, or Other Digital Products Business?

FastSpring can help!

Instead of managing a large software stack for just the subscription lifecycle, let FastSpring handle all of payment lifecycle management for you. FastSpring is more than a subscription management platform — we’re the merchant of record for global SaaS companies and many other digital businesses. 

Sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

This post was originally published in December 2022 and has been updated.

The post Chargebee Alternatives in 2025: 10 Competitors and How They Differ appeared first on FastSpring.

For digital-first businesses, the easiest way to manage all aspects of billing is to choose a solution that acts as your merchant of record (MoR). A billing solution that acts as your MoR gives you access to multiple payment processors (which lets you accept more payment methods and is useful when accepting payments globally, as we explain below) while taking on the liability of all transactions for you. An MoR also takes the lead on chargebacks, fraud prevention, tax audits, legal compliance, and more.

When selling physical goods and services (online or in person), various Stripe alternatives built for physical goods payments (such as Amazon Pay, Square, etc.) can provide payment processing, order fulfillment, financing options, and more. (It’s worth noting that most of these solutions can also be used by SaaS, software, video game, and other digital goods companies; however, none of them is a complete payment solution.)

In this guide, we compare eight of the best Stripe alternatives in each of these categories. Since our expertise is in providing MoR services to digital-first companies, we’ll start with an in-depth review of our solution, FastSpring.

Table of Contents

• MoRs for digital goods companies:
  • FastSpring: International payment solution for SaaS, software, video game, mobile app, AI, eLearning, and other digital product businesses.
  • Paddle: Payment infrastructure platform.
  • Verifone: Formerly 2Checkout.
• Billing software for selling physical goods and services:
  • Square: Popular payment platform for startups.
  • PayPal for Business: Available on major ecommerce platforms.
  • Authorize.net: For merchants and small businesses.
  • Adyen: Robust financial technology platform.
  • Amazon: Payment service and order fulfillment.

Note: Information in this article was validated at time of publishing and is subject to change.

If you’re looking for a Stripe alternative to help you grow your business internationally, we can help. FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, and other digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Interested? Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

All-In-One Payment Solutions (MoRs) for Digital-First Businesses

Most companies using Stripe (or something similar to Stripe) know it’s more than just a payment processing platform — but that there are challenges to making the system work for a global SaaS company. It can require tons of add-ons, a complicated pricing structure, and additional fees — and still lack or limit some key features.

For example, Stripe advertises subscription management features as part of the Stripe Billing package; however, many companies end up integrating with another service like Chargebee or Recurly to get the subscription management features and ease of use they need.

Often, digital goods businesses end up with a payment tech stack of over a dozen tools for:

• Calculating and remitting international taxes.
• Accessing additional subscription management features.
• Covering fraud protection.
• Handling chargebacks.
• Implementing a checkout.
• Getting higher authorization rates in other countries.
• And more.

Making it all work together puts a massive strain on the development team.

Plus, you’ll need to maintain a large team of tax and legal experts to stay up to date on regional regulations and maintain global compliance (because solutions like Stripe don’t usually help with legalities). For example, while it’s true that historically, SaaS and ecommerce companies haven’t always needed to pay VAT or sales tax, that’s no longer the case. If you don’t collect and remit the right amount of tax in each jurisdiction where you sell, you could face hefty fines — or even be banned from selling in that region in the future.

Choosing a payment processing solution that also acts as your MoR solves all these problems. 

A merchant of record (MoR) takes care of the entire digital goods billing process for you, including collecting and remitting local and international taxes (such as VAT and local sales tax), staying compliant with local laws and regulations, online payment processing, chargebacks, and much more.

FastSpring Is an International Payment Solution

FastSpring has been acting as an MoR for global software and video game companies for over 20 years, so we know what it takes to expand globally almost overnight. Here are some examples of how FastSpring helped other SaaS and software companies expand globally and increase revenue:

• Mailbird achieved over 100% growth by switching to FastSpring. They previously experimented with platforms like Stripe and PayPal. Read the Mailbird case study here.
• Capture One increased their conversion rate by 40% by switching from an in-house solution to FastSpring to help them with global payments. FastSpring offered them localized checkout experiences that automatically display accurate pricing, language, currency, and taxes around the world. Plus, it was clear that FastSpring is an invested partner with the scalability to grow with their business needs as Capture One expanded their global reach. Read the Capture One case study here.
• SocialBee doubled its monthly recurring revenue and managed tax compliance by switching from Braintree to FastSpring. Read the SocialBee case study here.

Next, we’ll take a deep dive into a few of FastSpring’s billing solutions. 

Note: The following solutions are also offered to digital-first businesses selling downloadable software, video games, app subscriptions, and other digital products. 

Leverage Multiple Payment Processors to Increase Revenue

Many digital-first companies and founding teams initially think they just need one payment processor to accept payments. However, most of those companies eventually end up needing more in order to:

• Accept more payment methods: Customers are more likely to complete a purchase if they can use their preferred payment method. However, not every payment processor supports the same list of payment methods. Working with multiple payment processors lets you accept more local payment methods and, therefore, increase revenue.
• Increase authorization rates for international transactions: Card networks are more likely to authorize transactions when the payment processor is in the same country as the buyer. Some payment processors will establish a legal entity in multiple locations; however, most companies still need to work with multiple payment processors in order to process all payments locally. 
• Accept payments from more countries: Some payment processors only support payments from select countries or regions. Working with multiple payment processors lets you reach customers in more locations.
• Minimize failed payments: Working with multiple payment processors can also solve connectivity issues or system failures. If one payment processor is experiencing a network failure, you can reroute the transaction to a payment processor that’s fully operational. 

With FastSpring, you’ll be supported by multiple payment processors that specialize in global transactions and accept the most common payment options around the world — including but not limited to Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH bank transfers, SEPA, Amazon Pay, Pix, AliPay, UPI, and more (with more added all the time).

Click here to see the full list of payment methods accepted by FastSpring.

FastSpring connects with multiple international payment gateways, and our platform uses intelligent payment routing to send each payment to the gateway with the highest authorization rates for that payment method and location. Then, if a transaction fails, we automatically retry the transaction using a secondary payment processor.

Related: Top 10 International Payment Gateways: An In-Depth Guide

Prevent Fraudulent Transactions Without Blocking Valid Transactions 

The right fraud protection can help you increase authorization rates, decrease chargebacks, and protect your company from attacks. However, if legitimate transactions get marked as fraud, you’ll lose revenue.

FastSpring takes the lead on fraud and risk activities by partnering with Sift for advanced risk analysis and fraud protection. Sift uses machine learning and AI to analyze millions of global transactions each month to identify risky transactions with higher accuracy. This means your fraud protection is constantly evolving to provide better security and improve approval rates.

FastSpring can also block transactions from countries and jurisdictions where companies are currently not allowed to do business. 

Note: You also have the option to block transactions from certain regions or limit products in each region.

If one of your customers does initiate a chargeback, or there’s an issue with fraud, FastSpring takes the lead to resolve it for you.

Discover more and read FAQs about FastSpring’s GDPR and PCI compliance, how FastSpring helps protect against high-risk transactions, and more.

Avoid High Fines and Penalties by Letting FastSpring Handle Local Legal Compliance for You

Even if all legitimate transactions go through, you could face hefty fines or be prevented from transacting in that region if the transactions don’t comply with local laws and regulations. (For example, the Reserve Bank of India limits automatic recurring payments to ₹15,000 INR, or approximately US$170; transaction attempts above that amount simply won’t go through.) 

Most companies need a full compliance department of legal professionals to keep up to date with all the laws and regulations of each jurisdiction they do business in. 

You can also face fines or penalties if you don’t file consumption tax. SaaS companies didn’t always have to pay tax, but tax regulations for digital sales are changing and being increasingly enforced.

Companies that use Stripe (or another point solution) must handle tax on their own. While Stripe will help gather sales tax, you’ll need other software to collect VAT, GST, and other forms of consumption tax. Plus, you’ll need a staff of tax experts to remit the tax at the end of each tax period. 

FastSpring handles the whole process of calculating, collecting, and remitting global sales and consumption taxes for you by: 

• Collecting all consumption tax (including GST, VAT, SST, etc.) and remitting it at the appropriate times.
• Taking the lead on legal compliance (including audits).

FastSpring collects and files taxes in more than 55 countries, 13 provinces, and all 45 U.S. states with sales tax (the other five states don’t collect sales tax). We even handle tax-exempt transactions in the U.S. and B2B reverse charges (when and where allowed) internationally.

FastSpring is fully compliant with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Additionally, we renew our level one certification — which is the highest level possible — with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) every year. FastSpring also participates in the Data Privacy Framework (DPF) for international data transfers. Learn more at our Trust Center.

We build and maintain relationships worldwide with tax law specialists who keep us aware and up to date on laws and regulations as they change.

Manage Everything From Checkout to Subscriptions in One Platform

Instead of building and onboarding a payment stack of over a dozen different solutions to help you manage subscriptions, checkout experiences, reporting, analytics, and more, FastSpring lets companies streamline and manage all aspects of digital goods billing directly from their FastSpring dashboard. 

Below is a brief overview of these features. For a complete list of features (including digital invoicing and interactive quotes) visit FastSpring’s product overview page.

Custom, Localized, and Optimized Checkout Experience

FastSpring gives you full control over your checkout process with our Store Builder Library (SBL). You can customize your checkout, and our team will offer personalized customer support along the way.

We also offer three pre-built experiences. With minimal code, you can embed the FastSpring checkout into a web page or insert a pop-up checkout. Or, if you want to outsource the entire checkout process, you can choose the web storefront option to send customers to a secure web storefront managed entirely by FastSpring. You can also customize the storefront to match the visual branding of your website.

Whichever checkout experience you choose, FastSpring can automatically localize your checkout based on the customer’s location, including translation into 21+ languages and price conversion to many local currencies. You can also set your own language, currency, and price for each region or opt to let your customers choose for themselves.

Related: International Recurring Payments (How We Handle It for You)

Subscription Management

FastSpring lets you create a variety of custom trial and recurring billing models without writing a line of code. You can set up:

• Automatic weekly, monthly, yearly, or custom recurring billing.
• Prorated billing to accommodate upgrades — and downgrades — mid cycle.
• Free or paid trials of any length.
• Trials with or without collecting payment details.
• Automatic or manual renewal.
• Upsells, cross-sells, one-time add-ons, and discounts.
• Automatic failure handling, notifications, and retries to reduce churn.
• B2B digital invoicing.
• And much more.

You‘ll also have access to FastSpring’s developer-friendly API and webhooks library to build more complex custom subscription logic and integrations.

If you want to see how FastSpring compares to Chargebee, read this article. 

Dunning Management

FastSpring handles all failed payments and customer notifications for you — simply choose how you want it handled, and we take care of the rest. Our platform offers flexible dunning management options, which include: 

• Proactive reminders when payment information needs updating. Automatically send flexible, custom email reminders to your customers before a debit or credit card expires. We offer a pre-made email template — or you can customize your own email and set it to send two, five, seven, 14, or 21 days after a payment failure.
• Automatically retry failed payments. FastSpring retries the original payment method multiple times, including before sending each reminder email.
• Flexible failed payment logic. Continue (or pause) service until the last notification has been sent out. Pause (or cancel) the service once all notifications have been sent out and the payment is still getting declined.

With FastSpring, your customers will also have an easy-to-access and intuitive self-serve Customer Account Portal where they can view their order history, update payment information, and manage their subscriptions. The portal is managed by FastSpring but matches the branding of your checkout for a cohesive customer experience.

Reporting and Analytics

While Stripe does offer revenue recognition tools for accounting purposes, many SaaS companies using Stripe end up adding a reporting and customer analytics tool to give them more insight into stats such as MRR, churn rate, new customers by product type or geography, and more. 

FastSpring’s Reporting and Analytics, on the other hand, is a robust suite built for digital products businesses. You can view key performance indicators (KPI) for your customer base and subscription models to better understand:

• How each product contributes to your bottom line. 
• When customers are most likely to drop off.
• What coupons or promotions are working.
• Which subscription models generate the most revenue.
• Where your customers are located.
• What currencies and payment methods customers prefer.
• Chargeback rates by customer segment.
• Chargeback rates by product line.
• The status of your active webhooks.
• And much more.

Our platform features several dashboards, which include:

• Revenue Overview.
• Subscription Overview.
• Revenue Recognition.
• Chargeback Overview.
• Webhook Status.

If you don’t see exactly what you need, you can create and save your own custom reports. You can also reach out to our team for help finding or building the report you need. Export and share reports as a CSV, PNG, or XLSX file. 

For a complete list of features — including Digital Invoicing and Interactive Quotes — visit our website.

One Simple Pricing Model; All the Benefits

Most payment processors (like Stripe) typically charge a low processing fee; however, they’ll charge extra for features such as subscription management, additional payment method support, tax collection, and more. 

They’ll also usually pass along transaction fees such as network/scheme downgrade fees.

Plus, you’ll have to pay for any additional software needed for a complete billing solution — and the staff to manage the entire process. 

For most companies, what starts as seemingly low, flat-rate pricing ends up being an expensive route to take.

On the other hand, FastSpring manages your entire digital goods billing process for one flat rate. You’ll get access to our whole platform — including every feature and all services — in a single comprehensive package. 

Our team works with you to find an affordable monthly fee based on your transaction volume (and you’ll only be charged for successful transactions). Plus, you won’t need any additional software or headcount since we’re liable for transactions and take the lead on sales tax and VAT.

If you’re looking for a Stripe alternative to help you grow your business internationally, we can help. FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, and other digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Interested? Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

Paddle: Payment Infrastructure Platform

Paddle is another Stripe alternative that acts as an MoR for SaaS and software companies. Paddle has features such as: 

• Multiple payment gateways.
• Secure checkout.
• Recurring billing management.
• A robust payments toolkit.
• Fraud protection.
• Transaction and subscription reporting.
• Invoicing. 
• And more.

Learn more about Paddle alternatives.

Verifone: Formerly 2Checkout

Verifone is a Stripe alternative that can act as your MoR or just as a payment service provider. This gives them the flexibility to support small- to medium-sized companies in different industries offering both in-person and online goods or services (e.g., retail and hospitality). 

Verifone functionalities include:

• Integrated point-of-sale (POS).
• Kiosks.
• Subscription management.
• Hosted checkout.
• Partner sales channel management.
• And more.

Some of these features are included with Verifone packages, while others are add-ons with their own additional fees.

With over 20 years of experience serving international software companies, FastSpring is one of the longest-standing MoRs for SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, and other digital products companies. Use our expertise to help grow your business quickly. To learn more, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

Stripe Alternative Billing Software for Selling Physical Goods and Services

While digital product companies can use almost any billing solution to sell their product (although some will be more effective than others), not every solution will be effective for companies selling physical goods or services. Companies selling physical goods and services need solutions that can manage both online and in-person transactions. 

When selling physical goods or services, most companies end up using two or more software solutions to build a complete billing solution. However, there are ways to minimize how many you need and how much it will cost you. The best place to start is to carefully consider your current needs (e.g., are you selling in person and online?) and plan for your future needs (e.g., are you a new business owner who might want to start selling online in the future?). 

Then, you can evaluate each billing solution by asking a few key questions: 

• How many aspects of billing does the software cover? Is each offering truly sufficient for your current needs (e.g., maybe they offer a subscription billing solution but don’t support the business model you need)? Do the features leave room for your company to grow?
• Does their pricing model allow you to get all features for one price, or will you have to pay extra for the features you need? Will the price be sustainably cost effective long term, as your company grows?
• Does the software offer seamless integration with other software you use?
• Is the software user friendly? 

Next, we cover five Stripe competitors for companies selling physical goods and services to help you get started with your search. 

Square: Popular Payment Platform for Startups

Square is a popular point-of-sale solution for companies of all sizes. With Square, you can accept payments from your online store, in-person, or via social media. Beyond payment processing, Square also offers solutions for: 

• Virtual terminals (so you can accept credit card payments using your computer).
• Business management.
• Customer engagement.
• Banking (including merchant accounts, savings accounts, and loans).
• Team management (including payroll, time off, etc.).
• And more.

PayPal for Business: Available on Major Ecommerce Platforms 

PayPal is a well-known digital wallet for personal online payments; however, they also offer payment processing for both online and brick-and-mortar businesses. PayPal supports debit card and credit card processing in store or from your online business.

(Digital-first businesses using FastSpring can also process payments using PayPal.)

PayPal for Business also includes: 

• QR code and POS systems.
• Donation tools.
• Built-in integrations with major ecommerce shopping carts (e.g., Shopify, WooCommerce, and more).
• Risk management and chargeback protection.
• Mass payouts.
• And more.

Note: PayPal also has a payments option called PayPal Enterprise Payments (formerly Braintree) that offers your own merchant account.

Authorize.net: For Merchants and Small Businesses

Authorize.net (a Visa solution) is a payment service provider that supports mobile payments, phone payments, and ACH. They also provide a card reader for in-person payments and support online purchases. 

Other features offered by Authorize.net include: 

• Simple checkout button.
• Recurring payments.
• Digital invoicing.
• Advanced fraud detection.
• Optional merchant account bundle.
• And more.

Adyen: Robust Financial Technology Platform

Adyen is an end-to-end solution for payment processing, data, and financial management. In addition to payment processing, Adyen offers features such as: 

• Virtual and physical card creation.
• Tools to optimize traffic in real time.
• Fraud detection.
• Automated dunning.
• Business bank accounts for your users.
• And more.

Amazon Pay: Payment Service and Order Fulfillment

Amazon Pay lets your customers use the payment information already stored in their Amazon account on your website. You can use Amazon Pay as a stand-alone payment solution without becoming an Amazon Marketplaces seller — or you can easily use Amazon Pay on your own website and become an Amazon merchant (which gives you the option for fulfillment by Amazon).

Amazon Pay includes: 

• Optimized checkout flow (modeled after Amazon’s own).
• Co-marketing campaigns.
• Self-service reporting dashboard.
• Fraud protection.
• Easy integration tools.
• And more.

Note: With FastSpring, your customers can pay using Amazon Pay and many other payment methods. 

Need a Stripe Alternative for Your SaaS, Software, Video Game, Mobile App, or Other Digital Product?

Let FastSpring help!

FastSpring lets you manage every aspect of global payments from one platform — without managing tons of different software solutions. We shoulder the liability for online transactions and take the lead on VAT and sales tax management, regulatory compliance across the globe, and much more for you. 

If you’re looking for a Stripe alternative to help you grow your business internationally, we can help. FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, and other digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Interested? Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

This post was originally published in January 2023 and has been updated.

The post Stripe Alternatives for 2025: In-Depth Guide and 8 Options appeared first on FastSpring.

Here’s an in-depth look at how this feature works and why it’s beneficial.

6 Key Benefits of FastSpring’s Subscription Pause Feature

1. Flexibility for Customers

Life can be unpredictable, and sometimes, customers temporarily may not need or be able to afford a service. The subscription pause feature allows them to disable billing and services temporarily without canceling their subscription. This flexibility builds trust and shows that your business values customer needs.

2. Retention Strategy

Rather than losing customers permanently due to cancellations, the pause feature provides an alternative. By allowing customers to pause their subscriptions, businesses can retain them over the long term, improving customer lifetime value and reducing churn rates.

3. Automatic Resumption

Once a pause is initiated, subscriptions automatically resume on the configured date. This eliminates the need for customers to take additional action, making the process seamless and ensuring service continuity when they’re ready to return.

4. Customization Options

FastSpring’s subscription pause feature is highly customizable, allowing businesses to:

• Define the maximum pause duration.
• Determine whether customers can initiate pauses themselves or require assistance.
• Tailor the experience to match their subscription model and customer needs.

5. Reduced Churn

By providing an alternative to cancellations, businesses can significantly reduce churn rates. Customers facing temporary financial constraints or changes in service needs are more likely to return after a pause than if they had canceled altogether.

6. Improved Customer Experience

Offering a pause option demonstrates empathy and understanding of your customers’ challenges, or of even just their usage habits and expectations. Offering a pause feature enhances their overall experience and strengthens their loyalty to your brand. 

For example, a November 2024 Wall Street Journal article cites an Antenna report showing that the rate of streaming service subscribers who canceled one year and rejoined the next increased from a median of 29.8% in 2022 to 34.2% in 2023. Since more and more people may be regularly stopping subscriptions and then rejoining later, making the process easier for your customers can foster goodwill and loyalty, ultimately improving retention.

How to Implement FastSpring’s Subscription Pause Feature

Step 1: Configure Pause Settings

• Within your FastSpring account, configure the subscription pause settings to align with your business strategy. 
• Decide on the maximum allowable pause duration and whether customers can initiate pauses themselves. (This configuration setting allows you to choose the number of bill periods the customer can pause for.)

Step 2: Customer Communication

• Clearly communicate the pause option to your customers. Highlight the benefits, such as avoiding cancellation fees or preserving their subscription benefits upon resumption. The number of billing cycles for which a subscription can be paused is configurable, but it must be set in advance.
• If the pause feature is not enabled for customers, only sellers can pause subscriptions.
• The pause applies only to the configured number of billing cycles, and this setting must be saved in the subscription’s configuration.

Step 3: Monitor Paused Subscriptions

FastSpring provides webhooks to monitor and manage paused subscriptions. Use these to identify trends or common accounts, such as common pause durations or reasons for pauses, and refine your strategies accordingly. (FastSpring sends webhooks when a subscription is paused or updated to resume, such as subscription.paused and subscription.updated.)

Step 4: Leverage Automated Notifications

Set up automated email notifications to:

• Confirm the pause request.
• Remind customers when their subscription is about to resume.
• Offer incentives, such as discounts or bonuses, to encourage early resumption.

A Win-Win for Businesses and Customers

The subscription pause feature is a powerful tool that benefits both businesses and customers. By reducing churn, improving customer retention, and enhancing the overall experience, it positions your business for long-term success. Customers, in turn, appreciate the flexibility and understanding, fostering loyalty and trust. A “Pause” option reduces churn by catching these “non-permanent” cancellations.

Buyers feel less pressure and more positive about the brand, leading to higher lifetime value (LTV).

Start leveraging FastSpring’s subscription pause feature today and give your customers the flexibility they need while ensuring your business thrives in the subscription economy.

Are you looking for a merchant of record that will partner with you to grow your business internationally? FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, gaming, and other digital goods businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

The post Enhance Customer Experience With FastSpring’s Subscription Pause Feature appeared first on FastSpring.

And typical payment service providers won’t help you with most of those concerns.

Luckily, FastSpring isn’t just a payment service provider — we’re a merchant of record, which means you can outsource the entire cross border transaction process to us, and we’ll handle all the complexities that come with it.

Read on to learn:

• Why cross border payments are key to taking your business global.
• Why cross border payments are so complicated, even with typical payment providers. 
• How FastSpring drastically simplifies the entire cross border payments process for SaaS, software, mobile game, and other digital product businesses.

FastSpring handles the entire payment process from checkout to remitting end-of-year taxes for SaaS companies. To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

Why Cross Border Payments Are Key to Taking Your Business Global

A cross border transaction is a transaction that happens between parties in two different countries.

And if you want to sell globally as a software company — even a small one — the majority of your transactions likely will be cross border. 

For example, 70% of FastSpring’s transactions are cross border (and that’s including the European Union factored as one “country”; if we separated out all the countries within the EU, that percentage would go up). 

This adds dramatic complexity, suboptimization, and unpredictability when using a traditional payment service provider. 

Why Cross Border Payments Are So Complicated, Even With Typical Payment Providers

There are many payment service providers (PSPs) out there, all offering different levels of payment processing services and related add-ons.

But if you want to use a standard PSP to accept international payments, you have two main options.

1. Create your own entity structure around the world. This means having a true physical presence in many geographies and managing the significant legal and financial costs and headaches that come with that.

2. Don’t create your own entity structure around the world, but be treated as a non-local business in the majority of the markets in which you sell. This comes with additional disadvantages, such as:

• International surcharges on credit card payments (typically 1-2%), increasing the expected cost while lowering the predictability of your processor fees.
• Lower approval rates on credit cards as a non-local acquirer. In some regions (such as Latin America), this means as much as a 20%-30% differential in approval rates due to the relatively low prevalence of “international credit cards” (i.e., those that can be used to purchase from foreign merchants) among buyers in such regions. 
• Dramatically lower ability to accept local payments methods, as many local payment methods require that you be a local business to be able to accept them (for example, Pix – one of the most popular online payment methods in Brazil). 

Even if you choose to create your own entity structure, you will need to work with many PSPs (or legal entities) to be treated as a local business in each market. 

And even if you work with one PSP that is worldwide (such as Stripe), you’ll need to maintain separate accounts with separate fee structures and contract with separate legal entities of the PSP in each region. 

Further still, if you want redundancy in your ability to accept cross border payments — which everyone should have to ensure they never lose sales to payment system down time — this at least doubles your complexity in each region. 

You could instead choose to only expand into a few new countries or regions, but if you limit the number of places where your software or digital product is sold, that will limit sales accordingly. You can’t get fast, meaningful revenue expansion with slow, piecemeal geographical expansion. 

Luckily, there is another, much simpler option.

Let FastSpring Help as Your Merchant of Record!

FastSpring’s ability to simplify cross border transactions for your business goes far beyond standard PSPs because we’re a merchant of record (MoR).

While PSPs and MoRs may look similar at first, there are some big, fundamental differences between PSPs and MoRs.

A payment service provider does bridge some gaps for companies selling digital products and software, such as handling back-end specialized services and networks (including payment gateways, payment processors, and merchant accounts) so you don’t have to connect directly with all of those yourself.

But PSPs stop shy of becoming the entity that worries about risk considerations, regulatory rules in many geographies, card brand rules, and even tax calculation, collection, and remittance — responsibilities that a merchant of record does take on for you. 

That’s because a merchant of record becomes the entity that is technically selling the product.

Because an MoR already has the necessary infrastructure set up, it’s already a complete payment solution that lets you quickly outsource the entire checkout process, including fraud prevention, tax compliance, and even sales tax and VAT remittance. 

As a merchant of record, FastSpring is uniquely positioned to support cross border commerce, offering you the following conveniences:

• One vendor and one account.
• Greater access to local payment methods.
• Higher approval rates due to local acquiring.
• Predictable flat rate pricing model with no cross border fees.
• 24/7 buyer transaction support.
• Elimination of tax registration, filing, and remittance worldwide.
• Elimination of need to monitor changing tax laws and requirements worldwide.

Increase Revenue, Decrease Complexity, and Mitigate Risk With FastSpring

Once you implement FastSpring, you gain almost instant access for your SaaS, software, or other digital products to be sold in more than 200 regions, with support for 21+ languages and 23+ currencies.

FastSpring manages all the hard parts of cross border transactions so you can focus on building the fantastic products that will help you become the next great global brand.

FastSpring manages all the hard parts of cross border transactions so you can focus on building the fantastic products that will help you become the next great global brand.

We Make It Easy to Integrate FastSpring With Your Business

Beyond the financial services that PSPs and MoRs provide — and the regulatory, risk, tax, and other additional responsibilities MORs take on — PSPs and MoRs offer varying levels of tools to help integrate their services with your business. 

With FastSpring, here are just a few of the great features included when we serve as your merchant of record.

Extensive B2C and B2B Selling Features

Sell in all the ways that customers want to buy. Our platform accommodates one-time purchases or recurring payments, subscription downloads and cloud-based offerings, trials with and without payments, and more. 

We support these flexible selling models and options with both best-in-class self-serve checkout functionality and localized, custom B2B quotes and invoicing.

Industry-Leading Customization Features

Just because FastSpring takes on the complexities of cross border payments doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice branding and customization options. 

Besides being able to create a seamless trial, checkout, fulfillment, and subscription experience for your customers with our webhooks, APIs, and no-code customization options, we also offer a FastSpring-managed JavaScript library and robust checkout localization tools.

Partnership-Style Support

While providing the above-mentioned tools that allow developers to dig in themselves, you’re not on your own to set up your online store. 

FastSpring’s MoR services include 24/7 multi-tiered support that are prioritized by urgency instead of business size; global VAT, GST, and sales taxes handled by experts, to the tune of $54M+ filed and paid every year; and multi-layer fraud prevention and compliance management that adheres to SCA, PSD2, CCPA, GDPR, Economic Nexus, and dozens of local regulations across varied jurisdictions. 

Get Started With FastSpring

FastSpring handles the entire payment process from checkout to remitting end-of-year taxes for SaaS companies, with award-winning support to help along the way. 

To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly with cross border transactions, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

Other Articles You Might Be Interested In

Have more questions about the financial institutions and systems that merchants of record and other payment platforms work with to make international transactions and payments work? We cover more about the important differences between PSPs and MoRs and explain some of the ecommerce details that need to happen in the background for cross-border payment services to work and compare features such as transaction fees and payment options in 2Checkout vs. Stripe vs. FastSpring: Comparing Payments, Taxes, and Platform Features (+ Pricing).

Worried about regulatory requirements, international bank transfers, currency conversions, credit and debit cards and digital wallets, different currencies, transaction costs, and all the other details it takes to make international financial transactions happen? Find out why a merchant of record makes all of this easy in What Is a Merchant of Record? (And Why Should You Care?).

Looking for a global payments provider and merchant of record to serve as a complete cross border payment system? Learn more about FastSpring’s global payments.

If your software or other digital goods business’ roadmap includes becoming part of the global economy, you can move beyond only accepting domestic payments with a new payments provider. Learn more about why merchant of record FastSpring is so well equipped to remove the friction of cross border transactions on our merchant of record page.

The post Easy Cross Border Transactions With FastSpring as Your MoR appeared first on FastSpring.

• Build various trial and subscription models (e.g., free or paid trial and usage-based or fixed price subscriptions). 
• Manage active subscriptions (e.g., upgrades, downgrades, and adding or removing products).
• Send invoices and/or payment notifications.
• Provide your customers with a self-serve portal where they can manage their account.
• View reports on the key performance indicators that drive revenue.

However, most businesses find they need additional software for other aspects of the payment lifecycle, such as: 

• Payment processing
• Collecting sales tax and VAT
• Checkout translations
• Currency conversions
• Chargebacks
• And more…

If you need any of these features, you’ll need to make sure they are offered by billing software you choose (or easily integrate with other software solutions). 

In this guide, we compare five solutions by looking at the billing and subscription management features they provide and the additional features they offer — starting with a deep dive into our solution for SaaS companies, FastSpring. 

Table of Contents

1. FastSpring
2. Chargebee
3. Recurly
4. Chargify
5. Zoho Subscriptions

FastSpring handles the entire monthly recurring billing process from subscription management to remitting end-of-year taxes for SaaS companies. To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

1. FastSpring: Subscription Management, Payment Processing, and Much More for SaaS Companies

FastSpring offers several options for subscription management (which we discuss below), however, it’s more than just a subscription management platform — we’re the Merchant of Record (MoR) for software companies. 

As MoR, we take on transaction liability for you, meaning we:

• Collect and remit the right amount of sales tax, VAT, and GST for you.
• Make sure the necessary procedures and documentation are in place to stay compliant with the transaction laws in every location you sell.
• We take the lead on audits.

Plus, FastSpring has comprehensive solutions for the entire payment lifecycle including: 

• Localized checkout (i.e., currency conversions, language translations, custom designs, and more)
• International payment processing (for dozens of preferred payment methods)
• Fraud detection
• Chargebacks
• Reporting and analytics
• And much more…

In the following sections, we dig into a few of these features and services in more detail. 

Custom Subscription and Recurring Billing Models for B2C or B2B

FastSpring makes it easy to set up nearly any subscription scenario with just a few clicks. You can set up most subscription types without any code, but you can also create more complex subscription logic via our API and webhooks library.

Here’s an overview of your options:

Trials 

Some subscription management tools will always collect payment details when potential customers sign up for trials, even free trials. This can cause some prospects to get cold feet and not finish the signup process. FastSpring lets you decide whether or not to collect payment details for each trial. 

You can also:

• Create trials of any length.
• Design free, paid, or usage-based trials.
• Choose to automatically bill the user after the trial has ended or wait for them to manually start a paid subscription.
• Allow subscribers to reactivate expired trial accounts.
• Choose when FastSpring sends reminders of ending trials (e.g., three days before the trial ends).
• Automatically detect when a single user tries to sign up for multiple trials and only allow one trial account.
• And much more…

Subscriptions

Each business and each product within a business may see better results from different subscription models. For example, low-tier products may perform better if offered as a monthly subscription, whereas top-tier products may perform better if sold as an annual subscription.  

Additionally, what was effective at one point in time may not be the best solution in the future. 

That’s why FastSpring lets you: 

• Choose the subscription frequency and billing date (or let your customers choose).
• Set subscriptions to auto-renew, require manual renewal (i.e., customers have to re-enter payment information each time they’re billed), or require your team to initiate the charge via the API (this is a good option for usage-based billing).
• Offer discounts and coupons.
• Allow prorated billing if a customer wants to upgrade, downgrade, or pause the service part-way through the billing cycle.
• Add one-time purchases to the initial bill but not recurring billings.
• Manage upsell and cross-sell products at checkout.
• Give customers the option of whether or not to store payment information (or make the decision for all customers).
• Auto-renew certain subscriptions to different subscriptions (e.g., when retiring a service or product).
• And much more…

Recurring Billing and Invoicing

FastSpring lets you manage B2B orders alongside B2C purchases with Digital Invoicing. 

Digital Invoicing lets you: 

• Create and manage custom quotes in real-time (including custom tags, coupons, discounts, and more).
• Set expiration dates for quotes.
• Add notes for your customer or prospect.
• And much more…

Fully Branded Self-serve Features for Your Customers

FastSpring provides a self-serve portal where your customers can: 

• Renew subscriptions
• Manage billing periods
• Update payment information
• View payment history
• And much more …

We manage all of the backend maintenance for this portal so your team doesn’t have to. 

As your MoR, we take care of your customer’s billing inquiries, including refund requests, billing issues, questions about their subscriptions, and more. Our platform also includes a customer portal that makes it easy for your customers to manage their subscriptions.

The image below shows a simple example of the self-service portal, however, for a more seamless customer experience, the entire portal can be customized to match your branding. 

You can also enable buyer-generated quotes. This feature allows customers to generate a quote from the contents in their cart without contacting your sales team. This feature is very helpful for attracting potential customers that need approval before making a purchase.

Local Transaction and Indirect Tax Compliance Made Simple

There are two main aspects of compliance when it comes to recurring transactions: 

1. Transaction compliance (i.e., the systems you have in place for collecting payment).
2. Sales tax, VAT, and GST compliance (i.e., how you collect and remit indirect tax).

To avoid fines and penalties, you have to consider both transaction laws and tax laws for every jurisdiction you do business in. In the following sections, we cover: 

• Examples of transaction laws that affect subscription-based companies. 
• Whether or not software companies have to collect sales tax, VAT, and GST.
• How FastSpring handles all of this for you. 

Transaction Compliance

Each country, state, and province has its own laws and regulations about how businesses can collect payment and store customer information. Most companies are aware of privacy regulations such as GDPR, however, there are many transaction regulations that aren’t as well known. 

For example, in some countries, such as Canada and Korea, customers are eligible by law for a prorated refund if they cancel their subscription before the end of the payment period. This is just one example for one aspect of the subscription lifecycle — and these laws and regulations are constantly changing. 

With most subscription management solutions, you’ll be on your own to learn about transaction laws and regulations and implement the necessary procedures. Additionally, some subscription platforms won’t offer the necessary options to comply with laws and regulations (e.g., some platforms don’t support prorated refunds). 

On the other hand, FastSpring handles all of this for you. Our team of legal experts stays up to date on all relevant transaction laws and regulations and helps you implement the necessary procedures to ensure compliance. FastSpring also supports all necessary subscription models for compliance. 

Sales Tax, VAT, and GST Compliance

Software companies didn’t always have to collect sales tax, VAT, and GST, and in many jurisdictions, that’s still the case. However, tax laws for digital goods and services are changing fast in many jurisdictions.

More and more countries are requiring software companies to collect some form of indirect tax. Plus, some countries are requiring digital companies to file tax forms even if they qualify for tax exemption. 

Finally, remitting sales taxes is often more involved than filling out a tax form and wiring the funds. More and more countries are mandating additional requirements to stay compliant. 

For example: 

• Countries such as Colombia, Japan, Mexico, Serbia, and others require local representation, meaning you have to hire someone with a physical presence in that country to be responsible for your tax liability. This can cost anywhere from $5k to $15k per year.
• Countries such as Serbia, United Kingdom, Taiwan, and others require electronic invoicing from any company selling in their country. The EU is rolling out universal electronic invoicing requirements by 2028.
• Countries such as Taiwan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Vietnam, and others require you to file income tax in addition to indirect tax. 

Very few subscription billing platforms offer any features to help you collect tax. Even if they do, you’re still held liable for making sure you’re collecting the right amount. Plus, you have to remit those taxes and handle any additional requirements. 

FastSpring handles the entire process of gathering and remitting sales tax, VAT, and GST for you.

We ensure the correct amount (and type) of indirect tax is being collected at checkout (including tax-exempt transactions in the US and B2B reverse charges when allowed internationally). 

Then, our team remits those taxes for you and ensures all the necessary procedures are in place for full compliance. 

Finally, if a country or state approaches you about tax compliance, our team will often provide copy and paste responses.

International Payment Processing for Dozens of Payment Methods

Most payment processors focus their efforts on a specific region and all payment processors have a finite list of payment methods that they support. For example, some payment processors aim to support transactions in the U.S. So, they’ll only support the payment methods that are popular in the U.S. (e.g., Mastercard or Apple Pay) and they won’t support something like UnionPay, which is commonly used in China. 

Additionally, many payment processors will only process payments in certain countries and currencies. For example, they may support Amazon Pay but they won’t process payments from Turkey. 

SaaS companies that want to accept payments around the world have to connect with and manage multiple payment processors, which can be a huge task.

With FastSpring, SaaS companies automatically have access to multiple payment processors that specialize in international payments. FastSpring maintains relationships with multiple payment processors and dozens of card networks so that you don’t have to. Simply turn on our localized payments feature and start accepting international payments right away.

FastSpring also offers multiple features to help ensure successful payments and reduce involuntary churn, including: 

• Local payment gateways: Transactions are more likely to be approved if the payment gateway is in the same location as the buyer (e.g., a transaction originating from Germany goes through a payment gateway located in Germany). FastSpring automatically routes payments through the payment gateway with the highest authorization rates for that location.
• Payment gateway rerouting: If a payment fails on the first attempt, FastSpring automatically retries the payment using a secondary gateway — all without you or anyone on your support team having to intervene. This often solves payment failures due to connectivity or system issues.
• Proactive payment reminders. If a customer’s card is about to expire, FastSpring will notify the customer before the due date so they have a chance to update the payment information. You can use our pre-made notification template or customize your own message.
• Multiple follow-up notifications. If a recurring payment is declined, you can schedule multiple payment failure notifications to be sent two, five, seven, 14, and 21 days after the initial failure. Before sending out each reminder, FastSpring will retry the payment.

Tailor-Made Checkout to Reflect Your Visual Brand

Most payment solutions offer a checkout module with a few options for customization such as adding your logo and choosing a color palette. However, these customization options are rarely enough to truly reflect your visual brand, create a seamless experience for your customers, and optimize your checkout for conversions. 

FastSpring provides custom branding tools and CSS overrides so that you have extensive customizations options to control the look and feel of your checkout.

You’ll also have access to our Store Builder Library — a JavaScript library which allows you to customize the buyer journey leading up to checkout.For example, you can create a cross-sell or upsell funnel. This lets you optimize the buyer experience for higher conversions. 

FastSpring checkout comes in three versions: embedded, popup, or as a web storefront. The web storefront redirects your customers to a separate page hosted by FastSpring. 

With any of these options (including the web storefront), you’ll be able to customize the checkout flow using FastSpring branding tools and CSS overrides to match your visual brand. 

Here are several other features that FastSpring offers to help you optimize your checkout:

• Localized Checkout: Let customers choose their preferred language and currency or let FastSpring choose the appropriate language and currency based on the buyer’s location. FastSpring supports 19+ languages and 23+ currencies.
  
• Built-in tracking and testing tools: With FastSpring’s built-in tracking tools, you can easily identify ways to improve conversion rates. Companies that use this tool are typically able to increase their conversion rates by 30% or more.
  
  Learn more: Case Study: Capture One increased conversions by 40% using FastSpring
  
• Personalized developer support: Our team is always happy to help you build the best checkout experience for your business. Some companies only provide personalized support to their largest clients and practically ignore small businesses. At FastSpring, we believe every company deserves the same attention and care.

Comprehensive Reporting and Analytics

FastSpring Analytics and Reporting automatically tracks key metrics and puts them in meaningful reports so you can easily answer questions such as:

• Where are the majority of my highest paying customers located? 
• Which products are bringing in the most revenue? 
• Which discounts are generating revenue vs. draining revenue?
• And many more…

FastSpring reports are divided into two main dashboards: Revenue Overview and Subscription Overview. 

If you don’t find the report you need, you can customize any report and save it to your dashboard. Our team is always available to help you design custom reports to find the answers you need. 

Our data API and webhooks make it easy to pull in revenue and subscription data to whatever CRM or business intelligence tool you use. Any report can also be downloaded as a CSV, PNG, or XLSX file.

All-in-One Pricing (No Hidden Fees)

Many payment system providers will charge a base price for payment processing and a few core features, such as embeddable checkout. However, you’ll typically have to pay extra for other features such as currency conversions or fraud detection. Very few payment platforms are a complete solution, so most companies need to add on additional software. This makes it difficult to scale globally as your business grows because the cost will continue to increase as you need more features and software. 

FastSpring is a complete payment solution for SaaS companies with everything included in one flat-rate fee based on the volume of transactions you move through FastSpring. Plus, you’ll only be charged when transactions take place. 

Reach out to our team to find the price that works for you or sign up for a free account. 

Next, we cover four more payment platforms for subscription-based businesses. 

2. Chargebee

Chargebee is a well-known subscription and recurring billing system.They offer out-of-the-box integrations with many different software to help you manage aspects of the billing lifecycle that they don’t provide a solution for (e.g., Stripe for payment processing). They also offer integrations with popular business software such as Salesforce. 

Here are a few highlights of Chargebee features: 

• Usage-based billing, automated invoicing, proration, and more
• Automated processes for accounts receivable
• Compliant revenue recognition and subscription models
• Support for in-app purchases
• Self-service portal for customers
• Smart dunning

You can use the Chargebee platform for free for the first $100k in revenue earned. After that, they offer a variety of pricing plans for different ranges of monthly income. 

Learn more: 8 Best Chargebee Alternatives and Competitors (And How They’re Different)

3. Recurly

Recurly is a recurring billing platform built for optimizing your growth strategy. Recurly easily integrates with various payment gateways and merchant accounts, however, you still have to manage and pay for these third-party services on top of your Recurly plan. 

Here are a few other highlights of Recurly’s features: 

• Customizable subscription models
• Automated recurring invoicing
• Revenue recovery tools
• Intelligent retention
• Customer subscription analytics

Recurly offers three pricing packages, however, you have to reach out to their team for details.

Learn more: Recurly Competitors and Alternatives: An In-Depth Review

4. Chargify

Chargify is a subscription billing software that’s in the process of merging with SaaSOptics, a revenue management platform. This merger will let you automate subscription management, revenue and expense recognition, and SaaS metric tracking from one revenue management system. 

Here are a few highlights of the functionalities Chargify offers: 

• Usage-based and global billing 
• Revenue recognition and billing management tools
• Billing system analytics and metrics
• Built-in integrations with various other software (e.g., accounting software like QuickBooks and Xero)
• International payment gateways

Chargify specifies a pricing plan for companies earning $75k per month in billings, but, if you earn more revenue or want access to all features, you’ll have to contact their team.

5. Zoho Subscriptions

Zoho Subscriptions is one piece of the Zoho platform (a suite of software for every aspect of your business, e.g., CRMs and ERPs). If you’re already using the Zoho platform, this could be a good option. However, new users typically find it has a steep learning curve.

A few highlights of Zoho Subscriptions include: 

• Multiple pricing models
• Customizable, tax-compliant invoices
• Multi-currency conversions
• 30+ pre-built reports to track each stage of the subscription lifecycle
• Support for in-person cash and check payments (in addition to credit card payments)
• Out-of-the-box integrations with other billing solutions (e.g., Stripe, PayPal, etc.)
• Tools to create custom workflow rules

Each aspect of the Zoho platform is priced separately — including Zoho Subscriptions — which can make it difficult and costly to build an end-to-end payment solution. 

Instead of managing a large software stack, let FastSpring handle the entire payment lifecycle for you. If you think FastSpring could be the best recurring billing and subscription management software for your business, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

The post Billing and Subscription Management: A Detailed Comparison of 5 Options appeared first on FastSpring.

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

We’ll start with a deep dive into FastSpring — our end-to-end payment solution (i.e., subscription management, payment processing, and more) for SaaS companies. Then, we’ll cover five more Recurly alternatives for companies in all industries. 

In this guide: 

1. FastSpring: Subscription Management, Payment Processing, and Much More for 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: Recurring Billing for Small Businesses
6. Zoho Subscriptions: Online Subscription Billing Software

FastSpring does more than just process payments and help you manage subscriptions. We also take on transaction liability for you. Request a demo or sign up for a free account to learn more.

FastSpring: Subscription Management, Payment Processing, and Much More for SaaS and Software Companies

FastSpring helps SaaS companies (and companies selling digital goods and one-time downloads) manage the entire payment lifecycle, from subscription management to remitting end-of-year taxes. 

Beyond just providing the necessary software, we’re your Merchant of Record (MoR). As your MoR, we take on transaction liability for you which means we take the lead on compliance, audits, chargebacks, and more. 

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

When setting up subscription plans and recurring billing models, one point that’s often overlooked is whether or not each plan is compliant with transaction laws and regulations. Most companies are aware of regulations such as GDPR and other consumer privacy laws. However, many companies are unaware of the transaction laws of each location where they do business. 

For example, in some countries (e.g., Canada and Korea) customers are eligible by law for a prorated refund if they cancel their subscription before the end of the payment period. Another example is that the Reserve Bank of India limits automatic payments to ₹15,000 (approximately $180) — anything over that amount has to be manually approved by the customer. 

These are just two examples. Considering the laws are constantly changing, it’s understandable that many companies have a hard time staying up-to-date with them. However, you could face heavy fines or be banned from transacting in a specific region if you don’t comply with these laws.

Some subscription management platforms will send out mass updates when they learn about new laws and regulations, but ultimately, your company will be held liable. 

Unlike most subscription management companies, FastSpring takes on transaction liability for you, which means our team: 

• Stays up-to-date on the transaction laws and regulations of every jurisdiction you transact in.
• Makes sure your billing models are compliant with each jurisdiction.
• Takes the lead on audits. 

In addition to helping you stay compliant, FastSpring provides flexibility for setting up trials, subscriptions, and recurring billing models. For example, you can set up: 

• Free, paid, or discounted trials of any length (with or without collecting payment details).
• Fixed, per seat, metered, tiered, and bundled billing.
• Prorated billing to accommodate upgrades and downgrades mid-cycle.
• Automatic or manual renewal.
• Upsells, cross-sells, one-time fees, discounts, and gifts.
• And much more …

Related: Manage B2B Orders in One Place with Digital Invoicing

Most pricing and billing models can be set up without code but you’ll also have access to our API and webhooks library for unique models. Our developers are also available to help you build the perfect solution and answer any questions. 

Related: An In-Depth Guide to Subscription Billing Platforms (+ 5 Options)

Customer Portal

With FastSpring, your customers will have access to a self-serve portal where they can manage their payment details and plans (e.g., upgrade, downgrade, add users, and more). 

The portal is fully customizable so it can match your visual brand, but it’s managed by FastSpring, so that your team can focus on more strategic tasks. 

Have Complete Control over Every Aspect of Checkout

FastSpring offers advanced checkout customization options so you can create a modern, intuitive, branded checkout experience that drives conversions. Here’s an overview of those options: 

• Three versions of checkout: You can choose to embed checkout directly on your webpage, have a checkout popup over your webpage, or send your customers to a fully branded web storefront hosted by FastSpring. Both Embedded Checkout and Popup Checkout are easily implemented with just a few lines of pre-written code. The Web Storefront is hosted on a FastSpring webpage (so your team doesn’t have to build everything from scratch) but you’ll have several options to customize the page.

• Customization tools: To change the color, font, and more of the checkout, you can use FastSpring branding tools or CSS overrides. To customize the buyer journey leading up to the checkout, you can use FastSpring’s JavaScript Store Builder Library (SBL). The JavaScript SBL lets you add FastSpring elements to create upsell funnels, a dynamic pricing slider, and more to optimize each purchase.
• Localization features: FastSpring supports dozens of languages and currencies around the world. You can let your customers choose their preferred language and currency or let FastSpring make the appropriate selection based on their location.

• Personalized developer support: Many payment solutions offer personalized support to their bigger clients and leave the smaller companies to fend for themselves. At FastSpring, our developers (and our entire staff) are happy to help you build the right payment solution and answer any questions you may have, regardless of your monthly revenue. 

Accept Dozens of Preferred Payment Methods Around the World

Many SaaS companies try to increase conversion rates by offering more payment methods. However, adding new payment methods is more complicated than simply adding the logo of the payment networks to your checkout screen. Each payment provider will have different regulations regarding fraud, chargebacks, privacy protection, and more before they’re willing to approve transactions with your business. 

If you’re working with international card networks and issuing banks, it gets even more complicated. For example, credit card networks are more likely to approve transactions where the payment gateway is in the same location as the buyer, which means you’ll need to work with multiple payment gateways to maintain high conversion rates. 

Most recurring billing platforms offer pre-built integrations with various payment processors, however, you’ll still have to pay for and manage each of these payment processors separately. 

With FastSpring, you automatically have access to multiple payment processors that specialize in global transactions — without any additional fees. 

You can easily start accepting dozens of payment methods within the first day of working with us. FastSpring automatically routes each payment through the payment gateway with the highest authorization rates for that location and retries failed payments using a secondary gateway. 

Related: Top 10 International Payment Gateways: An In-Depth Guide

Plus, we take the lead on: 

• Compliance with card networks and issuing banks.
• Fraud detection.
• Chargebacks.

Bonus: Let FastSpring Handle Sales Tax, VAT, and GST for You

SaaS and software companies didn’t always have to gather and remit sales tax or VAT. However, more states, countries, and other jurisdictions are writing new laws that change that. Now, SaaS and software companies have to file and remit sales tax or VAT in many jurisdictions — and many jurisdictions are enforcing these laws more strongly than before. 

Learn more: Can SaaS Companies Afford to Ignore Sales Taxes and VAT?

Some online payment processors will help you gather sales tax or VAT, however, few of them will support all the forms of consumption tax SaaS businesses run into when transacting globally. Plus, you’ll be on your own to file and remit those taxes. If you don’t file them in the correct way, at the correct time, or in the correct amount, you could face heavy penalties. 

FastSpring customers don’t have to worry about any of this because FastSpring takes the lead on calculating, gathering, filing and remitting sales tax, VAT, and GST for you. We also take the lead on any tax-related audits. 

Drill Into What Is and Isn’t Working with Built-in Reporting

FastSpring Analytics and Reporting automatically tracks key metrics regarding your subscriptions and revenue, such as monthly recurring revenue (MRR), net sales by product and region, refund rates, and much more.

FastSpring takes these metrics and displays them in meaningful reports so you always have the information you need at your fingertips. These reports are divided into two main dashboards: Revenue Overview and Subscription Overview. 

If you don’t find the report you need, you can create (and save) custom reports. Our team is also available to help you design the right report and answer any questions you may have. 

Finally, any report can be downloaded as a CSV, PNG, or XLSX file. 

Related: SaaS Billing Software: 7 Tools in 3 Categories & How to Choose – FastSpring

All Features for One Flat Rate Fee

The entire FastSpring platform is available for one flat-rate fee based on the volume of transactions you move through FastSpring. Plus, you’ll only be charged when a transaction takes place.

Reach out to our team to find the price that works for you (or sign up for a free account). 

FastSpring Customer Reviews

FastSpring currently has 4.5 stars on G2 with over 184 reviews. 

Here’s what some of our customers had to say:

If you think FastSpring could be the right Recurly alternative for your business, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

Five More Recurly Competitors

Here are five more Recurly competitors that compare according to the following categories: subscription management and recurring billing, checkout, global payment processing, reporting and analytics, pricing, and customer reviews.

Chargebee: Popular Subscription Management Software

Chargebee is a popular choice for setting up customer subscription plans. Chargebee offers built-in integrations with many different types of software including ERPs, accounting software such as QuickBooks, and more. 

Here’s how Chargebee compares in each category: 

• Subscription management and recurring billing: This is what Chargebee is best known for. They offer a lot of different pricing and billing options, and customers report that the platform is easy to use.
• Checkout: Chargebee offers two versions of checkout — in-app (their version of popup checkout) and full web page. The full web page is still in beta. 
• Global payment processing: Chargebee only deals with subscriptions and recurring billing, which means you’ll need additional software for payment processing, taxes, revenue management, and more.
• Reporting and analytics: Chargebee offers a built-in reporting feature with filters to help you find the report you need. 
• Pricing: You can use the Chargebee platform for free for the first $100k in revenue you earn. After that, they offer three plans ranging from $249/month to $549+/month. 
• Customer Reviews: Chargebee has 4.6 stars on G2 with over 560 reviews. You can read those reviews here.

Learn more: 8 Best Chargebee Alternatives and Competitors (And How They’re Different)

Chargify: Subscription Billing Solution for B2B SaaS

Chargify is in the process of merging with SaaSOptics to help you automate subscription management, revenue and expense recognition, and SaaS metric tracking all from one platform. 

Here’s how Chargify addresses each category: 

• Subscription management and recurring billing: Chargify focuses more heavily on recurring billing for B2B SaaS companies, however, they do offer several options for subscription management. They advertise the ability to support any ecommerce go-to-market strategy. 
• Checkout and global payment processing: Chargify integrates with Stripe Billing for checkout and payment processing. 
• Reporting and analytics: When Chargify and SaaSOptics complete the merger, you will have access to a full suite of reporting and analytics tools. 
• Pricing: Chargify’s pricing plans start at $599/month for companies earning $75k per month in billings. If you earn more revenue or want access to all features, you’ll have to contact their team.
• Customer Reviews: Chargify and SaaSOptics as Maxio has 4.2 stars on G2 with over 288 reviews. You can read those reviews here.

Zuora: Monetization Platform for Any Business

Zuora supports in-person and online subscription businesses. While they can support B2B and B2C transactions, customers suggest that they’re better suited for monthly rather than annual billing models. 

Here’s an overview of Zuora’s services: 

• Subscription management and recurring billing: Zuora offers 50+ pricing models for subscriptions, products, and services. They also offer custom invoicing features for B2B transactions. 
• Checkout: Zuora partners with Checkout.com to provide secure payment collection. 
• Global payment processing: Zuora offers 35+ prebuilt payment gateways. 
• Reporting and analytics: Zuora offers a library of pre-built financial reports and a report builder where you can customize reports.
• Pricing: You can reach out to their team for pricing details.
• Customer Reviews: Zuora has 3.9 stars on G2 with over 258 reviews. You can read those reviews here.

Stax Bill: Recurring Billing for Small Businesses

Stax Bill (formerly Fusebill) is one piece of the Stax Payment solution. Stax Bill offers simple automation for recurring billing and invoicing. They integrate with popular CRMs including Salesforce and HubSpot, so you can manage payments from either place. 

Here’s how Stax Bill measures up in each category: 

• Subscription management and recurring billing: Stax Bill offers many of the common recurring billing model options, however, they emphasize flexible catalog management and their self-serve customer portal. 
• Checkout: Stax Payments includes a pre-built shopping cart and options for creating your own.
• Global payment processing: Stax Bill offers payment gateway integrations with multiple global payment processors, however, you’ll be charged extra for these services. 
• Reporting and analytics: Stax Bill provides 40+ pre-built reports that automatically update in real-time. 
• Pricing: Stax Payment pricing starts at $99/month for small businesses. 
• Customer Reviews: Stax Bill has 4.2 stars on G2 with over 90 reviews. You can read those reviews here.

Zoho Subscriptions: Online Subscription Billing Software

Zoho Subscriptions is one part of the Zoho platform. If you’re already using the Zoho platform, this could be a good option. However, users who are new to the platform often find it difficult to navigate. 

Here’s how Zoho Subscription compares in each category: 

• Subscription management and recurring billing: Zoho Subscriptions offers more flexibility than many solutions when it comes to how you set up your free trials. For example, like FastSpring, you won’t have to collect payment details. In regards to subscription and recurring billing models, Zoho offers many of the same options as other tools.
• Checkout: Zoho Checkout is another part of the Zoho ecosystem. Depending on the plan you choose, these two services may be priced separately.
• Global payment processing: Payment processing is also offered through Zoho Checkout. 
• Reporting and analytics: Zoho Subscriptions comes with a built-in reporting tool that shows you key metrics such as total subscribers or total churn. You can also view financial reports such as a break-even sheet. 
• Pricing: Zoho Subscriptions is free for the first 20 subscriptions, then it starts at $49/month. However, you’ll need to keep in mind that any additional services you need, such as Zoho Checkout, are priced separately. 
• Customer Reviews: Zoho Subscriptions has 4.4 stars on G2 with over 42 reviews. You can read those reviews here.

Instead of managing a large software stack, let FastSpring handle the entire payment lifecycle for you. If you think FastSpring could be the right Recurly alternative for your business, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

The post Top 6 Recurly Competitors and Alternatives: An In-Depth Review appeared first on FastSpring.

• Automate invoicing and payments. 
• Customize and manage one or more subscription and trial models.
• Provide a self-service portal to customers so they can manage their accounts (including payment information, seats, and more).
• Offer and manage one-time add-ons, coupons, and more.
• Gather metrics and view reports on monthly recurring revenue.

However, the vast majority of companies doing subscription billing will also need a solution for other aspects of subscription billing management including: 

• Payment processing.
• Fraud prevention and chargebacks.
• Collecting and remitting consumption tax.
• Legal compliance.
• And more.

Many subscription billing platforms won’t cover these essential aspects of managing subscriptions. 

Plus, you’ll need to consider whether or not the billing platform supports businesses like yours. For example, some billing solutions only support SaaS companies while others also support companies selling physical goods and/or services (e.g., gym memberships, monthly food clubs, or remote accounting services). 

In this post, we compare five top subscription billing platforms by specifying which areas of the billing lifecycle they support, what other solutions you’ll need to add, and what types of companies they serve. 

Our solution, FastSpring, lets global SaaS companies handle everything on both lists above. So, we’ll start with a deep dive into FastSpring. The remaining options on this list serve both ecommerce and companies selling physical goods and services. 

Table of Contents

• FastSpring
• Recurly
• Chargebee
• Chargify
• Zuora

FastSpring handles the entire payment and subscription billing process for global SaaS companies, from checkout to remitting end-of-year taxes. To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly, sign up for a free account or request a demo.

FastSpring: Comprehensive Subscription Billing Platform for Global Software Companies

FastSpring is a comprehensive payment solution built for SaaS companies and companies selling digital and/or downloadable goods. With FastSpring, B2B and B2C software companies can manage:

• Multiple subscription models, trials, one-time add-ons, discounts, and more.
• Automated invoices and customer notifications.
• Payment processing (for tons of payment methods around the world).
• A fully managed self-serve portal for customers.
• Reporting and analytics.
• And much more.

Plus, FastSpring takes on the liability of transactions, which means we manage chargebacks, fraud prevention, gathering and remitting consumption tax, and legal compliance. 

As you grow, there won’t be any surprise costs because all FastSpring features are offered for one flat-rate price based on the volume of transactions you move through FastSpring — and you’ll only be charged when transactions take place. 

In the following sections, we take a closer look at how to: 

• Build Custom Subscription Models and Trials without Code
• Let Customers Manage Account Details from a User-friendly Portal
• Optimize Your Checkout Process to Increase Conversions
• Protect Your Company from the Legal Liability of Transactions
• Let FastSpring Gather and Remit VAT and Sales Tax for You
• Automate Payment Failure Handling and Reduce Churn
• Automatically Gather Key Metrics and View Detailed Reports

Build Custom Subscription Models and Trials without Code

Most companies need a variety of recurring billing models and trial types to accommodate different products and different target markets. Also, the models that work for you at one point may not be the most effective long-term models as your business evolves. 

Many billing platforms will allow for custom subscription plans, but you’ll need your development team to manually configure those customizations (with little or no assistance from your billing solution provider). 

FastSpring offers lots of pre-built options so anyone can set up custom subscription plans without technical skills.

Here are just a few examples of the types of subscription plans and trials you can set up:

• Free, paid, or usage-based trials.
• Automatic billing after the trial has ended (or let customers manually start a paid subscription).
• Preset billing frequencies and/or date (or let your customers choose).
• Usage-based billing.
• Discounts, coupons, prorated amounts, and one-time add-ons.
• Automatically store payment information (or let customers decide).
• Auto-renew to a different subscription plan.
• And more.

If you need even more customizations, you can use FastSpring’s API and Webhooks Library to design your own subscription model. FastSpring developers are always available to help you build the perfect solution and answer any questions you may have. 

If you already have subscriptions on another platform, we can help you migrate over to FastSpring. For subscription data migration with payment information included, click here for more info. For subscription data migration without payment information, click here for more info.

Let Customers Manage Account Details from a User-friendly Portal

FastSpring provides a self-serve portal where your customers can view: 

• Active and inactive subscriptions (or trials).
• Order history (and IDs).
• License keys and download history.
• Payment details.
• Contact information.
• And more.

From this portal, customers can manage upgrades, downgrades, credit card or bank account details, and more without contacting your team. 

FastSpring manages the entire portal so that your team doesn’t have to. However, you’ll have full control over the look and feel of the portal. This lets you create a cohesive experience for customers without putting more strain on your development team. 

Optimize Your Checkout Process to Increase Conversions

With most subscription billing systems, you’ll need a separate solution for checkout and payment processing (which means additional fees and software to manage). 

FastSpring lets you manage subscriptions, checkout, and payment processing with one solution.

With nearly 20 years of experience helping software companies, we have gained valuable insight into how you can optimize checkout for increased conversions. For example, customers are more likely to follow through with a purchase if:

• You accept their preferred payment method.
• The payment gets accepted on the first try.
• Checkout is in the local language and currency.
• The look and feel of the checkout process match the rest of the website.

Each of these areas is built into the FastSpring platform: 

• Preferred payment methods: FastSpring lets you accept the most common payment methods around the world.
• High payment approval rates: Each card network and issuing bank has different acceptance levels for fraud and chargebacks. FastSpring makes sure your transactions are compliant with these regulations so you can maintain high authorization rates. Additionally, transactions are more likely to be approved if the payment gateway has a legal entity in the same location as the buyer. FastSpring works with multiple payment gateways around the world and automatically routes each payment through the gateway with the highest approval rates for that area.
• Automatic currency conversions: FastSpring automatically converts prices into the buyer’s local currency. You can either choose a set amount for each location or let FastSpring make the conversion in real-time.
• Checkout language translations: FastSpring also helps you translate checkout into the local language. You can choose to have FastSpring choose the appropriate language based on the buyer’s location, or you can let the buyer choose which language they prefer.
• Fully branded checkout: With FastSpring, you have three options for checkout — an embedded checkout, a pop-up checkout, or a separate storefront managed by our team. With each option, you have complete control over the look and feel of the checkout or webpage. Most checkout solutions only have a few options for customization (e.g., add a logo or choose from a preset list of colors), but FastSpring checkouts can be customized down to the pixel. 

Protect Your Company from the Legal Liability of Transactions

As experienced SaaS companies know well, it’s necessary to outline the terms and conditions of the subscription and have customers agree to those terms before collecting payment. The challenge is knowing what to include in that contract. It gets even more complicated for companies transacting internationally because the details of what the contract needs to include will change with each country, state, territory, and province. If you don’t include the right elements, you could face heavy fines or be banned from transacting within that jurisdiction. 

Also, most jurisdictions have additional laws and regulations for automatic recurring payments beyond what’s required in the contract. For example, India limits automatic payments to ₹15,000 (approximately $180 at the time of writing). If a recurring payment is over that amount, the user will have to manually approve the transaction each time. To avoid fines, you also have to file an eMandate with the Reserve Bank of India that outlines how you will comply. 

Keeping up to date on regulations like these for every jurisdiction is a huge challenge for any business.

For FastSpring customers, this is not a concern because we handle compliance with local transaction laws and regulations. Our team of legal experts stays up to date on all transaction legalities and makes sure all the necessary procedures and documentation are in place for collecting automatic payments. 

FastSpring is fully compliant with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), among many other regulations.

Let FastSpring Gather and Remit VAT and Sales Tax for You

SaaS companies didn’t always have to collect consumption tax, however, tax laws for software companies are changing and being more strongly enforced. 

Most payment solutions will help you gather consumption tax, however, you’re responsible for making sure it’s the correct amount and remitting those taxes at the end of each tax period. If you don’t collect and remit the correct amount (and type) of consumption tax at the right times, you could face heavy fines and/or be barred from transacting in that location.

FastSpring automatically adds the right amount (and type) of consumption tax to the customer-facing price and remits those taxes for you. 

We support tax-exempt transactions and other special cases. We also take the lead on any audits. 

Automate Payment Failure Handling and Reduce Churn

Between the initial payment and each subsequent rebill, many things can go wrong that prevent the payment from going through and cause customers to churn. Having worked with hundreds of companies, we’ve developed automatic processes to solve common issues, prevent churn, and recover most failed payments. 

Here are a few FastSpring features that can help you reduce churn and failed payments: 

• Proactive reminders: In our experience, letting customers know about upcoming payments and notifying them of expired payment methods, is one of the best ways to reduce involuntary churn and failed payments. With FastSpring, you can set up automatic reminders about upcoming payments.
• Multiple reminders: After a payment has failed, customers often need multiple reminders before they fix the issue (e.g., add funds to their account, update the payment method, etc.). You can choose to send out follow-up reminders two, five, seven, 14, and/or 21 days after the initial failed payment (FastSpring will retry the payment before sending out each reminder).
• Continuing the service: Another effective way to reduce involuntary churn is to continue the service while you attempt to collect the payment. This provides a better customer experience because the customer has a chance to resolve the issue without the negative experience of a paused service. The better the customer experience, the more likely they are to stay.
• Easy reactivation: After all reminders have been sent out, you can choose to pause rather than cancel the customer’s subscription. This makes it easier for customers to restart their subscriptions without the hassle of onboarding again (onboarding is often a significant barrier to restarting a service).

As we covered earlier, FastSpring also automatically retries every payment using a different payment gateway (without anyone on your team having to lift a finger) which can solve failed payments caused by network issues. 

Automatically Gather Key Metrics and View Detailed Reports

FastSpring Analytics and Reporting lets you answer questions such as: 

• How is each product contributing to my bottom line? 
• Which products are the most successful and which are a drain on resources? 
• What coupons, promotions, and discounts are attracting more customers? 
• Which subscription models are the most effective? 
• What markets are the most successful and which ones have more potential?

FastSpring provides two main dashboards: the revenue overview dashboard and the subscription overview dashboard. 

The revenue overview dashboard gives you an overview of your entire business’ performance, including: 

• Where your customers are located.
• What currencies and payment methods customers prefer.
• Net sales by product.
• Total transactions by country.
• And more.

The subscription overview dashboard lets you track monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and dig deeper into what’s affecting your MRR over time. This dashboard gives you metrics on: 

• Upsells, cross-sells, and add-ons.
• The long-term value of each customer.
• Total customer churn.
• When in the billing cycle churn happens most often.
• The lifetime value of a customer.
• And more.

You can customize and save any report and share reports with key stakeholders via the FastSpring dashboard or as a CSV, PNG, or XLSX spreadsheet export. 

SaaS companies can manage the entire subscription lifecycle with FastSpring for one flat-rate price. If you think FastSpring could be the right payment solution for your subscription business, sign up for a free account or request a demo.

Four More Subscription Management Platforms

Recurly

Recurly is a recurring billing and subscription management platform built for companies selling:

• B2B and B2C software.
• Mobile app.
• Media and entertainment.
• Consumer goods and retail.
• Professional services.
• eLearning.

Recurly supports easy integrations with multiple payment gateways; however, you’re responsible for setting up and managing each one. Most companies using Recruly also end up adding software solutions for: 

• Taxes (e.g., Avalara).
• Accounting (e.g., QuickBooks).
• Fraud protection (e.g., Sift — FastSpring customers are automatically protected by Sift).

You’ll also be responsible for transaction and tax liability so you’ll likely need a dedicated department for compliance. (With FastSpring, all of this is included in one price and is fully managed by our team.) 

Chargebee

Chargebee is a subscription billing and revenue management platform built for: 

• B2B SaaS.
• eCommerce.
• eLearning.
• Publishing.
• Video and OTT.

Like Recurly, Chargebee is primarily a subscription billing software so you’ll likely need additional solutions for taxes, fraud prevention, payment processing, and more. Chargebee does provide lots of built-in integrations (e.g., Stripe, PayPal, SalesForce, and QuickBooks), however, these are not included in any Chargebee plan.

Related: 8 Best Chargebee Alternatives and Competitors (And How They’re Different)

Chargify

Chargify offers subscription billing solutions to B2B SaaS companies. 

You’ll likely need additional solutions for taxes, fraud prevention, payment processing, and more. However, Chargify does offer simple accounting software for revenue recognition (for multiple business models). 

Chargify is also merging with SaaSOptics to form a new company, Maxio. With this merger, subscription-based businesses will have more functionalities to manage their finances, including automated expense and revenue recognition and automated reporting. 

Zuora

Zuora is an end-to-end monetization platform with subscription management software built in. They primarily serve companies in the following industries:

• Manufacturing and IoT.
• Software.
• High tech.
• Media and Entertainment.

Zuora supports typically subscription-based pricing models (e.g., a usage-based freemium product that upgrades to a paid plan), but they also offer features to streamline accounting workflows, dunning, and payment processing (although some companies end up connecting to additional payment gateways).

FastSpring is a complete payment solution for SaaS companies. To see how we can help you expand globally, sign up for a free account or request a demo. 

The post An In-Depth Guide to Subscription Billing Platforms (+ 5 Options) appeared first on FastSpring.

The first factor to consider is which part of the billing cycle you need help with. In broad strokes, recurring billing consists of four steps:

1. Setting up trials, recurring billing intervals, and pricing models.
2. Checkout (including payment processing and gathering sales tax, GST, and VAT).
3. Handling failed payments and customer notifications.
4. Reconciling payment with accounts and remitting sales tax, GST, and VAT.

Different monthly recurring billing solutions will cover different areas, so you’ll want to make sure the one you choose has all the features you need (or at least easily integrates with other software).

The second factor to consider is whether or not the solution was built for your type of business. For example, some solutions are only available for SaaS companies (more on this later), while others can also be used by businesses selling physical goods and/or services. 

In this post, we review five options — starting with an in-depth review of our solution, FastSpring — by sharing how each solution addresses the two factors above and by providing an overview of each software’s features. 

Table of Contents

• FastSpring: All-in-One Billing Solution for SaaS
• Chargebee: Supports Complex Subscription Management
• Recurly: Easily Integrates with Multiple Payment Gateways
• Zoho Subscriptions: Online Subscription Billing Platform
• Wave: Invoicing and Accounting Software for Small Businesses

FastSpring handles the entire monthly recurring billing process from checkout to remitting end-of-year taxes for SaaS companies. To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

FastSpring: All-in-One Billing Solution for SaaS

FastSpring is a comprehensive payment solution for all four areas of the billing lifecycle (Factor #1): 

1. Custom trials, recurring billing intervals, and pricing models.
2. Checkout (including payment processing and collecting consumption tax).
3. Handling failed payments and customer notifications.
4. Reconciling payments with accounts and remitting consumption tax.

We become the liable party for every transaction of our customers. This means we take the lead on legal compliance, collecting and remitting consumption tax, chargebacks, and more. 

At FastSpring, we’ve been serving B2B and B2C software companies — including SaaS, digital goods, and one-time downloads — for nearly 20 years (Factor #2). 

Case Study Examples

• Capture One Case Study: Learn how Capture One, a professional photo software company, increased conversion rates by 40% and decreased operational costs by 50%.
• InMusic Case Study: Learn how InMusic, an audio software company, reduced cart abandonment by 30%.
• SocialBee Case Study: Learn how SocialBee, a social media management platform, doubled their monthly recurring revenue (MRR). 

Let’s look at how FastSpring handles each stage of the billing lifecycle in detail.  

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

Fully Compliant, Custom Trial and Subscription Options (Without Writing Code)

FastSpring lets you create several custom trial and recurring billing models without code, including:

• Automatic weekly, monthly, or yearly recurring billing.
• Prorated billing to accommodate upgrades and downgrades mid-cycle.
• Free or paid trials of any length.
• Trials with or without collecting payment details.
• Automatic or manual renewal.
• Upsells, cross-sells, one-time add-ons, and discounts.
• And much more.

If you need additional flexibility, you can create more complex models using our API and webhooks library. 

One point that often gets overlooked is that your recurring billing model will only be effective if it follows local transaction laws and regulations. 

For example, at the time of this writing, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) limits automatic recurring payments to ₹15,000 (approximately $180). If a payment is over that amount, the customer has to manually approve the transaction. To avoid fines, you have to require the customer to manually approve transactions over that amount and you have to file an official mandate with the RBI that outlines how you will comply. 

Many subscription management tools will release community updates whenever they learn about new regulations, however, it would be your responsibility to keep track of these updates and make the necessary changes to stay compliant. To handle this, most companies need an entire department dedicated to legal compliance. Even then, it can be very difficult to stay up to date and comply with ever-changing regulations. 

FastSpring makes sure that all of your billing models and procedures comply with local regulations.

Our team of legal experts stays up to date on all relevant legalities and offers individual guidance on how to stay compliant. Unlike other payment solutions that leave you on your own to implement solutions, our team will help you implement the necessary procedures at no additional cost. 

Related: International Recurring Payments (How We Handle It for You)

Bonus: Optimize the Customer Experience with Customer Portals

FastSpring provides a self-serve portal for your customers to renew subscriptions, manage billing periods, update payment information, view payment history, and more. We manage all of the backend maintenance for this portal so your team doesn’t have to. The entire portal can be customized to match your brand for a more seamless customer experience. 

Fully Customizable Checkout for International Transactions

Any billing software that processes payments will typically also provide a checkout template where you can add your logo or choose from a list of color schemes. However, these customization options are rarely flexible enough to create a checkout that truly matches your brand identity. 

FastSpring gives you full control over the look and feel of your checkout with our Store Builder Library (SBL). This lets you optimize the checkout flow for your particular products and business while providing a consistent customer experience. 

You can choose to embed checkout directly on a webpage, integrate a pop-up checkout, or redirect customers to a web storefront that matches your website.

With any checkout configuration, FastSpring lets you accept international transactions right away with:

• Automatic conversions for dozens of currencies: You can set a fixed price in each currency or let FastSpring make the conversions in real-time (you can also disable any currency).
• Automatic translations: You can let the customer choose their preferred language or let FastSpring choose the appropriate language based on their location. (Note: If you’re looking to expand to a region with a language or currency we don’t yet support, reach out to our team and we’ll help you get it set up.)
• Preferred payment methods: While MasterCard and Visa are popular in the United States, other payment methods are more common in other countries. For example, UnionPay is a popular choice in China. FastSpring lets you accept most preferred payment methods around the world (including Visa, PayPal, ACH, and more).

Additionally, payments are more likely to be approved by the card network or issuing bank when the payment gateway has a legal entity in the same location as the buyer. FastSpring partners with multiple international payment gateways and automatically routes each payment through the gateway with the highest approval rates for that region. 

Finally, FastSpring helps ensure only valid transactions are going through by partnering with Sift, a global leader in risk management. Sift uses machine learning and AI to detect signs of fraud (while lowering false positives), improve approval rates, and stop bad actors seeking to defraud companies. FastSpring can also block transactions from countries and jurisdictions where companies are currently not allowed to do business.

In the event of fraudulent transactions and chargebacks, we take the lead to resolve the issue. 

Easily Collect Consumption Tax for Any Tax Jurisdiction

In the past, SaaS companies didn’t have to collect consumption tax. However, many countries are now requiring it. So, SaaS companies can no longer ignore sales tax and VAT laws. 

Consumption tax is almost always calculated based on where the buyer is located, not the seller. So, you’ll need to be familiar with the tax laws in every jurisdiction your customers are located in. Each country, state, and province has different rules about the amount and type of consumption tax that needs to be collected, so it can be a huge task staying up to date with every jurisdiction. 

Some billing solutions will help you add taxes to invoices and keep track of any additional information needed to fill out tax forms (e.g., income and expenses), but ultimately, it’s up to you. 

FastSpring takes on the responsibility of calculating and collecting the right type and amount of tax. Taxes are automatically displayed and added to the customer-facing price at checkout. We also support tax-exempt transactions and other special cases. 

Proactive Payment Failure Handling and Customer Notifications

Most recurring billing software offers features to help you retry failed payments and manage customer notifications. However, in our experience, it’s much more effective to send out proactive reminders.

That’s why FastSpring sends out notifications about upcoming payments and expired payment methods before the next payment is due.

Then, if a scheduled payment fails, you can choose to have FastSpring send out multiple payment reminders (and automatically retry the payment before sending out each follow-up reminder). In our experience, this significantly reduces the number of failed payments and involuntary churn.

Additionally, you can choose to continue the customer’s service while follow-up reminders are still being sent to give them a chance to update their payment method. 

If the customer fails to update the payment method before the final notification, you can simply pause their service. Pausing their service — rather than canceling it — allows for easy reactivation without having to go through the entire onboarding process again.

Streamline Accounting by Letting FastSpring Balance Transactions

FastSpring relieves some of the burden off of your accounting team by: 

• Reconciling all payments and invoices: Instead of managing thousands of transactions yourself, our software and team of accountants handle revenue recognition and balance all transactions for you.
• Remitting consumption tax at the end of each tax period: Staying up to date and complying with local tax laws is a huge task for any company. That’s why we handle the gathering of and remitting all consumption tax for our clients. We also take the lead on all audits. 

Although we balance and track all transactions for you, you’ll have full insight into the entire process via the reporting dashboard.

The reporting and analytics dashboard gives you a bird’s eye view into your main sources of revenue, average monthly recurring revenue, and much more.

You can also dig into the details and view reports on customer churn, which pricing models are most effective, where your customers are located, and more.

You can customize and save any report so that you always have the data you need, when you need it. Any report can be shared with key stakeholders via the FastSpring dashboard or as a CSV, PNG, or XLSX spreadsheet export. 

Finally, our team can help you find or create the right report to find the answers you need to grow and optimize your SaaS business. With nearly 20 years of experience, we know the best metrics to track to optimize and grow your business. 

All FastSpring Services and Features for One Flat-rate Fee

All of the features and services mentioned above are included in one flat-rate fee based on the volume of transactions you move through FastSpring. There are no hidden fees and you’ll only be charged when transactions take place. 

FastSpring is a complete recurring payments platform for international SaaS companies. To learn more about how we can help you go farther, faster, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

Four More Recurring Billing Providers

Chargebee: Supports Complex Subscription Management

Chargebee is a popular subscription billing software. Although Chargebee is solely focused on recurring payments, they offer out-of-the-box integrations with software that helps you manage other parts of the billing lifecycle (e.g., Stripe and QuickBooks). 

Here are a few highlights of Chargebee features: 

• Usage-based billing, automated invoicing, proration, and more. 
• Automated processes for accounts receivable.
• Compliant revenue recognition models.
• Support for in-app purchases.
• Self-service portal for customers.

Related: 8 Best Chargebee Alternatives and Competitors (And How They’re Different)

Recurly: Easily Integrates with Multiple Payment Gateways

Recurly is a recurring billing system that easily integrates with CRMs, ERPs, tax solutions, and over 20 different payment gateways — however, you still have to maintain these connections yourself. 

Recurly features include: 

• Multiple trial and subscription models.
• Automated and manual recurring invoices.
• Built-in promotional tools.
• Mobile app support.
• Item catalog.

Zoho Subscriptions: Online Subscription Billing Platform

Zoho offers a robust suite of software solutions for various business needs — from marketing to HR to sales. Zoho Subscriptions is their subscription management platform. 

Some highlights of Zoho subscriptions functionalities include: 

• Invoice templates that are customizable.
• Support for multiple pricing plans. 
• Support for cash and check payments (in addition to web-based payments).
• A reporting dashboard to view key subscription metrics.
• Tools to create custom workflow rules.

Wave: Invoicing and Accounting Software for Small Businesses

Wave lets small businesses send invoices, collect online payments, track income and expenses, and manage payroll. Although midsize businesses can also use Wave, they may be a better option for freelancers and early-stage startups. 

Here’s an overview of what businesses can do with Wave:  

• Automatically sync bank accounts with accounting processes.
• Accept bank deposits, credit card payments, and Apple Pay.
• View accounting reports such as an income statement.
• Automate payroll and pay contractors.
• Schedule a consultation with bookkeeping advisors.

Instead of managing a large software stack, let FastSpring handle the entire payment lifecycle for you. If you think FastSpring could be the best recurring billing software for your business, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

The post In-Depth Comparison of 5 Monthly Recurring Billing Software appeared first on FastSpring.