Subscription Billing SoftwareDiscover the Top 12 Service Providers of 2025

Dado Kalem | June 12, 2025 | 14 min read

This featured video was created using artificial intelligence. The article, however, was written and edited by actual payment experts.

What is Subscription Billing Software?

In a Nutshell

In this post, we’ll look at what subscription billing software is, then explore some of the functions you should expect in a first-class solution. We’ll even offer suggestions on where to find a reputable provider.

Who can You Trust? Which Subscription Billing Software Provider is Right for Your Business?

Enrolling in a subscription service isn’t a new concept. In the last decade, though, subscriptions have taken a much more prominent role in the average person’s life.

Consumers can now sign up for all kinds of services under the subscription model. Groceries, prescriptions, music, movies, clothing, technology... if you want it, there’s probably a subscription service for it.

Learn more about subscription billing

Of course, subscription management demands changes to your internal operations. These can be made possible through subscription billing software.

If you’re new to the subscription model, the process of launching a service can seem overwhelming. Fortunately, there are many available subscription billing software solutions to help you get started. But, that begs the question: which providers can you count on?

Is subscription billing right for your business, and if so, who’s the best fit for your needs? Let’s find out.

What is Subscription Billing Software?

Subscription Billing Software

[noun]/səb • skrip • SHən • bil • ing • soft • wer/

Subscription billing software is a tool specifically designed to facilitate the subscription billing process in areas such as invoicing and payment tracking.

Subscription software handles ongoing payments for businesses that provide subscription-based products and services. This software can let you create invoices for a variety of plans and billing schedules, manage customer accounts, and streamline and execute subscription billing cycles. 

When deployed correctly, subscription software can help you deliver a seamless experience to your customers while providing reliable recurring revenue for you. The more successful your subscription business, however, the more management it will require, and the more sophisticated your platform will need to be.

It’s important to know what you’re getting before you sign on. All solutions offer an automated billing workflow, but the amount of automation and other features will vary. You need to match the services and features each platform offers to your specific needs.

What Should I Look For in Subscription Billing Software?

When shopping for a subscription billing software solution, consider your budget and integration needs. Take stock of the customizations you need, the scale of your operations, and how much technical expertise you have on hand.

Additionally, bear in mind non-negotiables like data security by looking for providers with PCI Level 1 and SOC1 Type 1 compliance. Beyond that, be on the lookout for these 10 key features:

#1 Subscription Account Management

In addition to billing, subscription management software should collect, collate, and process real-time data across a subscriber’s entire account. Given that customer accounts are dynamic — with users constantly pausing, canceling, upgrading, or downgrading — the software must automatically facilitate these adjustments. Occasional manual tweaks will also be necessary, so updating information by hand should be simple and intuitive.

#2 Invoicing

Another basic feature is clear and accurate invoicing. Your customers should be able to pay these invoices directly on-screen, so your software should support a variety of payment methods (cards, bank transfers, digital wallets) and offer multiple channels for invoice delivery.

#3 Dunning Management

This feature automatically identifies non-payments, alerts customers to declined transactions, and retries cards to recover missed revenue. Advanced systems can be programmed with customized, escalating reminders to discreetly pursue past-due payments. This can help you minimize lost revenue due to failed transactions or missed payments.

#4 Integration

Don’t settle for good enough; look for a solution that seamlessly integrates with your existing hardware and software stack, including internal tools as well as third-party solutions like payment gateways and processors. This cuts down on manual data entry, optimizes your workflows, and equips you with the flexibility you need to scale your business.

#5 Accounting

Your solution must be able to deal with complex revenue recognition rules, since you may receive cash before or after revenue can be booked. Your software should also be able to handle discounts, free trials, pricing and contract changes, differences in sales taxes, and other bookkeeping events. Your solution should share all transaction data seamlessly so that manual recalculation becomes unnecessary.

#6 Reporting & Analytics

To gauge performance and ROI, your subscription software must track essential metrics and KPIs. It should analyze data and provide customized reports on metrics like:

  • Cart Abandonment Rates
  • Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
  • Subscription Acquisition/Churn
  • Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
  • Deferred Revenue
  • Acquisition Channels

#7 Automated Billing Cycles

All recurring charges, whether they occur weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually, should be handled automatically by your subscription billing solution. This means automated billing reminders, transaction processing, and receipts, all without manual input.

#8 Customizable Payment Plans

Your subscription billing software should be flexible enough to accommodate a variety of fee structures, including free trials, one-time discounts, renewal discounts, and tiered or volume-based pricing. Charges should be automatically adjusted based on data like customer tenure, number of seats purchased, or usage volume.

#9 Multi-Currency Support

If you have customers around the globe, you’ll need a subscription billing solution that supports global payment options. In practice, this means support for currency conversion and exchange, as well as a wider variety of local and regional checkout options, like AliPay in China, iDEAL in the Netherlands, or Mercado Pago in Latin America.

#10 Tax Compliance

Depending on where your customers are, you may be required to collect sales taxes, VAT, or GST. At a minimum, your billing solution should help you collect these taxes and post the correct accounting entries. If you’re looking for a full-featured solution that handles tax payments and compliance as well, you may want to consider a merchant of record (MoR) solution.

You should now have a better understanding of what subscription billing software can do for you, what types are available, and what to look for in providers. So next, let’s finally dig into which providers would work best with your business. 

Benefits of Subscription Billing Software

At the risk of stating the obvious, the most apparent benefit of using subscription billing software is that it allows you to offer recurring services; a market that could double by 2030.

The right software tool can provide an opportunity to create lasting relationships with customers, diversify your revenue streams, and capitalize on a growing market. In fact, subscription billing software offers numerous benefits for businesses, including:

Automation

The software streamlines the billing process. It can help you by automatically generating invoices, processing payments, and handling renewals. This saves time and reduces the risk of human error.

Customization

You’re not limited only to services that can be managed manually. You can create and manage multiple subscription plans with different pricing tiers, billing cycles, and features to cater to diverse customer needs and preferences.

Better Customer Experience

Automating billing and payment processes help you offer customers a hassle-free experience. Subscription billing software also makes it easy for customers to manage, upgrade, downgrade, or cancel their subscriptions as needed.

Revenue Optimization

The software helps minimize involuntary churn by managing failed payments, automatically retrying payment methods, and sending reminders for updated payment information. This ensures a consistent revenue stream and maximizes customer lifetime value.

Streamlined Payment Processing

Support for recurring reminders, billing, and payment confirmations means fewer errors, less manual handling, and more time to focus on strategic initiatives.

Scalability

Your business will grow over time, and you need a subscription solution that scales with you. This means room for add-ons, additional features, and complex customizations, as well as more integrations over time.

In short: the subscription billing software efficiently manages the billing process. This lets you focus on growing your business and delivering value to your customers.

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How to Choose the Right Subscription Billing Software

Every business and subscription billing solution is unique, so the “best” subscription billing software will depend heavily on your business — including the complexity of your operations, your customer base, the products or services you sell, and your existing tech stack. Before settling on a subscription software provider:

Assess Your Needs

Assess Your Needs

A subscription billing solution should address both your present needs and account for future wants. This means you should evaluate a solution’s capacity to handle increasing transaction volumes and consider the provider’s flexibility to incorporate emerging payment methods and support global expansion strategies. In terms of reporting, make sure the solution provides actionable, accurate insights into key metrics like MRR, churn, and customer LTV.

Evaluate Integration Capabilities With CRMs & eCommerce Platforms

Evaluate Integration Capabilities With CRMs & eCommerce Platforms

Before settling on a subscription billing solution, investigate the depth of integrations to ensure it enables true workflow automation, eliminates data silos, and preserves data integrity across your entire tech stack. We’re talking about your CRM platform, accounting software, eCommerce platform, and fraud detection software.

Consider User Experience & Support

Consider User Experience & Support

Evaluate solutions for their usability, both for your teams and your customers. Sign up for a demo and make note of the learning curve and complexity. Equally critical is the vendor's commitment to support. Consider the vendor’s service level agreements, responsiveness, and the availability of dedicated account managers or expert resources who can offer proactive guidance and strategic advice to your team.

Get Clarity on Pricing Models & Hidden Costs

Get Clarity on Pricing Models & Hidden Costs

Make sure the solution's pricing model is fully disclosed so that you understand the true total cost of ownership. For example, are there hidden fees, like setup costs, premium feature unlocks, dedicated support surcharges, or data export costs? Ensure you know how pricing scales with your anticipated business growth and transaction volume so you can budget and evaluate ROI.

Top 12 Subscription Billing Software Providers of 2025

Ultimately, your subscription business needs a billing solution that is comprehensive, transparent, and easy to implement and use. As we said earlier, however, what you really want is the product that works best for you. 

So where do you start? 

Here’s a list of some reputable subscription billing suppliers to check out. Ratings and reviews were averaged based on real customer reviews from sources including G2, Enlyft, Bit.Ai, HG Insights, CB Insights, Trust Radius, and Investopedia. The “pros” and “cons” we mention are also paraphrased directly from real, firsthand customer reviews.

Also, keep in mind that any pricing quoted is effective as of this writing, but is subject to change.

Subscription Billing Software

#1 Stripe Billing

Stripe Billing is a fast and flexible way to bill customers. Offer recurring payments globally and capture more revenue with Stripe’s recovery tools. Choose how you monetize, with support for tiered pricing and metered billing. Get started with little or no code by using flexible pre-built components like the pricing table and customer portal, or use APIs for full custom integration.

Major Clients:

Pros:

  • UI is very modern and easy to use
  • Intuitive API
  • Accepts multiple currencies

Cons:

  • Involves more fees than some other services
  • Slow payouts
  • Limited functionality

Pricing:

Interchange Plus
2.9% + 30¢ per successful charge


Subscription Billing Software

#2 Zuora

Zuora Billing is enabling companies to monetize new innovations fast, while scaling and automating billing processes. Companies leveraging Zuora Billing are able to unlock new growth strategies with 50+ out of the box pricing models, configurable discounting, and billing triggers. Pricing is synchronized with Zuora CPQ to support direct sales, APIs to support consumer channels, and the ability to enable self-serve and partner portals to nurture customers across any sales channel.

Last, Zuora Billing allows companies to automate their billing operations at scale by automating prorations, orchestrating provisioning, general ledger integration, connections to tax engines, and support for 40+ payment gateways.

Major Clients:

Pros:

  • Very easy to use
  • Customizable templates
  • Upscalable solutions

Cons:

  • Limited annual revenue integration
  • Steeper learning curve
  • Complex backend UX

Pricing: *Call for a custom quote


Subscription Billing Software

#3 sticky.io

sticky.io is a leading API commerce platform, delivering unparalleled performance for direct-to-consumer ecommerce businesses. Their robust platform specializes in subscription management and recurring billing, empowering brands to seamlessly manage their subscription business models.

The platform offers ultimate flexibility in subscription offers, pricing and billing models and payment methods. And with advanced analytics, sticky.io provides merchants with an all-encompassing view of their customers' lifecycle. Merchants using sticky.io gain valuable insights and make data-driven decisions to optimize customer acquisition, retention and engagement strategies.

Major Clients:

Pros:

  • Friendly UI
  • Excellent customer service
  • Scalable integration

Cons:

  • Slight learning curve
  • Backend features can be complex
  • Integration may require developer support

Pricing: *Contact for free quote


Subscription Billing Software

#4 ProfitWell (by Paddle)

ProfitWell helps subscription products and companies achieve faster recurring revenue growth. The company aims to do this by driving monetization, customer retention, and insights with solutions backed by data science. ProfitWell streamlines revenue automation products that automatically reduce cancellations, optimize pricing, and provide accurate, free revenue reporting.

Major Clients:

Pros:

  • Seamless integration
  • Top notch customer support
  • Scalable pricing

Cons:

  • Doesn’t track non-subscription revenue
  • Nominally customizable
  • Supports one platform per account

Pricing:

Metrics
$0/month

Retain
*Variable, based on revenue

Recognized
$1000/month

Intelligent
Starting at $15K/month


Subscription Billing Software

#5 Konnektive CRM

Konnektive CRM is an intuitive eCommerce and subscription billing platform that makes headless commerce easy. With over 180+ gateway integrations and 400+ total integrations, Konnektive is a cloud-based CRM and order management solution that helps optimize, centralize, and automate eCommerce business processes.

Major Clients:

Pros:

  • Easy to use
  • Plentiful reporting options
  • Scalable

Cons:

  • Data entry is complex
  • No automated reporting
  • Limited real-time support

Pricing: *Contact for free quote


Subscription Billing Software

#6 FastSpring

One of the most trusted subscription payments providers in the world, FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, & digital goods businesses. FastSpring’s easy-to-use global eCommerce platform includes all of the features your company needs to sell more, stay lean, and reach a global audience.

Major Clients:

Pros:

  • Excellent customer support
  • Ideal for international and digital sales
  • Integrates with most selling platforms

Cons:

  • Dashboard usability could be improved
  • No WooCommerce plugin
  • Backend features can be complex

Pricing: *Not available publicly; contact for details


Subscription Billing Software

#7 Recurly

Thousands of innovative companies across digital media, streaming, publishing, SaaS, education, consumer goods, and professional services industries rely on Recurly to unlock transformational growth using subscriptions. Recurly’s all-in-one, integrated platform removes the complexities of automating subscription billing at scale by enabling teams to manage and optimize their subscriber lifecycles with ease.

Major Clients:

Pros:

  • Simple and easy to use API
  • Excellent for large-scale subscription businesses
  • Scalable solutions

Cons:

  • Professional services are expensive
  • Backend reporting is complex
  • Not always quick to innovate

Pricing:

Core Plan
$0/month

Professional Plan
*Contact for details

Elite Plan
*Contact for details


Subscription Billing Software

#8 Chargebee

Chargebee is a recurring billing and subscription management platform for subscription businesses. The platform works with 25+ payment gateways and supports billing in 100+ currencies across 150+ countries right out of the box.

Chargebee integrates with the leading payment gateways around the world like Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal to automate recurring payment collection along with invoicing, taxes, accounting, email notifications, SaaS Metrics, and customer management. The company also handles crucial workflows from lead to ledger with power-packed integrations that include Salesforce, Xero, Quickbooks, Avalara, and Slack, among others.

Major Clients:

Pros:

  • Customizable platform
  • Scalable
  • Easy to navigate

Cons:

  • Limited customer portal
  • Lengthy setup
  • Somewhat steep learning curve for new users

Pricing:

Launch
$0/month

Rise
$249/month

Scale
$549/month

Enterprise
Custom


Subscription Billing Software

#9 Maxio (formerly Chargify)

Maxio’s financial operations platform is designed to meet the unique financial challenges of B2B SaaS, including billing, subscription management, revenue & expense recognition, and SaaS metrics & analytics. Maxio will automate the full spectrum of the subscription lifecycle, from billing and invoicing to ARR management to revenue recognition. This is all done in a single, unified system that allows customers to generate custom reports that investors will love.

Major Clients:

Pros:

  • Easily integrates with Salesforce, Avalara, and QuickBooks
  • Versatile reporting
  • Support is speedy and responsive

Cons:

  • Steep learning curve
  • Autopay is tricky
  • Clunky UI and UX

Pricing:

Essentials
Starting at $599/month

Growth
*Contact for details

Scale
*Contact for details


Subscription Billing Software

#10 Sage Intacct

Sage Intacct financial management software is the only AICPA-preferred financial management solution. It delivers the automation and controls around billing, accounting, and reporting that finance professionals need to reduce errors, stay audit-ready, and scale the business. Customers benefit from a "buy with confidence" guarantee that outlines the level of services they can expect for uptime, security, recovery, and more.

Major Clients:

Pros:

  • Easy to navigate UX
  • Customizable platform
  • Cloud-based

Cons:

  • Complex reporting systems
  • Steep learning curve
  • No OCR automation

Pricing:

Free Trial
*Contact for details


Subscription Billing Software

#11 Zoho Subscriptions

Zoho Subscriptions is a simple solution for businesses looking to automate subscription management and recurring billing. The application enables businesses to take full control of events throughout the customer's life cycle, from signup to recurring payments. This recurring billing and subscription management software is ideal for membership businesses and SaaS billing.

Major Clients:

Pros:

  • Broad catalog of features
  • Pay-as-you-go pricing compatible
  • Affordable and scalable

Cons:

  • File syncing is occasionally spotty
  • Complex workflows
  • Backend functionality needs improvement

Pricing:

Free Edition
$0/month billed annually

Basic Edition
$49/month billed annually

Standard Edition
$99/month billed annually

Professional Edition
$249/month billed annually


Subscription Billing Software

#12 Braintree (by PayPal)

Braintree is a payments company that provides elegant tools for developers and white-glove support. Merchants in more than 45 countries/regions worldwide can accept, split, and enable payments in more than 130 currencies using Braintree. Braintree is known for stellar support, innovative concepts, and simple processes.

Major Clients:

Pros:

  • Accepts a wide range of currencies
  • Good for consolidating multiple payment methods through on processor
  • Staunch PCI compliance

Cons:

  • Analytics and reporting are clunky
  • Customer service is not always consistent
  • Little to no support for chargeback management

Pricing:

Interchange Plus
2.9% + 30¢ per successful charge


Best Practices for Implementation

After you decide on a solution, you’ll need to implement it. This involves data migration, configuring accounts, and testing. You should also provide ongoing training, documentation, and ongoing support. Specifically:

Tip

Set Up Automated Billing Correctly

Seamless automated billing lies at the heart of every solution. Configured correctly, it can help you prevent revenue leakage and chargebacks.

Successful setup means meticulously defining rule upgrades, downgrades, discounts, trials, and tax calculations. Thoroughly test every potential billing scenario, including complex dunning sequences, to ensure accuracy. Any misstep here can lead to billing errors that negatively impact customer trust and accounting challenges.

Tip

Manage Customer Expectations

Make sure that customers are well-informed about billing cycles, payment methods on file, upcoming renewals, and any service changes or price adjustments, both during implementation and beyond.

Be transparent when explaining how recurring charges will appear, and promptly notify them of successful payments or, critically, failed transactions. This practice can reduce customer confusion, minimize support needs, and help preempt costly chargebacks.

Tip

Ensuring Seamless Integration & Testing

Conduct rigorous, end-to-end testing across all connected systems to maximize the chances of a successful integration. Make sure data flows correctly into your CRM, accounting software, payment gateways, and any other components of your tech stack.

This comprehensive testing regimen should simulate real-world scenarios so as to maintain data integrity, proactively prevent integration issues, and prevent costly disruptions post-launch.

Challenges & Considerations

As you can see, integrating a subscription billing solution is a difficult process, and there are more potential issues than meet the eye. You’ll need to consider:

Challenge

Integrations With Your Tech Stack

As mentioned before, a subscription billing solution that seamlessly integrates with your existing tech stack is critical if you want to avoid data silos, manual reconciliations, and fragmented customer views. Without robust, real-time data synchronization, you may face delays in reporting, more human errors, and create a disjointed customer journey that could lead to frustration, higher churn, or even chargebacks.

Challenge

Data Security & Compliance

The vast volume of recurring payment and personal data that you handle makes you a prime target for credential stuffing and account takeover (ATO) attacks; if you suffer a breach and are found to be out of compliance, you could incur severe financial penalties and reputational damage.

Compliance with data security and governmental privacy regulations like PCI-DSS and GDPR is non-negotiable. To remain in compliance, you’ll need to deploy robust encryption, regular audits, and an adaptive strategy to address evolving cybersecurity threats.

Challenge

Handling Subscription Fraud & Chargebacks

Subscription merchants are particularly susceptible to chargebacks. This includes friendly fraud, which occurs when legitimate cardholders initiate disputes for invalid reasons. No matter how or why chargebacks occur, though, they represent lost revenue, lost inventory, and chargeback fees. A robust solution must offer advanced fraud prevention tools and comprehensive chargeback management solutions, including dispute resolution support, to mitigate these pervasive threats.

Challenge

Migration From Legacy Systems

Chances are, this new subscription billing solution won’t be your first. That means you’ll need to migrate over historical subscription, payment, or customer information.

Losing or corrupting existing data can have severe operational and financial consequences that could lead to billing errors or customer churn. To prevent potential service interruptions, you’ll need to execute extensive testing protocols and develop a robust rollback strategy.

As we’ve shown, subscription billing can be profitable and convenient, providing a reliable stream of monthly revenue. However, most merchants working with that business model are automatically regarded as “high risk” by card networks and acquirers because of the risks associated with subscription services.

You need a professional partner to help you identify and prevent the types of chargebacks that even the best billing platforms are susceptible to. Chargebacks911® — the industry’s leading experts in chargeback management and mitigation — offers innovative technologies and highly-customizable strategies designed to help you detect and resolve issues before they turn to chargebacks. Contact us today to learn more.

FAQs

What is subscription billing software?

Subscription billing software handles ongoing payments for businesses that provide subscription-based products and services. This software creates invoices for a variety of subscription plans and billing schedules and helps merchants streamline and execute their subscription billing cycles.

Which software is best for billing?

There's no singular, best option. Different providers will be better-suited to your unique needs depending on the specifics of your business. When choosing a subscription billing software, you should consider factors such as the scale of the business, the level of customization required, and the technical expertise at your disposal. You should also think about your budget and the need for integration with other tools to determine the most suitable option.

How do I manage my subscriptions?

Ultimately, your subscription business needs a billing solution that is comprehensive, transparent, and easy to implement and use. Your best solution is probably to partner with a solution provider that offers the right software platform to fit your needs.

Which platform is best for subscriptions?

The “best” platform for subscriptions will depend on your business’ needs. Some leading subscription billing platforms include Stripe, Recurly, Chargebee, Sage Intacct, Zoho Subscriptions, and Braintree.

Does QuickBooks do subscription billing?

Yes. QuickBooks supports subscription billing through QuickBook Payments.

How do I bill a client for subscription?

You can bill a client for a subscription by using a billing platform that automates recurring billing or invoicing.

How much does a billing platform cost?

A software-as-a-service (SaaS) based subscription billing platform can range from $0 per month (free) for micro-businesses to over $1,000 per month for enterprise merchants.

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