5 Best Payment Recurring Systems for Subscription Businesses

  • Are you looking to set up a recurring payment system for your subscription business?
  • But does the wide variety of available billing management systems confuse you?

If yes, then this blog is for you.

In this article, you will get familiar with different payment recurring systems along with their pros and cons. You’ll finally be able to pick the best among them that is affordable and brings you the best results.

You will also get a clear idea of how to choose the best payment recurring system that will help your business merchant accounts scale more quickly with little to no pitfalls. But first, let’s discuss why you need to set up a recurring payment system.

Let’s now look at the best recurring billing and payment software.

5 Best Recurring Payment Systems (+ Pricing)

Here’s an overview of some of the best recurring payment systems in the market:

Logo Ratings & Reviews as Per G2 and Google Play Store Pricing PCI Compliant Yes/No

FacilePay

4.2 1.74 reviews
  • 1.25% fee per transaction with Stripe transaction charges applicable

Square

4.6 631 reviews
  • Free version available
  • Plus version for $29+/month
  • Premium version for custom pricing
Yes

Chargebee

4.6 534 reviews
  • Launch version for $0/mo until $100k hit in revenue
  • Rise version for $249/month billed annually
  • Scale version for $549/month billed annually
  • Enterprise version with custom pricing
Yes

Recurly

4 137 reviews
  • Core version for $199/month billed annually
  • Professional and Elite versions with custom pricing
Yes

Braintree

3.4 85 reviews
  • For cards and digital wallets, 2.59% +$.49 per transaction
  • For Venmo, 3.49% + $.49 per transaction
Yes

Best Payment Recurring System: In-depth Explanation

Here’s an elaboration on the best payment recurring billing software overviewed above:

  1. FacilePay – Simple-to-use Recurring Payments System Maximizing Convenience for Customers

  2. FacilePay is emerging as the best recurring payments software in the market with its simple-to-use structure and budget-friendly pricing. This payment app makes it convenient to accept online payments for recurring invoices.

    The FacilePay recurring billing software works with the Stripe payments gateway. Having Stripe gateway partnered as a payment provider makes this application highly secure with stringent compliance standards. There are more than 135+ currencies that FacilePay support for accepting recurring payments.

    There are 100,000+ downloads of FacilePay on the Andriod store with 1.74K users managing recurring invoices and payments through it. All you need to pay for this one of the best recurring billing software is a 1.25% per transaction fee. Isn’t it amazing?

    Let’s try to understand some of the advantages and limitations of FacilePay.

    Advantages of FacilePay Limitations of FacilePay
    • FacilePay support multiple payment methods for managing transactions related to recurring invoices.
    • With FacilePay, you can accept online payments via direct debits from bank accounts or via an online link for recurring invoices.
    • FacilePay helps to maintain the best security compliance standards for recurring payments and does not store customers’ payment information in the app.
    • You can easily set up the payment process in the FacilePay app.
    • Efficient tracking of recurring payments is possible for subscription-based businesses enables better churn monitoring.
    • No live chat support
    • Not yet upgraded with all types of billing features for large-size businesses
    • Only support one payment gateway (i.e. Stripe)

    When to Use FacilePay’s Recurring Payment Services?

    • If you are a small business and want a simple and easy-to-use payment app solution for processing recurring invoices.
    • If you want a budget-friendly solution to accept payments for recurring invoices.
    • If you don’t have the time and scope to go through a complex setup process for recurring payments.
    • If you want payment processors to provide complete tracking of transactions with a detailed reporting system.
    Accept Payments Anywhere

    Download the FacilePay Application Today

    • Create Invoices Instantly
    • Automate Recurring Payments
    • Generate Payments Links

  3. Square – Accept Payments for Recurring Invoices Irrespective of Size & Type of Business Model

  4. Square is a popular payment gateway that enables businesses to set up recurring payment systems. With features such as software integrations, invoicing, payment automation, and more. Square is a highly popular payment processor.

    Unlike other payment options, Square also offers POS systems that brick-and-mortar businesses can integrate with ease. Square is also developer-friendly, offering APIs and SDK for easy payment setup.

    If your business is looking to integrate with any major eCommerce platforms like Wix, Weebly, WooCommerce, etc., then support for that is also available within Square Payments.

    The Square platform also offers effective reporting and analytics capabilities which is great for payment tracking and more. Square supports multiple payment options. Other notable features of this platform include custom invoice setting, storing customer cards securely or CoF (card on file), and more.

    Advantages of Square Limitations of Square
    • With Square, you can accept all payment types easily and securely.
    • Setting up Square Payments anywhere is easy as it requires practically no technical expertise, and lets you start taking payment in minutes without any long-term commitments.
    • Square Payments meets the top data security and compliance regulations, ensuring your data and your customers’ data remain secure during every payment.
    • With real-time reporting and analytics, you’ll know your cash flow, and always have up-to-date insights on your business’s financial health.
    • Square Register doesn’t currently meet the feature needs of all businesses. For instance, moderately sized retail stores have no way to receive inventory or take stock counts.

    When to Use Square’s Recurring Payment Services?

    • If your business requires online and offline payment support.
    • If you want to store customer-authorized cards on file.
    • If you want to process free credit card automated payments.
    • Use Square if your business needs a robust solution with less overhead cost.
  5. Chargebee – Maximize Revenue Opportunities Through Automated Recurring Billing

  6. Chargebee is a popular all-in-one subscription management platform. If your business operates on a subscription model, Chargebee makes it easy to handle all revenue-based operations.

    The Chargebee subscription management platform also supports 23+ payment gateways and 100+ currencies. Billing and invoicing, along with reporting and analytics, are some other features of Chargebee that make Chargebee stand out as the best recurring payment system.

    Chargebee can integrate various payment gateways making it a highly versatile choice for businesses of all sizes. Startups and businesses in its launch can definitely benefit from Chargebee’s basic model. This model is free of cost until you hit a revenue milestone of 100k USD.

    Apart from this, the Chargebee payment providers also supports over 100+ currency options making it quite accessible worldwide. Businesses that see quick growth can rely on Chargebee for all payment needs like managing payments, subscriptions, reporting, and analytics.

    One great feature of Chargebee is its dunning management. Smooth management of recurring payments to avoid failures, encouraging retries, smart customer reminders, etc., is possible. This ensures customer retention leading to better recurring revenue.

    Let’s understand some of the advantages and limitations of Chargebee.

    Advantages of Chargebee Limitations of Chargebee
    • Chargebee provides one API Layer for all billing requirements which makes it secure and scalable.
    • With Chargebee, you get up to 12 free retries for processing payments failed.
    • Chargebee allows you to connect with various help desk tools that in turn enable you to boost your support team’s productivity.
    • Great documentation for developers.
    • Chargebee can be an expensive subscription billing software option for small businesses to medium-sized businesses.

    When to Use Chargebee’s Recurring Payment Services?

    • If you are a B2B SaaS business owner or in the very early stage of setting up your business.
    • If you can afford the competitive higher price range offered by Chargebee.
    • If you need an effective customer support team and smooth integration.
  7. Recurly – Accelerate Subscriber Growth with Strategic Optimization of Acceptance Rates & Transaction Costs

  8. If you would like to grow your revenue exponentially, then Recurly is a great subscription management solution. Introduced in 2009, Recurly quickly gained a loyal customer base for its advanced payment features and support.

    Regardless of which country or region your business operates from, Recurly supports all types of payments and currencies. Recurly customers also range from streaming services like Paramount+, and SaaS services like LucidChart, and LiveChat to educational services like CodeAcademy and Quizlet.

    Recurly’s payment solution allows over 20+ payment gateway integrations and more than 140 currencies. Moreover, over 2200+ global businesses rely on Recurly’s streamlined payment system.

    A unique feature that sets Recurly’s subscription plan apart is the flexible billing needs for all kinds of subscription services. These are

    • One-time charge model
    • Fixed recurring model
    • Hybrid model
    • Quantity-based model
    • Usage-based model

    This also leads to their major benefit of reducing subscriber or customer churn that results from declined credit card transactions. As a PCI-compliant product, the service is also secure and efficient, resulting in fewer billing issues.

    The Recurly dashboard is user-friendly and needs little time to understand and operate. Invoice management, third-party integration, and API integration are a few other key features.

    Advantages of Recurly Limitations of Recurly
    • Continuous authority allows Recurly to continue charging a credit card on your behalf, even after its original expiration date has passed
    • With just a few clicks, you can iterate, test, and pivot to meet evolving market demands and subscriber shifts.
    • In Recurly, a free recurring billing software trial is available which enables the customers to trial Recurly before using it.
    • Recurly provides multi-currency support; as a result, customers can use any currency for payments.
    • Analytics and reporting can be improved.
    • No live chat support available.
  9. Braintree – Boost Revenue with Scalable Technology Solution Having an Agile Subscription Management Platform

  10. Braintree by PayPal (one of the leading payment gateways, best for international payments) is yet another recurring billing solution or payment processing system with many customers worldwide. It offers an API that is simple to implement and developer-friendly. One major advantage of a recurring billing software like Braintree is streamlined business operations and payment processes.

    Subscription payments and automated invoicing are vital parts of a functioning business. Braintree makes it cost-effective and business-friendly to implement a recurring payment flow.
    Braintree also offers in-depth API integration documentation, making it a highly developer-friendly option for many businesses.

    Many top companies like Dropbox, Uber, GitHub, Yelp, etc., are loyal customers of this subscription payments platform. Braintree also offers access to all multiple payment methods and credit and debit payments. The integration itself is quick, hassle-free, and saves valuable setup time.

    Cost-wise, it is a manageable option for medium and small business owners. Other features include

    • Custom payment plugins for a uniform and consistent brand look.
    • Webhooks or real-time notifications on transactions.
    • Reporting through Control Panel or dashboard with advanced searching and filtering capabilities.
    Advantages of Braintree Limitations of Braintree
    • With Braintree, users have access to the global market with more than 40 countries supported. To facilitate smooth transactions, the solution supports financial exchanges in more than 130 currencies.
    • Braintree delivers its services in an easy way through its smooth payment UI for accepting cards and PayPal transactions integrated into the apps or websites.
    • You can very easily cancel or stop your recurring transactions on Braintree as stopping recurring payments on PayPal is very convenient and straightforward.
    • Transaction fees deducted from each transaction could be an overhead for businesses with high payment volume.

    When to Use Braintree’s Recurring Payment Services?

    • Use Braintree if your business is global and accepts payment for multiple currencies.
    • If you want to easily refund or process multiple transactions.
    • If you need to easily pull relevant reports for smooth business operations.
    • If you want to reduce setup costs in your business.

    When to Use Recurly’s Recurring Payment Services?

    • If your business wants to offer a wider variety of payment options to your customers.
    • If you want to streamline the management of accounts and subscriptions.
    • If you run a business that reaches global clients and operates via different payment processes like credit cards, bank transfers, debit card, apple pay.
    • If you want an automated recurring billing system that is easy to set up.

    Additionally, integrating recurring payments software on WordPress is very easy if you are using any of these above-mentioned processors. Now that we deeply understand the top recurring billing systems, let’s answer the frequently asked questions.

    FAQ About Best Payment Recurring System

    1. Why use a recurring payment system?

      Here are the major reasons to use a recurring payment system for your business.

      1. Results in fewer late payments and more predictable cash flow.
      2. Enhances customer loyalty by making payments simple, easy, and worry-free.
      3. Eliminates costs associated with manual billing, mailing, and postage
      4. Both customers and businesses can keep track of all their payments in one place.
      5. Setting up automated payment schedules keeps incoming payments on time
      6. Companies no longer need to worry about getting paid on time.
    2. What is a recurring payment?

      The recurring payment is a model where funds are automatically deducted from a customer’s payments account at scheduled intervals to cover the customer’s subscription fees for products or services.

    Which is the Best Recurring Payment Service for Your Business?

    Each recurring payment system introduced in this article is suitable for businesses of all scales. From small businesses and dynamic startups to medium and large corporations, each can benefit from implementing any of the payment systems we mentioned.

    As an entrepreneur, here’s what to focus on

    • It is important to ensure the overall flexibility of the system you choose.
    • Having good customer support is also highly important, as you may run into issues that need the guidance of the platform expert.
    • Overall, the system must have a minimum learning curve.
    • In addition, it is also important to understand the per transaction cost of each platform.
    • Having a high cost per transaction can lead to heavy overhead in the future when you have to deal with a high volume of automatic payments. Keeping this factor in mind can help you save a lot of time and money.

    However, Chargebee and FacilePay are reliable subscription billing options. It’s moderately priced, and its advanced features offer customers payment solutions for every need they may face in their business.

    But we don’t mean to tell you that you must choose between these two platforms only. It’s vital to understand that it’s not one size fits all when it comes to billing software. The best recurring payment service or best recurring billing software for your billing process is the one that fulfills the majority of your needs and is well within your budget.

Author Bio
Rakesh
Rakesh Patel

Rakesh Patel, the founder and CEO of FacilePay, brings 28 years of IT experience in payment automation technology, business strategies, operations, and information technology to the table. With his extensive knowledge and expertise, he has created a trustable solution that helps to accept payments online. This has helped businesses of all sizes to receive payments quickly and securely. His commitment to simplifying the payment process has led FacilePay to be an ideal choice for businesses. His aim is to provide a seamless payment solution for various payment types, including e-commerce, subscriptions, and online donations. Read More