Recurly vs Chargebee Differences, Features, and Pricing

Which is better for your business: Chargebee or Recurly? You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking for an answer to this query.

You don’t need us to remind you that various organizations require different types of accounting software, and making the proper choice is critical.

That’s why we’re contrasting these two titans of the industry. We’re looking into who these companies are and their key features, benefits, drawbacks, and integrations. In conclusion, you should have a clearer notion of which (if either) of these systems best suits your requirements.

That’s enough preamble; let’s get down to business…

Who’s Chargebee?

Chargebee’s most notable features include:

  • Recurring billing platform
  • Invoicing tools
  • Dunning management
  • An impressive selective of native integrations
  • Themes for hosted pages that can be customized
  • Management of the trial
  • Support for VAT in the EU
  • Webhooks that can be customized
  • A payment processor that accepts internet payments.
  • You can accept a variety of payment ways from your customers.
  • Tools for email management
  • You can design and manage promotional coupons.
  • You can create tax profiles and reports.
  • You can assign your team members special user roles.
  • You gain access to a library of APIs.
  • Subscription analytics are available to you.
  • You can create price plans and add-ons that are customizable.

Chargebee’s Integrations

Chargebee has a lot of native integrations. Here are a few of the more popular ones:

  • Shopify
  • Braintree
  • Stripe
  • PayPal
  • ShipStation
  • Refersion
  • Google Analytics 
  • Squarespace
  • MailChimp
  • Authorize.Net
  • Zapier
  • Amazon Payments 
  • Worldpay
  • …to name a few examples.

Chargebee’s Pros and Cons

To begin, consider the advantages of using Chargebee:

The Pros 

  • It’s a very user-friendly, cloud-based payment system with an intuitive user interface for ease of use.
  • It has a lot of modification options, making it one of the more adaptable systems on the market.
  • It’s a fantastic choice for small businesses and startups looking to sell subscription-based products and services while automating their billing process.
  • It’s simple to keep track of key performance indicators like your total user base and revenue. Chargebee’s dashboard allows you to check these at a glance.
  • Chargebee allows you to run promotions, offer discounts, and adjust the pricing of your membership packages.
  • You may arrange payment collection, invoice generation, and discount management to run on autopilot with Chargebee’s automation features.
  • Chargebee works with several different payment processors.
  • Inside Chargebee’s data centres, your and your customer’s information is safe. Man-in-the-middle and distributed denial-of-service attacks are also blocked against your Chargebee account.

The Cons 

  • Chargebee’s user interface does not have a mobile-optimized version.
  • If you provide both, there’s no way to allow members to pick between monthly and yearly versions of the same subscription plan. To accomplish this, you’ll need to write custom code.
  • According to one customer, configuring additional custom fields for client checkout forms is difficult. They believe the procedure might be simplified significantly.
  • Chargebee’s dashboard, according to another user, is not customizable.

Chargebee’s Pricing Model

You have three price options with Chargebee: Rise, Scale, and Enterprise, which we go over in more depth below:

The Rise Strategy

This will cost you $249. (billed annually). It’s ideal for firms just starting with automation, especially those who expect their business to grow quickly.

The rise plan unlocks the following features: $600,000 in annual revenue, 0.6 per cent of overage revenue, and the following features:

  • You can add up to ten users to your account.
  • You get access to an unlimited number of payment gateways.
  • You can handle several tax regions.
  • You’ll be able to see SaaS stats.
  • Xero, QuickBooks, Salesforce, and Avalara can all be integrated smoothly.

The Scale Strategy

According to the company, the Scale plan is Chargebee’s most popular bundle. This package costs $549 per year (paid annually) and contains $900,000 in revenue and 0.9 per cent of overage revenue.

This programme is tailored to enterprises that want to optimize their revenue workflow, mostly through automation, deeper integrations, and in-depth subscription analytics.

You get everything in the Rise plan plus the following extras:

  • There are a total of 25 users that you can register.
  • You have access to invoices in advance.
  • For your team, you can define bespoke user roles.
  • You can accept a variety of payment options.
  • Priority phone support is available to you.
  • NetSuite and Intacct can be smoothly integrated.

The Enterprise Plan

As its name implies, the Enterprise plan is best suited to larger-scale enterprises with highly sophisticated revenue processes and more difficult compliance needs. If that describes you, you’ll need to contact Chargebee directly for a personalized quote.

We know that the Enterprise plan unlocks more advanced workflows and removes any constraints on the number of individuals you may register, even though it is customized to match each firm’s specific needs. You’ll also get the greatest setup, migration, and customer service possible.

Who’s Recurly?

Recurly is a subscription billing management software with a lot of flexibility. Recurly, founded in 2010, now has a decade of expertise handling subscription payments for hundreds of businesses worldwide (in 42 different countries, to be exact).

It’s specifically designed to assist you in managing the complete subscriber lifecycle from start to finish. Sling TV, BarkBox, Asana, LinkedIn, FabFitFun, Cinemark, and Fubo. Tv is just a few of the global household subscription brands that Recurly works with. Isn’t it impressive?

Recurly’s Core Features

Some of Recurly’s most prominent features are listed below:

Revenue optimization solutions to aid in the management of at-risk consumers and the reduction of customer turnover.

Setting your payment terms, issuing individual bills, and adjusting your rates are some of the billing and payment capabilities available.

You have complete control over how your billing is automated, consolidated, and adjusted.

You’ll have access to top-notch reporting and analytics tools.

Chargebee vs Recurly: Recurly’s Integrations

Recurly has a good selection of native integrations. We’ve selected a few of their most popular ones below:

  • Amity
  • Attribution
  • Avalara
  • Baremetrics
  • Bedrock Data
  • Bright back
  • Chargeback
  • ChargeDesk
  • ChartMogul
  • DataHero
  • Drip
  • Fivetran
  • Grow
  • Kount
  • Leapfin
  • Mailchimp
  • Natero
  • NetSuite
  • Forms for Ninjas
  • PieSync
  • Ship of the Pirates
  • Pro Affiliate Post
  • Referral SaaSquatch
  • Salesforce
  • Slemma
  • Snowflake
  • Stitch
  • QuickBooks Online
  • Tray.io
  • Zendesk

Recurly’s Pros and Cons

Let’s start with the benefits once more:

The Pros 

  • Recurly keeps thorough and insightful subscriber records. For example, when customer billing information, renewal information, outstanding debts, etc., are updated.
  • Recurly’s user interface is extremely user-friendly.
  • Recurly’s customer service team is quick to respond with helpful solutions.
  • When a customer transaction fails, Recurly’s dunning mechanism detects it. The payment is then automatically re-attempted. You have complete control over the dining experience. You can even alert customers if their payment is declined. This often leads to updating their payment information and moving money around.
  • Recurly links to Visa, Master Card, AMEX, and Discover to find new card details for cards registered with your company. This new card information is automatically uploaded onto your system when the card is due to expire.

The Cons 

  • Some users claimed they wanted to utilize Recurly to create a single payment invoice that listed all of the customer’s past-due payments. Unfortunately, this is not a feature that Recurly currently provides.
  • Recurly’s revenue statistics aren’t updated in real-time, according to one customer. Instead, they’re a few hours (or perhaps a day) behind schedule.
  • The coupon feature in Recurly is a little difficult to set up, utilize, and administer.

Recurly’s Pricing

Recurly, like Chargebee, offers three different price plans: Core, Professional, and Elite (as highlighted in the screenshot below).

The Core Package

This product costs $149 per month plus 0.9 per cent of your earnings.

You can do so by:

  • Register a total of five users.
  • One payment gateway is used to process consumer purchases.
  • Make hosted payment pages, launch them, and manage them.
  • Use customer communication and invoicing automated software.
  • Support for credit card payments is available.
  • Run reports that aren’t pre-programmed.
  • Recurly’s coupon and discounting features might help you save money.
  • Online chat help is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The Package for Professionals

The Pro plan is for individuals looking to grow their business and generate up to $10 million in annual subscription billing.

You’ll need to contact Recurly’s sales team for a tailored quote on price.

You get everything included in the Core package plus the ability to:

  • You can add up to 20 users to your account.
  • Two payment gateways are used to process customer transactions.
  • Make five unique fields.
  • Recurly JS can be accessed at any time.
  • Integrate with well-known business applications.
  • Create invoices by hand and bill according to a calendar.
  • Automatic credit card updates are available.
  • Recurly’s revenue optimization engine and smart dunning are available to you.
  • Support is available via phone and online chat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The Elite Package

This plan is designed for businesses that generate more than $10 million in annual subscription billing. You’ll need to contact Recurly’s sales staff for a quote, just like the Pro package.

You’ll get everything from the first two programmes, plus you’ll be able to:

  • More than 20 users must be registered.
  • Use any of the 20+ payment gateways provided by Recurly.
  • More than five custom fields can be created.
  • Take advantage of billions of API calls per month.
  • Unlimited webhooks, automated gateway failover, and dynamic gateway routing are all available.
  • Access price and payment models for almost every circumstance possible.
  • Multilingual customer communication, multi-currency, and local payment methods are all available.
  • Integrate with major CRM, accounting, customer service, tax, and fraud control software.
  • A dedicated customer success manager is assigned to you.