Billing isn’t just about getting paid. For SaaS companies, it’s the engine that drives growth, retention, and scalability.
From testing new pricing models to expanding into new markets, your billing system should support your needs and drive your growth. A modern solution does way more than process payments. It helps reduce churn, automate complexity, and unlock revenue you’d otherwise miss.
In this guide, we’ll break down why billing is a strategic asset, the mistakes to avoid when choosing a platform, and how today’s top solutions compare.
Whether you're switching tools or starting from scratch, this Checkout Page guide will help you choose a system that supercharges your growth.
Benefits and importance of SaaS billing software
As a SaaS business, you're not just selling software; you sell access, usage, and ongoing value. This fact makes billing significantly more complicated than simply sending an invoice once a month.
Far from just charging a flat fee, you’re dealing with subscription plans, seat-based pricing, feature-based tiers, usage-based billing, trials, upgrades, downgrades, and refunds.
And often, all at once.
This complexity is exactly why purpose-built SaaS billing software exists.
Why it matters
Without automation, your team ends up patching together spreadsheets, payment gateways, and manual invoicing tools. This labor-intensive approach leads to:
- Revenue leakage (missed upgrades, failed payments, forgotten renewals)
- Billing errors that frustrate customers and significantly damage trust
- Compliance issues when revenue recognition isn’t handled correctly
- Operational drag from manual processes and legacy systems
A good subscription billing platform handles all of this in the background, allowing your team to focus on the product rather than the paperwork.
Key benefits for SaaS businesses and teams
Here’s why you'll be saving yourself or your team a lot of time and effort with the right SaaS billing software:
- Billing automation: Spare your team the manual work of creating invoices and performing proration maths. Automate everything from new signups to dunning emails.
- Automated dunning management: Failed payment? Your billing system should handle retries, reminders, and churn prevention.
- Real-time sub-ledger transactions: Keep your accounting team happy with up-to-date, audit-ready financial data.
- Revenue recognition: Handle ASC 606 or IFRS 15 compliance without needing a spreadsheet sorcerer.
- Business intelligence: Gain in-depth insights into key metrics, including MRR, churn, LTV, and cohort retention. All in one place.
- Multi-entity and multi-currency support: Scale across borders and business units without rebuilding your stack.
- ERP and CRM integration: Sync with the rest of your ecosystem to avoid data silos.
- Better customer experience: Let users manage subscriptions, billing details, and payment methods from a self-serve portal.

Billing impacts your customers, team, product, and revenue. Find a solution that allows you to:
- Test different pricing models without needing a dev
- Launch new plans or discounts quickly
- Reduce churn with smarter retry logic and communication
- Free up engineering to focus on product, not payments
Key features & functionalities of SaaS billing software
Here are the key features to consider when evaluating a recurring billing solution.
🔁 Subscription management
At the core, your billing software should help you manage customer subscriptions from signup to cancellation. This includes:
- Plan changes (upgrades/downgrades)
- Add-ons and coupons
- Trial periods (free or paid)
- Subscription pausing or scheduling
A strong subscription engine should handle changes automatically, without manual adjustments.
🔄 Automated recurring billing
Recurring billing is what keeps your monthly recurring revenue (MRR) flowing. Your platform should support:
- Monthly, annual, and custom intervals
- Prorated charges
- Scheduled invoices and renewals
- Mid-cycle changes
This is where billing automation matters most, so you’re not chasing every invoice manually.
💳 Customizable pricing models
As we covered earlier, SaaS billing can involve flat-rate, tiered, usage-based, hybrid, or per-seat models.
🔎 Look for:
- Flexible configuration tools
- A visual product catalog or pricing editor
- Easy rollout of new plans
Platforms like Checkout Page make this simple, letting you test pricing without touching your code.
🧾 Dynamic invoicing and tax compliance
Invoicing should adapt to changes in customer details, currency, tax location, and usage.
🔎 Look for support for:
- Real-time invoice generation
- Tax calculations (including VAT/GST)
- Branded invoice templates
- Multi-currency support
Tax compliance is essential if you’re billing internationally.
🚫 Dunning management
When payments fail, as they will, your billing system should attempt to retry, notify the customer, and help prevent churn.
🔎 Look for:
- Smart retry logic
- Email notifications and reminders
- Expiry alerts for saved cards
- Involuntary churn reduction
This is a make-or-break feature for SaaS with high volume.
📊 Revenue recognition
You’ll need to recognize revenue in accordance with rules such as ASC 606 or IFRS 15.
🔎 Look for:
- Deferred revenue tracking
- Time-based recognition
- Automated journal entries
- Sub-ledger reporting
This is crucial once you’re scaling or audited.
📈 Analytics and reporting dashboards
If you don't track it, you can't improve it. Your billing platform should give you real-time visibility.
🔎 Look for:
- MRR, ARR, churn, LTV, CAC
- Plan performance
- Revenue by segment or geography
- Forecasts and financial summaries
Look for customizable dashboards or exports to your BI tools.
👤 Customer self-service portal
Life gets a lot easier for both parties when customers can manage their own subscriptions, payments, and files without needing your support team.
🔎 Look for:
- Branded portals
- Magic login links
- Card updates and subscription edits
- Invoice history access
🔌 Integration with CRM and accounting software
Your billing data should flow cleanly into your CRM, ERP, and analytics tools.
🔎 Look for:
- Built-in integrations (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot, Xero)
- Open APIs for custom connections
- Webhooks for real-time event handling
🔐 Security and reliability
Finally, your billing platform must ensure that payments are secure and compliant.
🔎 Look for:
- PCI compliance
- Data encryption
- 99.9%+ uptime
- Fraud prevention
Consider your billing stack part of your core infrastructure: it needs to be bulletproof.
Common mistakes and challenges when choosing SaaS billing software
Choosing SaaS billing software is a high-stakes decision; yet, many companies rush into it or underestimate what they need. That’s how they end up with systems that break under pressure and create problems instead of solving them.
Here are the most common mistakes to avoid, along with the challenges to prepare for:
🙈 Mistake 1: underestimating integration complexity
Billing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It needs to connect with the rest of your business, from your CRM and accounting tools to your analytics and marketing stack.
Some billing platforms offer deep native integrations. Others, like Checkout Page, take a more flexible and modular approach, offering Zapier, webhooks, and plugins to connect with a wide range of tools without overcomplicating your stack.
What matters most is that your billing software fits your workflow.
🙈 Mistake 2: trying to build billing in-house
It starts simple. One product, flat pricing, Stripe integration. But over time, complexity creeps in: add-ons, trials, discounts, usage tracking, and failed payments.
Custom billing is expensive to maintain and tricky to scale. A purpose-built subscription billing platform pays for itself in saved time and reduced churn.
🙈 Mistake 3: ignoring compliance and revenue recognition
ASC 606, IFRS 15, deferred revenue—if your billing software doesn’t support revenue recognition, you’ll end up doing it manually, and it won’t scale. What's worse, it could trigger compliance issues down the line.
✅ ASC 606: U.S.-based companies
✅ IFRS 15: Companies reporting under international standards (Europe, Asia, etc.)
If you're selling globally (or plan to), a billing platform that supports both standards is a significant advantage, especially when working with accountants, auditors, or preparing for funding.
🙈 Mistake 4: assuming all recurring billing is the same
Recurring billing and subscription billing aren’t interchangeable. A platform might support monthly plans but fall apart when you introduce usage-based billing, seat-based pricing, or hybrid models.
Make sure the software supports your current pricing, as well as the models you may want to test and introduce in the future.
🙈 Mistake 5: underestimating switching costs
Moving to a new billing system takes time. Data migration, user training, rebuilding logic, retesting edge cases. It’s rarely a simple task.
That means you should choose carefully the first time. Look for tools that offer strong onboarding, support, and data import tools to ease the transition.
🙈 Mistake 6: neglecting dunning and payment failure handling
Dunning handling is the automated process of recovering failed payments, like retrying cards, sending reminders, and preventing involuntary churn. It helps you get paid without manual follow-up.
Failed payments are a not-so-silent killer. If your billing software doesn’t offer automated dunning management, you're missing out on money on the table and increasing customer churn.
🙈 Mistake 7: picking based on price alone
It can be very tempting to opt for the cheapest tool, especially in the early stages of development. You might tell yourself you'll upgrade later on. However, if your low-cost billing system lacks scalability or key features, it will ultimately end up costing more in the long run, through billing errors, development time, and lost revenue.
Rather than looking at monthly fees alone, weigh up the total cost of platform ownership: time saved, features gained, revenue retained.
Types of billing models for SaaS businesses
SaaS businesses thrive on the ability to offer flexible pricing, but that also means that billing is complex. A good SaaS billing platform should support multiple pricing strategies, allowing you to evolve without headaches.
The most common billing models you’ll encounter are:
Billing model | Description | Best for | Watch out for |
---|---|---|---|
Flat-rate pricing | customers. Simple, predictable, easy to launch. | Early-stage products or single-tier services | Limited revenue from power users |
Tiered pricing | Multiple plans based on features or usage (e.g. Basic, Pro, Enterprise) | Scaling SaaS with diverse customer needs | Confusing value if tiers aren't clearly differentiated |
Usage-based billing | Customers pay based on usage (API calls, bandwidth, etc.). | Data-heavy or developer-focused products | Unpredictable revenue; harder to forecast |
Seat-based pricing | Pricing is based on the number of users or licenses. | Collaboration tools and B2B SaaS | Shared logins, manual tracking of users |
Hybrid billing | Combines fixed fees with usage or seat-based charges. | Mature SaaS balancing value and flexibility | Needs automation to manage complex billing logic |
Prorated billing | Adjusts charges mid-cycle for plan changes (upgrades/downgrades). | SaaS with flexible plans or frequent changes | Requires precise calculation and automation |
Revenue-sharing | Charge a percentage of your customer’s revenue. | Marketplaces or platforms selling on behalf of others | Tracking accuracy and trust; enforcement can be complex |
Flexibility is key; modern SaaS billing platforms such as Checkout Page, Stripe Billing, and Chargebee allow you to blend models, test what works, and adjust as you scale.
Comparison of top SaaS billing solutions
1. Checkout Page
Checkout Page builds on Stripe to offer an intuitive, no-code billing layer. You can create branded checkout pages in minutes, sell subscription plans, offer free or paid trials, and manage upsells, all without writing code.

Key features:
- Subscription billing with trials, start dates, and setup fees
- One-time payments, payment plans, and tiered pricing
- Supports existing Stripe plans, no migration needed
- Customer self-service portal
- Embeddable on any site (Webflow, Framer, WordPress, etc.)
- Integrates with Stripe Tax
Pros:
- Extremely easy to use and fast to set up
- Great for testing different pricing models quickly
- No-code friendly, ideal for marketing-led teams
Cons:
- Not built for enterprise financial complexity
- Lacks built-in revenue recognition tools
Pricing:
Plan | Cost | Transaction fees | What's included? |
---|---|---|---|
Launch (up to $3K sales volume pcm) | $29/month $24/month if paid annually | 0% | 99% of all features, with Standard support |
Grow (up to $10K sales volume pcm) | $99/month $83/month if paid annually | 0% | Everything in launch + Premium support Custom domain Custom email domain |
Scale (up to $30K sales volume pcm) | $239/month $199/month if paid annually | 0% | Everything in Scale + VIP support |
Best for: SaaS businesses selling digital products or subscriptions who want a no-code, Stripe-based solution that’s fast to launch.
Stripe Billing
Stripe Billing is powerful and fully customizable, but it requires a lot of development effort. It supports almost every pricing model imaginable and is tightly integrated with Stripe’s global payments infrastructure.

Key features:
- Usage-based, recurring, hybrid billing
- Smart payment retries and dunning
- Deep API control and webhook support
- Integrates with Stripe Tax, Radar, and third-party tools
- Custom financial reporting for recurring revenue
Pros:
- Extremely powerful for custom setups
- Seamless global payments
- Massive ecosystem support
Cons:
- Requires developer time to set up and maintain
- No built-in no-code interface
Pricing: 0.5%–0.8% of recurring billing volume; custom pricing for scale
Best for: Developer-heavy SaaS teams that want maximum flexibility and are already using Stripe for payments.
Chargebee
Chargebee covers subscription billing, revenue operations, dunning, and analytics in one platform. It’s designed for scale, offering everything from automated invoicing to revenue recognition.

Key features:
- Subscription and usage-based billing
- Trial management, coupons, and plan upgrades
- Revenue recognition (ASC 606, IFRS 15)
- Integrates with 30+ tools, including CRMs and ERPs
Pros:
- Comprehensive feature set for scaling teams
- Good support for finance and compliance teams
- Frequent updates and solid onboarding
Cons:
- Can be overwhelming for smaller teams
- Higher pricing as revenue grows
Pricing: Free up to $250K billed; from ~$599/month after that
Best for: Growth-stage SaaS companies that need a robust, all-in-one billing and revenue platform.
Recurly
Recurly focuses on retention. It offers smart dunning workflows, automated retries, and global payment support, along with a user-friendly UI for finance and operations teams.

Key features:
- Subscription billing with usage tracking
- Machine-learning-based payment recovery
- Multi-currency, multi-gateway support
- Built-in dashboards and reporting
Pros:
- Strong dunning and retry logic
- Easy to implement compared to developer-heavy tools
- Scales well with mid-sized teams
Cons:
- Not as customizable as Stripe or Chargebee
- Advanced features often require higher plans
Pricing: Starts at ~$220/month; higher tiers for volume and advanced features
Best for: Mid-market SaaS companies that prioritize churn reduction and payment recovery.
Zoho Billing
Part of the Zoho suite, Zoho Billing is a solid choice for simple billing, automation, and reporting, especially if you already use Zoho CRM or Zoho Books.

Key features:
- Recurring and usage billing
- Proration, discounts, and tax handling
- Hosted checkout pages and customer portal
- Native Zoho integrations
Pros:
- Very affordable
- Great for existing Zoho users
- Supports essential billing needs out of the box
Cons:
- Limited integrations outside Zoho ecosystem
- Not built for complex finance workflows or compliance
Pricing:
- Standard plan: $29/month (3 users)
- Premium: $69/month (10 users)
Best for: Small to mid-sized SaaS businesses using Zoho tools and looking for a cost-effective billing system.
Paddle
Paddle is a merchant of record (MoR), which means they take care of VAT, fraud, tax compliance, and billing infrastructure. You focus on building; they handle the complexity.

Key features:
- Checkout, subscription, and usage billing
- Handles global tax and compliance
- Multi-currency and localization built-in
- Fraud prevention and customer support
Pros:
- Simplifies global SaaS billing
- Handles tax for you
- Quick setup with low technical lift
Cons:
- Less control over customer and payout experience
- Some SaaS teams may prefer more backend access
Pricing: Revenue share model; varies by volume
Best for: SaaS companies selling globally who want to offload tax, compliance, and invoicing.
Billsby
Billsby is an accessible subscription billing platform with basic but useful features. It’s ideal for small teams who want to get up and running quickly.

Key features:
- Recurring billing with proration and discounts
- Hosted pages and branded customer portal
- Usage metering and reporting
- Integrates with Stripe and basic CRMs
Pros:
- Very easy to use
- Transparent pricing with free tier
- Good for basic SaaS billing workflows
Cons:
- Limited integrations and advanced features
- Not suitable for scaling or enterprise needs
Pricing: Core plan ~$45/month + 0.8% of revenue
Best for: Startups and small teams needing simple, affordable subscription billing with minimal setup.
Younium
Younium is purpose-built for B2B SaaS with formalized quote-to-cash processes. It handles complex billing rules, multi-entity management, and financial forecasting.

Key features:
- Milestone billing, contract logic, flexible terms
- Multi-entity and multi-currency support
- Revenue recognition and audit trails
- CRM and accounting integrations (e.g. Salesforce, Dynamics)
Pros:
- Great for structured finance teams
- Strong forecasting and revenue controls
- Clean UI for contract workflows
Cons:
- High learning curve
- Better suited for mid-sized or enterprise teams
Pricing: Custom; typically mid-to-high range (~€100–500/month to start)
Best for: B2B SaaS with structured contracts, forecasting, and revenue tracking needs.
Maxio (formerly Chargify)
Maxio offers full control over subscription logic, contract workflows, and finance reporting. It’s geared toward larger SaaS teams with compliance, forecasting, and analytics requirements.

Key features:
- Contract-based billing and custom workflows
- Revenue recognition automation
- CARR, MRR, and financial dashboards
- Deep CRM and accounting integrations
Pros:
- Extremely flexible for B2B pricing and finance
- Built-in analytics and forecasting
- Good onboarding and enterprise support
Cons:
- High cost and long setup
- More than smaller teams need
Pricing: From ~$599/month for up to $100K in monthly billing
Best for: Established B2B SaaS teams with complex billing, revenue recognition, and finance reporting needs.
Evaluation criteria for selecting saas billing software
Choosing SaaS billing software isn’t just about features. It’s about finding the right fit for your product, team, and future roadmap. Whether you're migrating from a legacy system or setting up for the first time, here's what to consider before committing.
Evaluation criteria | What to look for | Why it matters |
---|---|---|
🔌 Integration & ecosystem fit | Native integrations, open API, Zapier support, webhooks, and plug-ins for platforms like WordPress, Unbounce, and Google Sheets | Keeps your billing connected to tools you already use |
💡 Flexible pricing & configuration | Flat-rate, tiered, usage-based, trials, discounts, multi-currency, no-code options | Adapts to your evolving product and markets |
📈 Scalability | Multi-entity support, automation for upgrades/downgrades, international readiness | Your billing system won’t break as you grow |
⚙️ Automation & error reduction | Dunning workflows, retries, tax and rev-rec automation | Saves time, reduces revenue leakage, and improves customer experience |
💵 Transparent pricing | Clear % fees vs flat rates, predictable costs, no hidden onboarding fees | Helps you forecast costs and avoid being penalized for growing |
📊 Analytics & reporting | MRR, churn, ARPU, forecasting, cohort analysis | Enables smarter pricing, finance, and retention decisions |
🤝 Support & onboarding | Dedicated manager, fast responses, documentation, training | Smooth setup, fewer delays, ongoing guidance through platform use |
Conclusion: choose billing that helps you grow, not slow you down
As we've seen, SaaS billing software isn't just about obtaining funds. It massively impacts how you launch, iterate, and scale your SaaS business.
Whether you're managing trials, testing pricing, or expanding into new markets, the right platform saves time, reduces churn, and gives you the flexibility to move quickly.
In this guide, we’ve explored:
- Why SaaS billing is complex (and crucial)
- Common mistakes teams make when choosing a solution
- A deep comparison of today’s top platforms
- What to look for when evaluating your following billing stack
There’s no one-size-fits-all. Some platforms are great for enterprise compliance. Others focus on retention or developer flexibility. But if you’re building or scaling a digital-first SaaS product, one thing’s clear: you need billing that works with you, not against you.
That’s where Checkout Page comes in.
Built on top of Stripe, it gives you all of Stripe’s global power in terms of payments, security, and reliability, but adds what Stripe doesn’t:
- No-code checkout pages you can launch in minutes
- Built-in support for trials, tiers, start dates, and upsells
- Easy A/B testing for pricing without custom dev work
- A branded customer portal so users can manage their subscriptions
Total flexibility. No heavy setup. No engineering backlog.
Ready to find out if it's a fit for your SaaS business?
👉 Start your 7-day free trial of Checkout Page — no credit card needed.