12 Best Subscription Management Software in 2023

As much as we all love customers using our products or services, managing their details, invoices, and payments is sometimes challenging. 

While a traditional way of maintaining details on a notebook or excel sheet might seem convenient, do they promise efficiency, security, and productivity?

Probably not.

To that end, the feasible way to manage this unmanageable process is through subscription management software. 

By definition, it is a kind of software that assists companies that offer their products or services on a subscription basis.  It offers flexible managing and automation options in terms of payments, refunds, plan changes, etc. 

While the market is saturated with numerous tools, not every software is meant for you. To make your job easier, we have listed the best subscription management software in 2021; you can start using it right away.

ProfitWell

ProfitWell is a leading subscription management software that provides you with accurate subscription reporting and analytics. 

It is being used by some of the biggest subscription-based companies like Canva, Notion, Masterclass, Meetup, etcetera.

ProfitWell is most specialized in pricing, pricing strategy, and marketing analytics. 

Some Key Features:

Term Optimization: This newly introduced feature automatically identifies the customers that are primed to upgrade to a long-term. The software can outreach via email, in-app notifications, SMS and offers a seamless 1-click upgrade experience.

Segmentation: ProfitWell’s has default integrations with powerful tools like Full Contact and Clearbit, which will help you understand the growth of your subscription-based business.  You can filter the data by several segments like gender, location, usage, and 107 others.

Financial Reporting: Precision is difficult, but with ProfitWell, you can actually look at all the edges of your in-detail Monthly Recurring Revenue(MRR).

Pros:

✅ 24-hour world-class support

✅ 5-minute setup

✅ Free reporting and analytics

Cons:

❌ Some metrics are not easy to understand

❌ Some features are slightly underdeveloped

Pricing

ProfitWell’s pricing structure is quite flexible by all means. You can get free metrics with ProfitWell’s Metrics plan, which also has some amazing features such as API integrations, segmentation, immediate help, and a 5-minute setup.

If you want more customization and support, their Enterprise plan has got you covered. You would have to chat with their team to know more. 

Pabbly

Pabbly claims to be the only software that does not limit your business in terms of Revenue and Customers.

This subscription management software is free forever with 0% transaction charges.

Pabbly also claims to be the only subscription software that offers an integrated affiliated management system.

Some of the Key Features:

Unlimited Products and Plans: You can create unlimited products and plans within a single account.

Custom Domain: You can replace Pabbly with your business name(custom domain) for all the customer serving pages. 

Upgrade/Downgrade: You can manage all plan update requests within the system itself.

Pros:

✅ 0% Transaction fee

✅ Fantastic customer support

✅ Extremely easy to set up

Cons:

❌ Long URLs of checkout pages

❌ Lags after every update

Pricing: 

Pabbly offers various pricing plans as below:

Starter: Comes at $19/month and is suitable for companies with up to 50 customers.

Rookie: Comes at $37/month and is suitable for companies with up to 1000 customers.

Pro: Comes at $57/month and is suitable for companies with up to 1500 customers.

Advance: Comes at $79/month and is suitable for companies with up to 2500 customers.

The best part is all the pricing methods include every feature Pabbly provides. The difference is in the customer base. 

Zoho Subscriptions

While Zoho is known for its powerful suite of products and solutions, Zoho Subscriptions is known for being the one-stop recurring subscription management software.

From billing to customization, Zoho does it all. 

With Zoho Subscriptions, you can automate recurring billing, send professional tax-compliant invoices, manage subscriptions, and ultimately get paid on time. 

Try Zoho’s free trial to see if the software suits your business.

Some key features:

  • Customized invoices: You can customize every aspect of your invoice before shipping them to the customers. Zoho offers a lot of templates for you to choose from.
  • Powerful integrations: Zoho comes with several integrations such as Zoho Apps, Payment Gateways, Content Management Systems, G-Suite, and Cloud integrators.
  • Self-Service Portal: With Zoho Subscriptions, users can access their subscription information like subscription plans, invoices, statements, discounts, coupons, etcetera. 

Pros:

✅ Great for small businesses

✅ Easy to set up an MVP

✅ Quick to manage users and subscriptions

Cons:

❌ Multilingual checkout is not possible

Pricing: 

Zoho offers a straightforward pricing structure along with a free 15-day trial plan. 

  • BASIC: The BASIC plan costs $49/month and offers management to 500 customers, three users, and 3 Automated Workflow.
  • STANDARD: The STANDARD plan costs $99/month and offers management to 2000 customers, 5 users, and 10 Automated Workflow.
  • PROFESSIONAL: The PROFESSIONAL plan costs $249/month and offers management to 5000 customers, 10 users, and 10 Automated Workflow. 

Chargebee

Chargebee is a PCI Level 1 certified subscription management software ideal for SaaS and subscription-based businesses. 

It can handle the entire subscription lifecycle management activities like creating, managing, pausing, canceling, reactivating, and extending subscriptions. 

Chargebee comes with the best practical deal as it has everything a business needs to manage subscriptions, recurring payments, invoices, and much more. 

The best thing about this software is that it integrates with the leading 30+ payment gateways providers like Braintree, BlueSnap, Stripe, and PayPal.

Some Key features:

  • Discounts & Coupons:   Chargebee has an in-built coupon management system along with tracking features. It can create one-time, unlimited, and time-defined coupons with ease. Doesn’t it make businesses run successful marketing campaigns?
  • Trial Management: As Chargebee says and we agree, SaaS trials are indeed table stakes. But, through their trial management system, you can create customized trial periods, automate trial-ending reminders, and also extend trials indefinitely. 
  • Automated addons: Chargebee’s addon system lets you manage as many addons as you would want. You can now offer your customers the right upsell at the right time to add more value and revenue. 

Pros:

✅ Easy to use and to be integrated

✅ Very friendly and straightforward user-interface

Cons:

❌ Backend is slightly unoptimized

❌ Generated invoices are not legal in some countries

Pricing:

Chargebee offers three amazing pricing plans along with a free launch. 

Rise: Ideal for agile startups which are ready to drive by data-driven decision making, the Rise plan starts with $249/month.

Scale: Ideal for fast-growth startups who want to maximize efficiencies in their revenue operations, the Scale plan starts with $549/month.

Enterprise: Ideal for large businesses that are looking for enterprise-class compliance while diversifying revenue streams. For Enterprise, you would have to talk to the Sales team for detailed pricing. 

Recurly

Recurly is that one subscription management software that keeps things well sorted and streamlined. 

As they say, every subscription business is unique, and so is every subscriber; Recurly indefinitely offers impressive tailored offers and messages to the customers. 

Some Key Features:

  • Flexible billing models: You can configure your pricing with a variety of billing models like usage-based, volume-based, Fixed, Hybrid, etc. created to keep your offerings differentiated. 
  • Gift Subscriptions: Recurly offers this powerful customer acquisition strategy to acquire new customers at lower acquisition rates. The management software currently offers two types of different gifting options – cards and plans.
  • Experimentation: You can stay agile even when you have to edit or modify your plans anytime with just a few clicks.

Pros:

✅ Great integration functionality overall

✅ Customization is available for almost everything.

✅ The dunning feature is a cherry on top.

Cons:

❌ Refunded invoices come with a new invoice number

❌ Times out quite often over a period of inactivity

Pricing:

While Recurly does not offer a free trial, you can always book a demo. Their plans are:

  • Core: Starts with $149/month and is ideal for customers who need up to 5 users and 1 payment gateway.
  • Professional: Ideal for customers who need up to 20 users and supports 2 payment gateways. You would have to contact their sales for exact pricing.
  • Elite: Ideal for customers who need 20+ users and payment gateways. Again, you would have to contact their sales for exact pricing. 

Stripe Billing

Stripe Billing is the fastest way to create subscriptions for your business in a few clicks. 

Stripe comes with a robust stack of integrations that allows businesses to build any pricing models like fixed, tiered, metered, trials, and more. 

Some Key Features:

  • 24×7 Live Support: Stripe Billing offers 24×7 live and online support.
  • Integrate and Iterate: You can collect one-time or recurring payments with almost every payment method instantly. You can test the changes within their Dashboard or through Stripe API.
  • Flexible Billing Model: Stripe offers everything from per-seat pricing to metered billing. It also supports free trials, coupons, discounts, and add-ons. 

Pros:

✅ From the dashboard to the individual client profile, everything is organized

✅ Supports any business model of any size

Cons:

❌ Does not offer a free trial

❌ Not so easy to use and implement

❌ Does not provide a clear breakdown of charges sometimes

Pricing:

Stripe Billing supports customer pricing for every business, and you can contact their Sales to discuss pricing options. 

Chargify

Chargify goes above and beyond with its subscription management software. 

A globally known leader in the management and billing space, Chargify reduces the compounding management burden by providing a centralized interface to track every subscription activity. 

Some Key Features:

  • Elastic Billing: Chargify’s Elastic Billing feature gives a competitive edge as it helps you access and transforms your subscription anytime. 
  • Communication: Now, Chargify offers automated email communication to ensure the customers receive the right information at the right time. It comes with several personalized templates that allow you to communicate with your customers without losing your brand voice.

Pros:

✅ Offers phone, online, and mail support

✅ Allows you to set up multiple billing strategies easily

✅ Gives a preview of your customer’s invoices

Cons:

❌ Non-monthly subscriptions are not managed well

❌ Cannot manage multiple sales channels

❌ Lack of CPQ

Pricing:

To get your hands on the only billing and subscription management software, contact the billing expert at Chargify. 

2Checkout

2Checkout is an all-in-one subscription management and billing software that made subscription commerce simple. 

It helps you promote clients relationships and recurring revenue in both local and global markets. 

2Checkout is an intuitive tool with a wide range of tools and capabilities, right from creating flexible pricing to upgrading to onboarding. 

Some Key Features:

  • Plan the way you like: You can monetize your subscriptions the way you want in both local and global markets. It offers flexible pricing plans and packages.
  • Onboard customers effortlessly: The acquisition and onboarding leave a lasting impression on customers, 2Checkout promises to give one good impression with its customization.
  • Track-it-all: You can learn how your business is performing and where you need to tweak it to increase your revenue and customer retention. You can get advanced insights into every activity, complemented by custom reports. 

Pros:

✅ Great payment gateway solution for every business

✅ Very simple to create a product and manage the pricing

✅ Too many options to configure and customize

Cons:

❌ Customer support is too bad

❌ The control panel is not so mobile-friendly

Pricing

2Checkout’s pricing structure is as unique as its name. It goes with name -2Subscribe charges 4.5% + 0.40$ per every successful sale. 

Paddle

Paddle is a subscription and billing platform ideally for software and SaaS companies. 

This software offers a complete deck of tools from optimized checkout to fraud detection to manual invoicing to global currencies and more.

Paddle serves 2000+customers and integrates with multiple applications like Acelle Mail, Pabbly Connect, Proxyman, Rambox, etc.

Some Key Features:

  • SaaS payments solution: All you need is just one integration with Paddle that enables multiple ways to pay. It possesses well-established international payments and banking infrastructure.
  • Managed Support: Paddle Managed Support can take care of your customers’ subscription queries on your behalf with your voice. You now have one less thing to worry about. 

Pros:

✅ Frictionless payment for every SaaS business

✅ Modern and manageable payment solution 

Cons:

❌ The API documentation lags sometimes

Pricing

Well, there is no monthly subscription to sign up with Paddle. You only pay a % transaction fee depending on your sales. You can talk to the team and get a quote. 

SaaSOptics

As the name suggests, SaaSOptics is the subscription management software for B2B and SaaS companies. 

This cost-effective software offers advanced workflow like expense recognition, revenue allocations, and integrations with platforms like Quickbooks.

SaaSOptics is quite sassy when it comes to its excellent suite of features.

  • Goodbye to Spreadsheets: You can completely automate your renewal processes by connecting SaasOptics to your CRM and never miss sending an invoice ever again.
  • Multiple Payment Integrations: You can never keep your customers hanging as they do not have their preferred payment method. SaaSOptics allows your customers to pay with its multiple payment integrations that are known and used by all.
  • Metrics & Analytics: The critical part of running a subscription-based business is understanding what your customers want, and SaaSOptics is here to tell you the same. You can drill down into your customers’ cohort to serve them well. 

Pros:

✅ Have the best sales team who answers every query

✅ Ability to create a customized dashboard 

✅ The cadences feature is a blessing

Cons:

❌ The search bar seems to be a little intuitive

❌ Could be expensive for small businesses

Pricing

SaaSOptics does not follow a pay per month method, instead, they offer pricing based on your business type and revenue generated over the last 12 months. 

Along with their regular set of features, you can also choose add-ons like CRM Integration, Payment Processor Integration, API, Collections & Dunnings. 

Zuora

Zuora is another leading subscription management software that helps you build a successful subscription business with its comprehensive suite of tools. 

Zuora’s software can bring the entire IT infrastructure, CRM, ERP, tax management, coupon management, trial management in a single place. 

Being a central hub to manage subscriptions, Zuora can help any kind of business keep up with the dynamic marketing trends.

Some of the popular features of Zuora:

  • Dunning Management: Zuora ensures to retain the communication with customers in real-time via product notifications, emails, and text messages (depends on the medium of your business).
  • Data in real-time: Zuora’s subscription metrics in real-time give you the key orders, billings, revenue metrics, cash inflow, MRR, TCB, and everything else at any point in time. 
  • Extensibility: You can extend the solution to meet your business’s processes and requirements.

Pros:

✅ Personalize every customer bill

✅ Customers’ self-service portal

✅ The UI is quite robust

Cons:

❌ Have to invest so much time to set up and launch

❌ The platform data model is quite complicated

Pricing:

You can talk to their sales to get a customized quotation and take charge of your subscription business. 

Sage Intacct

Sage Intaact is the subscription management software you will ever need to grow and drive your business to the next level. 

Sage Intacct is the AICPA chosen financial management tool that enables businesses to automate their processes, decrease the dependency on spreadsheets, and ultimately give your business greater visibility. 

Some Key Features:

  • Compliance Management: Sage Intaact provides you the ongoing process of monitoring to ensure your business is complying with all industry and security standards.
  • Reimbursement Management: Sage also gives an option to reimburse customers according to business standards and policies.
  • Self-Service Dashboard: Every subscriber gets their self-service portal consisting of their subscriptions, plans, coupons, payment methods, etc. 

Pros:

✅ The integration capacity is outstanding

✅ You can keep the transaction as detailed as you want

✅ Very affordable for all the features it offers

Cons:

❌ The support community is not informed about the product well enough

Conclusion:

All the subscription management software mentioned above provides a crystal clear streamline for any subscription-type business. We have provided you the best subscription management software, and now the ball is in your court. 

List out your requirements, would-nice-to-have features, and a ballpark figure to choose the ideal subscription management software for your business. 

Frequently Asked Questions:

  1. What is subscription management software?

    In layman’s terms, subscription management refers to customer lifecycle operations like invoices, managing trials, issuing refunds, reimbursements, upgrading, or making any subscription changes.
     
  2. Why do I need subscription management software?

    The only way to leverage your subscription-based business is to integrate with subscription management software. Why?

    It automates almost every recurring event, generates timely reports, processes multiple payment options, and it is super affordable.
  3. How does subscription management software work?

    Every subscription management software has a diverse set of functionalities and features. But, subscription software allows you to create various subscription plans that consist of details like plan duration, cost, and billing frequency.
  4. What are the common features of subscription management software?

    As we mentioned, the features are subjective to a product, some of the must-have features are customized invoicing, recurring billing, a self-service portal, coupon management, payment integrations, etc.
  5. Are Subscription management software secure?

    They are 100% reliable. Every software mentioned in the list is PCI compliant which defines it as a safe environment for online transactions.
Udit Goenka
Udit Goenka
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