Chargebee vs SubscriptionFlow: Which Should I Use to Manage Subscriptions?

Recurring billing, membership management, repeated and periodic invoicing, and a plethora of other tasks combine to make the cumbersome task of subscription management.

Needless to say, a subscription merchant or business has to turn to a platform that can streamline subscription lifecycle management operations.

Coming to the options in the market, two competitors seem to be standing out as rivals and alternatives for one another.

Though opinions and biases might compel businesses to choose otherwise, these two alternative subscription management platforms rival each other in terms of features and flexibility.

Some might appreciate Chargebee’s seamless interface reflecting their years of experience.

Whereas, SubscriptionFlow appeals to all those who want a customized platform that can streamline almost all organizational tasks.

Right off the bat, the perfect choice for your business might boil down to your peculiar needs. However, those who’re looking for a brief comparison between Chargebee vs SubscriptionFlow can read on below:

What is Chargebee?

Chargebee is one of the pioneers of subscription management software’s in the world.

One of the market leaders that prides itself on its elegant and sophisticated system, Chargebee primarily started as a recurring billing system.

Evolving into its integration-friendly interface we see now, Chargebee faced several challenges in its development as a necessary tool for subscription businesses.

Targeting entrepreneurs, small businesses and enterprises, the platform aims to provide detailed analytic reports of your organization’s operations.

Catering to recurring billing, invoicing, taxation, and membership management, Chargebee is also widely popular due to its developer friendly APIs and integration capabilities.

The platform also supports several payment gateways with more being added to the list each day.

Similar to its competitors, Chargebee is highlighting and realizing the significant need for inclusive single-window business management.

Offering features such as dunning management that allows merchants to contact customers in case of payment retries, the platform offers revenue maximization.

With trail management, tax compliance and payment security infrastructure in place, you can rest easy automating your payment processes in Chargebee.

An extensive API library is available on their website for developers to become familiar with the backend environment.

This makes it easy for customizations in terms of creating an inclusive dashboard that can provide a 360-degree view of the business.

What is SubscriptionFlow?

SubscriptionFlow, although new in the market, is another cutting-edge subscription management platform that offers seamless automation.

From recurring billing, invoicing, proration and other subscription handling operations, SubscriptionFlow can help you streamline everything.

This includes custom invoicing based on your preferred and specifically designed billing models with the ability to define periods of billing.

SubscriptionFlow provides merchants the chance to automate subscription lifecycle management by providing a self-service portal.

This portal can be customized and capitalized to gain key customer insights with regards to activity and behavior predictions.

Moreover, if you’re looking for customer retention statistics, you will have analyzed KPIs and metrics that highlight everything pertaining to your business.

When it comes to accounting and finance operations, you will want SubscriptionFlow in your tech stack because of two reasons.

Firstly, it’ll help you with proration, reconciliation and even dunning when you need to maximize revenue generation with your subscription model.

Secondly, it can be customized to become almost anything you need, from a CRM to an eLearning LMS and more!

The ability of SubscriptionFlow to be able to integrate with almost anything a merchant wants has set it apart from the competition.

Even compared with Chargebee, SubscriptionFlow has garnered substantial reputation owing to its robust flexibility and customization options.

You can synchronize customer data, transaction details, invoices, and more with your other applications, making it an all-inclusive platform for subscription businesses.

Preferred by SaaS companies for its developer friendly APIs and interfaces, SubscriptionFlow has proved functionally superior to alternatives with multiple integrations.

Whether it be payment gateways, marketing tools, accounting software’s or sales platforms like Salesforce, SubscriptionFlow can work well with everything!

Feature Comparison: Chargebee vs SubscriptionFlow

	Features	Chargebee	SubscriptionFlow
Recurring Billing	Customizable Billing Cycles	✓	✓
	Prorated Payments	✓	✓
	Recurring Invoices	✓	✓
	Advance Invoices	✓	✓
	Quotes	✓	✓
	Net D	✓	✓
	Consolidated Invoicing	✓	✓
	Chargeback Management	✓	✓
	Credit Notes	✓	✓
	Metered Billing	✓	✓
	Calendar Billing	✓	✓
	Unbilled Charges	✓	✓
	Account Hierarchy	✓	✓
	Multi Decimal Support	✓	✓

	Features	Chargebee	SubscriptionFlow
Subscription Management	Features	Chargebee	SubscriptionFlow
	Pipeline Management
	Custom objects
	Module customization on checkout pages
	Advanced automation tools
	Custom schedulers to perform scheduled actions
	Custom Workflows automation
	Built-in Payment Gateway
	Highly Flexible Platform

	Features	Chargebee	SubscriptionFlow
Customer Experience	Seamless Checkout Experience	✓	✓
	Cart Abandonment Recovery	✓	✓
	Self Service Portal	✓	✓
	Guest Checkouts	✓	✓
	Returning Customer Support	✓	✓
	Mobile Checkout Solutions	✓	✓
	One-Time Checkouts	✓	✓

	Features	Chargebee	SubscriptionFlow
Security	PCI DDS	✓	✓
	EU-GDPR	✓	✓
	Consent Management	✓	✓
	Personal Data Management	✓	✓
	Fraud Alerts	✓	✓
	From Email Verifications	✓	✓

Integration Comparison: Chargebee vs SubscriptionFlow

Integrations are the backbone of SaaS and both subscription management platforms are evolving to include more integration options to their inventories every day.

	Integration Options	Chargebee	SubscriptionFlow
Integrations	Xero	✓	✓
	QuickBooks	✓	✓
	Zendesk	✓	✓
	HubSpot	✓	✓
	Avalara	✓	✓
	SugarCRM	✓	✓
	MailChimp	✓	✓
	Salesforce	✓	✓
	Zoho CRM	✓	✓
	Zapier	✓	✓

Reviews Regarding Support and Customization

Based on reviews from Capterra and G2, SubscriptionFlow takes the lead for providing excellent support to their customers.

Though fewer in numbers compared to Chargebee, user reviews raise questions regarding technical support and customization flexibility offered by the subscription management platform.

Users report facing troubles with errors occurring in the calculations done by the platform such as MRR, ARR calculation, etc.

And while the documentation for developers is excellently kept, most of the software’s functionality will require Chargebee’s team making necessary changes. Which, as reviewers say, can take quite a bit of time.

Moreover, if you’re planning on trying out a subscription management platform, you must make sure that all the features you’re seeing in the trial are available in the package you’re buying.

Whereas, SubscriptionFlow has garnered positive responses in terms of customer satisfaction and retention.

Catering to customer needs with its robust flexibility and development friendly environment, SubscriptionFlow has proved effective for SaaS, eLearning, News and Magazines, and eCommerce businesses, to name some.

Though the platform has received some criticism regarding its interface, users also agree that it’s a subjective opinion that can be resolved with some customization.

Pricing Comparison: Chargebee vs SubscriptionFlow

Although the list of features in both these platforms are hard to compare, businesses that need specific integrations can go for both options.

Though the list of integrations that are currently working with Chargebee is long, SubscriptionFlow is still evolving its inventory with more integrations every day.

The most important thing for a business to consider before choosing a platform to deploy is the available budget.

This brings us to the pricing models that are offered by Chargebee and SubscriptionFlow.

Chargebee Pricing

Chargebee has a simple pricing structure that caters to businesses of different sizes with an option for merchants who don’t wish to pay anything at all.

	Rise	Scale	Enterprise	Launch
Chargebee Pricing	$249/Month	$549/Month	Custom	$0/Month
	10 Users	25 Users	–	3 Users
	Features Offered
	Custom Domain	Includes Everything in Rise +	Includes Everything in Scale +
	Customer Portal	User Role Management	Contract Terms	Secure Checkout
	Dunning	Multiple Payment Methods	Account Hierarchy	6 Pricing Models Support
	Multi Language Support	Advance Invoices	Quotes	Issue Credit Notes
	Sales Tax Automation	Multiple Tax Profiles	Chargeback Automation	Dunning
	Advanced Analytics	Smart Dunning	Maximum Security and Compliance	A/R Aging Report
	CRM Integration	Priority Phone Support	Dedicated CSM
	Accounting Integration

SubscriptionFlow Pricing

SubscriptionFlow’s pricing structure, on the other hand, varies with customers’ needs.

Instead of offering a variety of features that distinguish their plans, SubscriptionFlow offers all features described above in all their plans.

The only two things that set them apart from each other are the number of seats and the amount of revenue merchants are allowed to process.

Startup	Rise	Scale	Enterprise
$149/Month	$249/Month	$399/Month	Custom
3 Seats	10 Seats	25 Seats
$100k / year with 0.5% overage revenue	$1m / year with 0.5% overage revenue	$3m / year with 0.5% overage revenue	Greater than $3m Custom Pricing

Chargebee vs SubscriptionFlow: Which is Best for Me?

If you’re looking for a Chargebee alternative, you can rely on SubscriptionFlow to be your go-to subscription management platform for every stage of your business development.

The best way to go about this would be to test out both the platforms and get in touch with experts to discuss your needs.

Obviously, if you can get a tailor-made solution for your requirements, it’d serve your best interests. And luckily, both platforms offer several customization options.

So, your best bet is to get in touch, schedule a demo and get a quote for your requirements. Start here by talking to experts at SubscriptionFlow!