Web businesses that offer products, services or information based on a subscription model spend a lot of time and effort managing customer billing and payments. This process only grows more complex as a business acquires more customers. Scaling to handle these new accounts can quickly get out of hand.
In an effort to correct the problem, many Internet-savvy professionals turn to subscription billing software-as-aservice (SaaS) solutions to automate the process.
Many benefits exist for those businesses willing to hop on the subscription billing SaaS bandwagon. Ultimately, they all come down to helping you, the provider, save both time and money.
SaaS-based automated billing systems streamline subscription billing and the entire renewal process, which can include everything from email notifications to automatically retrying failed payments that features can dramatically improve efficiency and increase revenues.
Some of the other advantages that go along with using a subscriber billing SaaS are access to APIs, improved security measures and PCI compliance, as many of these are compliant from the initial build. These services also offer some payment choices, including options for different payment gateways and the billing needs of different customers, as well as the ability to offer trial periods, promotions, and plan upgrades or downgrades.
But perhaps the most useful benefit to these systems is the instant access to key metrics, such as the number of sign-ups a business receives, monthly and/or daily revenue, outstanding accounts and more. Most of them will even let users customize how data is presented and integrated into their websites.
The demand for subscription billing SaaS solutions has caused a proliferation of software choices for business owners, which means there are a number of options to choose from. To select the right system, it's important to consider a business's unique needs and those of its customers.
The first major step to take when choosing recurring billing software is to decide what types of payments to accept. Most businesses will likely want to take credit card payments, but others will want to consider automated clearing house (ACH) payments or alternative services like PayPal. A merchant account may be needed for those accepting credit card of ACH payments, so finding a subscription billing solution that integrates them will remove the cumbersome step of having to make separate purchases for an account and billing system.
Payment considerations don't stop there. Merchants also need to prepare for any payment acceptance needs they might have beyond recurring billing, such as onetime payments or charges. Beyond that, businesses need to be aware of how much technical expertise is needed to run an online recurring payment service.
Some solutions provide complete control over the payment experience, but require immense technical resources and expertise, while others offer customizable-hosted payment forms that automate subscription sign-ups and online payment processing. For this reason, it is important to know how much flexibility you'll need in your recurring payment collection options, and how much of the payment process a merchant will want to automate before selecting a solution.
Another variable to consider is what a business's reporting needs will be, specifically, if it wants (or requires) a system that proactively notifies staff when there are potential issues that may hinder the automated billing process, such as a credit card that is about to expire. Data sharing needs should also be top-of-mind because if other systems need to integrate with the billing software, that needs to be factored in as well.
If your business is in the market and you sell your product or services directly on the Web or through a mobile application, there are many different providers to consider.
The popular payment gateway provider Authorize.net offers an Automated Recurring Billing (ARB) solution that lets its users submit and manage recurring transactions that can be created manually or in Web checkout forms.
This automated and flexible recurring billing and payment solution was designed with mid-sized businesses in mind. Fusebill helps manage billing throughout the customer life cycle. Features include account creation through recurring payments and invoices and support for an entire organization, including accounting/billing operations, sales, marketing and management.
Avangate offers a quick setup process and its users can customize the purchase experience for customers and even offer their products to consumers around the world. It also comes with the industry's highest security standards, including fraud checking, secure order pages and PCI compliance.
Customers can charge using flat, metered or tiered pricing with the Chargify recurring billing solution, which even offers functionality for the use of coupons and setup fees. Chargify helps manage the entire subscription cycle, from sign-ups and trials to payments and upgrades; it even covers affiliate payouts. And all of this is secured and PCI compliant.
Of course, there are many other solutions that you could use, such as Billing Circle, Zuora, SaaSy, Monexa, Recurly, SubscriptionBridge and CheddarGetter. With so many great choices out there, there's no reason you shouldn't switch over to a subscription billing SaaS to simplify your payment processes right now.