What Are the Popular Options for SaaS Startups to Build Billing for Their Product?

Selecting the right billing solution is a critical decision for SaaS startups. It can influence cash flow, customer experience, and operational efficiency. Several options exist, ranging from self-managed systems to full-service SaaS billing providers. This article explores the most common choices and their advantages.

Leading Platforms

Stripe Billing

Stripe Billing is widely recommended for small teams and startups due to its ease of setup, scalability, and transparent pricing. The platform combines powerful subscription management with Stripe's payment processing infrastructure, offering a seamless experience for both merchants and customers. Key features include a robust API with extensive documentation, support for 135+ currencies, flexible subscription models with prorations, and advanced revenue recovery tools. Stripe's pay-as-you-go pricing model (2.9% + 30¢ per transaction) makes it accessible for startups. The platform supports recurring billing, usage tiers, metered pricing, dunning, proration, and payment recovery logic.

Chargebee

Chargebee is another top choice for smaller SaaS businesses, offering excellent scalability and subscription management features. The platform excels with dunning management, subscription analytics, and multi-product catalogues. Chargebee shines particularly with complex billing models, especially for businesses heading toward usage-based pricing. The platform allows businesses to use multiple payment gateways, which provides backup options if one gateway becomes unavailable. Chargebee automates recurring billing, invoicing, and revenue operations for B2B SaaS companies.

Paddle

Paddle stands out for its merchant-of-record model, which simplifies tax compliance massively for global operations. The platform helps handle VAT compliance automatically, making it ideal for businesses with significant EU revenue. Paddle supports global currencies, automated tax compliance, and subscription management, making it suitable for handling complex billing scenarios. However, users note that the platform can be slow, with customer profile pages taking up to 30 seconds to load. Paddle's pricing is 5% plus 50¢ per transaction.

Mid-Market Solutions

Zuora

Zuora is considered a leading solution for established businesses transitioning to subscription models. The platform offers customizable billing cycles to maximize recurring revenues, along with numerous integrations with financial software and CRMs. Zuora enables real-time communication with customers through notifications, emails, and text messages. The platform uses custom pricing tailored to business needs.

Maxio (formerly Chargify)

Maxio specifically targets B2B SaaS companies, offering extensive personalization options down to one-to-one billing workflows and segmented pricing. The platform supports complex billing scenarios, making it suitable for SaaS companies with various pricing plans. Additional features include add-ons and subscriber retention tools like targeted promotions and dunning prevention. Pricing starts at $599 per month.

Budget-Friendly Options

Zoho Billing

Zoho Billing is best for SaaS startups on a budget, automating recurring invoices, payments, and subscription plans. The platform provides essential billing functionality at an affordable price point for early-stage companies.

Billsby

Billsby offers fast SaaS subscription billing with a free plan option, making it accessible for startups. The platform features easy setup with self-service customer portals, allowing businesses to launch quickly without significant upfront investment. Billsby includes unlimited plans, ACH processing, and user permission controls even on its free tier.

PayWhirl

PayWhirl provides an embedded recurring billing platform with a free plan available. The solution offers flexible checkout and invoicing capabilities suitable for startups testing their billing models.

Specialized Solutions

Younium

Younium targets mid-market B2B SaaS companies with complex contracts, handling everything from pricing and quoting to automated invoicing and revenue recognition. Features include multi-company and multi-currency support, revenue recognition compliant with ASC 606 and IFRS 15, flexible billing schedules with discounting and proration options, and custom dashboards with real-time reporting. Younium offers custom pricing based on business needs.

Orb

Orb specializes in usage-based billing with real-time usage metering, tiered pricing engines, and API monetization tools. This makes it particularly suitable for startups building products with consumption-based pricing models.

LedgerUp

LedgerUp emerged as a leading billing automation solution for 2025, offering 95% complete automation from contract to cash. The platform features AI-powered intelligence that analyzes payment patterns to optimize collection timing, personalizes follow-up messages based on customer history, and learns from successful collections to improve continuously. LedgerUp provides both Slack integration for operations teams and a comprehensive dashboard for finance teams.

Key Considerations

When choosing between platforms, startups should consider whether they need a simple payment gateway like Stripe or a more specialized billing platform like Chargebee that supports multiple payment gateways. Paddle's merchant-of-record model eliminates tax compliance concerns but comes with monthly payouts, while Stripe and Chargebee require more manual setup but offer greater flexibility. Payment processor fees become one of the biggest expenses as businesses scale, sometimes exceeding hosting costs and ranking second only to staffing expenses.

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