Learn and compare 7 top Chargebee alternatives with simpler interfaces, easy onboarding, and flexible pricing to streamline your billing and payment processes.
Chargebee ranks among the best subscription revenue management software for SaaS developers and digital product creators. It has helped hundreds of businesses with recurring billing, subscriptions, and customer lifecycle processes worldwide.
Yet, it still might not be suitable for many businesses with its complex pricing model, clunky interface, and too many integrations. Many creators looking for billing and subscription management look for simpler solutions that meet their business needs. After all, no one likes paying extra for features they don’t use.
Some even find Chargebee’s extensive features too complicated to set up.
This article navigates you to Chargebee’s pros and cons and compares them with 7 alternatives that might match your business needs.
TL;DR
Chargebee is a leading subscription management tool for SaaS companies, but its complex interface, pricing model, and lengthy onboarding process can be a challenge for some users.
Fungies is the best alternative for Chargebee, specializing in billing and payment processes with global tax compliance. With lower commission fees (5% +$0.50), an easy-to-use interface, and a quick onboarding process, Fungies allows you to manage SaaS subscriptions, digital downloads, and games, all from one dashboard.
It offers 250+ global payment methods, automated invoicing, and subscription management, making it the ideal choice for businesses looking to simplify their billing processes without any complications.
Pros and Cons of Chargebee
Chargebee has a strong reputation for SaaS billing solutions. But when we read reviews online, we found contradicting opinions. See what customers like and dislike about Chargebee:
Pros
- Chargebee is widely known for its best billing and recurring tool and is rated 4.4 stars on Capterra
- It has great customer service that resolves complaints quickly, and many reviewers like the responsive chat support.
- Chargebee has many built-in features and highly advanced tools to handle complex billing structures.
- Customers find Chargebee easy to integrate with other systems. It is compatible with 100+ payment gateways and SaaS tools for subscription management.
Cons
- Many reviewers find Chargebee’s onboarding process lengthy and overwhelming. Developers or creators spend more time figuring out the platform’s interface rather than focusing on building their business.
- Chargebee customization is only possible through API integrations, but it requires more technical expertise and extra effort.
- Analytics tools are too limiting as they cannot generate customized reports aligned with specific needs.
- Small business owners find Chargebee’s pricing structure unsuitable. The platform increases costs for more subscribers and additional features that strain budgets and limit them from spending on other business priorities like expanding the team.
Why Do Users Look for Chargebee Alternatives?
Chargebee’s complex interface and onboarding process takes time and effort, causing users to look for alternatives. Founders prefer simpler, more affordable solutions that are easy to set up, user-friendly, and customizable.
Although Chargebee offers a suite of tools, businesses may find the API or integration capabilities too complex. API integrations require developers to manually connect various software, which can be time-consuming for non-technical users.
Some even complain about bugs and quality issues with integrations affecting their users’ buying experience.
One of Chargebee’s customers says:
“The interface is not self-explanatory, many things are scattered across the interface and are present several times. It is difficult to learn where to find things even if you found them already once or twice, it is difficult to memorize where they were. It is definetely not easy to learn, so you should expect to spend time attentively exploring features and documentation.”
Users also switch because Chargebee has limited compliant formats for invoices like SAF-T files required by tax authorities in certain countries.
Fungies is an alternative to Chargebee and offers a more focused interface, making the onboarding process easy. You don’t have to spend time figuring out the pricing plans or subscription models, you simply sign up, and everything’s there for you. Its robust set of tools addresses Chargebee’s problems with managing payments, billing, subscriptions, and global tax compliance.
7 Best Alternatives to Chargebee
1. Fungies
Fungies is a payment and billing, Merchant of Record (MoR) platform and handles all global tax and compliance to help you sell SaaS subscriptions, digital goods, and in-game assets.
Our suite of tools automates payment and billing transactions, with easy compliant invoicing, allowing you to focus on building your products. Our clients praise the easy, straightforward interface, which allows quick onboarding, storefront setup, and personalized checkout integration in just a few minutes.
Here are some key features that SaaS businesses and digital product creators like:
Automated Payments, Billing, and Invoicing
While Chargebee does offer advanced billing solutions, Fungies is much more compact in its approach. The platform adapts to your business needs by handling international orders with its invoicing and tax-compliant capabilities.
It currently offers 250+ payment methods, spread across 50+ countries, along with crypto transactions. The platform is integrated with Stripe, so your customers can pay via Visa, Mastercard, Google Pay, Apple Pay, cryptocurrencies, etc.
Payment receiving is even simpler: you connect your Stripe account and receive daily payouts with no upfront costs or hidden fees. The platform only charges a commission-based fee when you make a sale (more on this in the pricing section below).
Customers especially love Fungies’ invoicing with regional compliance. It automatically generates receipts for usage-based or pre-paid subscription plans, significantly reducing manual work and minimizing errors.
Fungies streamlines subscription management with pre-built templates and flexible billing cycles, making it easy to set up daily, monthly, or yearly plans in just a few clicks. You can select a subscription plan you like and integrate it into your storefront for selling your products.
Easy-to-Use Interface with Quick Integration
Our customers love the platform’s intuitive capabilities where everything is user-friendly, making it accessible for people with no financial or technical background.
Whether you’re setting up a storefront or integrating overlay checkouts on your website, Fungies provides detailed guides to walk you through customization and feature setup, ensuring your business is up and running quickly and efficiently.
You simply sign up using your Google account or email, name your storefront, connect your Stripe account, and you’re ready to sell your subscriptions.
Although Chargebee has advanced integration and workflows, it can get overwhelming. Fungies offers relevant integration options for SaaS businesses and digital product sellers, so you don’t have to deal with a clunky interface.
Some of the tools it integrates with are:
- Unity and Unreal SDKs
- Stripe
- Blockchains like Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, and Binance Smart Chain
- API and Webhooks
- Third-party Integrations with Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Merchant Center, and Trustpilot.
You don’t need extensive coding knowledge to integrate these tools, instead, a simple drag-and-drop feature is enough to get the job done.
Reporting Dashboard
Fungies’ reporting dashboard offers advanced tools and features, essential for analytics and marketing.
While Chargebee’s analytics tools are often difficult to customize, Fungies offers easy access to key performance metrics like new subscriptions, billings, Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), and Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) with an intuitive interface that requires no advanced technical skills.
Fungies has a “Developer Dashboard” designed for SaaS businesses, game developers, and creators to manage, integrate, and customize. It gives you access to real-time data, customer behavior, and retention reports.
For example, if you’re a game developer who sells Steam game keys, you can set up a storefront, upload your Steam keys, design bundles or add product variants, and set prices and payment methods, from the same panel. All transactions and users who access your website will appear on the dashboard.
Fungies Pricing
Fungies charges a transaction-based fee of 5% + $0.50 per transaction. You don’t have to pay anything for the advanced features, tools, or storefront setup. Everything is free forever with no upfront costs.
Sign up for a free demo to learn more about Fungies’ features and pricing.
Pros and Cons of Fungies
| Pros | Cons |
| User-friendly interface | Learning curve for advanced features, but we have an extensive help center to help. |
| Recurring billing management | |
| Low transaction fees | |
| 250+ global payment methods | |
| Merchant of Record | |
| Focused dashboard | |
| No-code website builder | |
| Web3 integrations | |
| Advanced customization for branding and themes |
Customer Reviews
- Review #1: “Fungies.io is a game-changer! They’re carving a niche as the premier solution for indie devs seeking a personalized storefront and asset marketplace. Their team’s commitment to continuous improvement and openness to feedback is unparalleled. With user-friendly features and value-packed subscription options, Fungies.io is the ace in the deck for any game development journey.” – Gatis Parols, Founder of DoRaC Game.
- Review #2: “Our game’s development was intense, and we needed a streamlined, cost-effective solution to showcase it. Fungies was the answer. Not only could we mold our game’s site to perfection, but the ease of payment integrations and direct Steam game sales made our lives simpler. The best part? An outstanding team backing a top-tier free platform. It’s a win-win!” – Wes Abrams, Founder of Abrams Studio.
2. Stripe
Stripe streamlines payment, billing, and invoicing processes for businesses with a wide range of payment methods, including credit cards, digital wallets, and recurring payments for subscription models. It has features like multi-currency support, fraud protection, custom checkout options, invoice support, transparent payouts, and extensive API support and documentation.
As a Chargebee alternative, it has easy onboarding and quick integration with websites and apps. The Stripe dashboard allows you to select suitable payment methods, and even use Stripe’s machine-learning algorithm to match customer’s payment preferences.
Stripe Pricing
Stripe has two types of pricing structures:
- Pay-as-you-go model: 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction for domestic cards and online payments.
- Custom model: The platform offers personalized packages for large organizations depending on their business models.
Other pricing details you should know:
- An additional fee of 1.5% applies for international cards
- An extra 1% applies for currency conversion
- 2.6% + 30¢ per transaction for instant payouts
- 0.8% on ACH Direct Debit
- Extra fees also apply for additional services such as invoicing and subscription management tools.
Customer Reviews
“Most of our business transactions are processed through Stripe and we’ve set Stripe up for clients who require online merchant processing. By far the easiest and most straight-forward merchant processor to setup for online processing.” – Richard I.
3. Paddle
Paddle manages global payments, subscriptions, global tax compliance, and customer billing. It is a Merchant of Record (MoR) platform that offers features like flexible billing, subscription management, checkout integration, and GDPR compliance, making it a popular choice among SaaS and software companies.
Unlike Chargebee, which charges monthly fees for paid plans for additional features, Paddle offers free advanced features, helping you save costs.
Paddle Pricing
Paddle charges 5% + 50¢ per transaction with cross-border tax compliance and secure payment processes. It charges no monthly fees or upfront costs for features.
You can contact the team for bespoke pricing for under 10$ products. A custom pricing quote for premium services is available.
Customer Reviews
“I never implemented payment system before. Paddle was easy to setup and they have detailed resources for developers. I also received fast support from them regarding my account problem. Lastly, they have a reasonable charge for their product compared to competitors.” – Apratibha R.
4. FastSpring
FastSpring is an all-in-one e-commerce solution that offers global payments and tax compliance. It offers an advanced set of subscription management tools to set free trials, discounts, promotions, tiered pricing models, and self-service portals. Other key features include recurring billing, dunning management, digital invoicing, and localized checkout.
FastSpring Pricing
FastSpring charges a fixed flat fee based on the transaction type and sales volume of your business.
Customer Reviews
“What I like best about FastSpring is how they have simplified the complexity of ecommerce for businesses who only want to know their own business and want to sell online. They have knowledgeable and helpful account managers and support staff and an outstanding team of designers/developers based on the quality and ease of use of the FastSpring platform. FastSpring is reactive to customer needs and regularly updates the platform to meet customer and legal requirements with minimal disruption to their users.” – Anabel B.
5. Zuora
Zuora is a subscription management platform that supports recurring revenue growth by providing a comprehensive set of monetization tools for pricing, billing, customer acquisition, bundling, usage, and hybrid pricing.
The platform is widely known for its global payment methods, and e-invoicing, and helps businesses scale through amendment automation, subscription metrics, and revenue growth management. Its highly customized billing processes, such as amending subscriptions mid-cycle, and prorating charges are more flexible than Chargebee’s features.
Zuora Pricing
Zuora has a custom pricing model. Contact support for details.
Customer Reviews
“Zuora can do pretty much anything. It has a lot of capabilities when it comes to billing, invoicing, dealing with international currencies, etc. But you definitely have to think in advance about how you *want* to do billing, e.g. is it a per transaction model, a per month model, a per minute model, what happens if there are overages etc. Zuora will let you get as complicated as you want. And sometimes that’s too complicated.” – Ruslan B.
6. Maxio
Maxio, previously known as Chargify and SaaSOptics, specializes in providing billing and financial services to help you increase recurring revenue, ensuring compliance with accounting standards like ASC 606 and IFRS 15. It streamlines billing cycles, subscription plans, and CRM integrations, all from one platform.
Maxio’s reporting metrics are quite advanced as well. You can get real-time, out-of-box, and advanced drill-down reporting. The platform is ideal for larger B2B SaaS companies or enterprises needing advanced financial reporting, compliance, and analytics tools.
Maxio Pricing
Maxio’s pricing structure is flexible based on the needs of the business.
The free plan offers a 30-day trial where you can try billing for free with limited features.
The Grow Plan is billed every month, starting from $599/month for up to $100,000 billing processes.
You can also get a custom quote by talking to the team.
Customer Reviews
“Maxio is an intuitive platform that has all of the core features to get the job done. We especially value its automatic dunning system, the main dashboard for ARR reporting, and the one-click reports for our revenue entries. The integration of Chargify within our application further enhances its functionality. Overall, this is a great product and an excellent solution for our needs.” – Olivia H.
7. Recurly
Recurly is widely known for its subscription workflows and recurring billing platform offering scalability and configurable tools for B2B SaaS companies worldwide.
Its key features include flexible billing models, subscription analytics, quick integrations, compliance, and secure transactions. As an alternative to Chargebee, Recurly’s quick integration options make it easy to connect with existing systems, reducing setup time with smooth operations.
Recurly Pricing
Recurly offers subscription-based pricing, customized to business needs. You can try the platform for free for the first 3 months.
After that, you can choose between a Professional and Elite plan based on your company size.
Customer Reviews
“We take the privacy of our clients’ personal information seriously, and our billing procedure is meticulous. Recurly has excellent settings/configurations that let users just access the information they require and limit access to the information they do not. Recurly has significantly improved how we handle billing.” – Alexis S.
Quick Comparison Table
| Platform | Pricing | Key Features | Pros | Cons | |
| Fungies | 5% + $0.50 per transaction | Automated payments, global compliance, easy onboarding, 250+ payment methods | User-friendly interface, low transaction fees, supports Web3 integrations | Newer platform, fewer integrations than larger competitors | |
| Stripe | 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction (domestic cards) | Multi-currency support, fraud protection, extensive API support, custom checkout options | Easy to integrate, highly scalable, supports many payment methods | Additional fees for international cards and currency conversion | |
| Paddle | 5% + 50¢ per transaction | MoR platform, global tax compliance, subscription management, flexible billing | Simplifies global tax compliance, no upfront fees, MoR model | Limited customization options, lacks advanced reporting features | |
| FastSpring | 8.9% of transaction value or 5.9% + 95¢ per transaction | Recurring billing, tax compliance, localized checkout, tiered pricing | Excellent global compliance, robust subscription tools, easy setup | Higher transaction fees compared to some competitors | |
| Zuora | Custom pricing | Hybrid pricing models, e-invoicing, global payments, subscription metrics | Highly customizable, supports complex billing, global payment options | Complex to set up, maybe too advanced for smaller businesses | |
| Maxio | Custom pricing, Scale Plan: $599/month | Advanced reporting, CRM integration, tax compliance, real-time billing | Advanced reporting, intuitive platform, flexible billing cycles | Expensive for smaller businesses, complex setup | |
| Recurly | Custom subscription-based pricing | Flexible billing models, subscription analytics, simple onboarding, quick integrations | Scalable, simple onboarding, great for B2B SaaS companies | Custom pricing can be expensive for smaller businesses | |
Which Chargebee Alternative is Best For You?
When choosing the best Chargebee alternative, you need to first evaluate your business needs like the size of your business, the features needed, integration options, payment options, type of product, and budget. We recommend you read customer reviews online to see how other companies are implementing the platforms to help you make an accurate decision.
Fungies is a great Chargebee alternative for streamlining billing, payment, and invoice processes. It offers a cost-effective, user-friendly platform with a simple interface, quick onboarding, easy integrations, and an advanced set of relevant tools, specifically designed for SaaS subscriptions, digital downloads, and games.
