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Chargify Alternatives

Trying to track and manage your subscriptions, billings, and cancellations on your own, without getting outside support, is almost impossible. To succeed and grow, you need to find the best subscriptions and billing software. These platforms track data and metrics to help you to analyze and strategize. Some great tools on the market are Chargify, HockeyStack, and Chargebee.

Why you should look for a Chargify Alternative?

Chargify is a billing and subscription tool that tracks subscriptions, expansions, and cancellations for B2B SaaS businesses. It goes beyond the reach of basic and traditional managing platforms by helping businesses to handle complex scenarios. However, even though it is one of the well-known platforms on the market, it is not flawed.

Most customers report that the user experience and user interface of Chargify are not user-friendly. Because the dashboard is hard to understand and use, customers cannot use the features and tools to their fullest potential. Similarly, it is also hard to control your data and manage your reports in Chargify. 

It doesn’t allow you to record specific data and display them as groups, which causes a problem when you want to slice your data to get more details. Some customers also mention that even though most of the time, API documentation does not cause any trouble, sometimes it is hard to understand or even non-existent. 

Overall, since it is pretty expensive ($1,499/month for the standard version), customers think that the service Chargify provides is not completely worth its money.

Trying to track and manage your subscriptions, billings, and cancellations on your own, without getting an outside support, is almost impossible. To succeed and grow, you need to find the best subscriptions and billing software. These platforms track data and metrics to help you to analyze and strategize. Some of the great tools on the market are Chargify, HockeyStack, and Chargebee.

No alternative text description for this image
From Chargify LinkedIn

Together, we’re going to look at some alternatives you can consider instead of Chargify and help you to choose, which one is better for your product.

HockeyStack

What’s HockeyStack?

HockeyStack is an end-to-end analytics tool for SaaS companies. It unifies marketing, revenue, sales, and product data into one dashboard with no code so that you can understand what really drives revenue at your SaaS. It’s completely no code, and it doesn’t require any setup.

HockeyStack’s Features

HockeyStack offers these features with no code:

  • Step-by-step user journey
  • Custom dashboards
  • Funnels and goals
  • Insights
  • Surveys
  • Revenue analytics
  • Segments

and more

HockeyStack Pricing

HockeyStack has a free forever plan and 3 paid plans. Paid plans have a 14-day trial with a 30-day refund guarantee.

You can check out the pricing page here.

HockeyStack Integrations

  • Paddle
  • Stripe
  • Hubspot
  • Salesforce (coming soon)
  • Zapier (coming soon)

HockeyStack Pros and Cons

I might be biased, but this is an objective evaluation of HockeyStack’s pros and cons 🙂

HockeyStack Pros

The unique benefit of HockeyStack is its ability to unify your marketing, revenue, sales, and product data using no code. This allows you to uncover unique insights that you wouldn’t be able to by using multiple tools as they cause you to have fragmented data.

  1. You can integrate with Stripe, Paddle, and Hubspot and build every single dashboard that you can think of, using all sales, marketing, revenue, and product metrics.
  2. You can create funnels, goals, and surveys, which are rare to get with other tools on this list.
  3. You don’t need any developers, tracking is cookieless, and the script is small, so it doesn’t increase your site loading time.

HockeyStack Cons

HockeyStack generally lacks reporting features as it’s not focused on agencies and other reporting-based businesses.

  1. HockeyStack doesn’t have weekly e-mail reports
  2. The tool lacks some integrations, such as Salesforce, Mailchimp, and Zapier. (which are on the roadmap)

ChartMogul

ChartMogul is an analytics tool that helps you to track and manage your subscriptions and billings. By analyzing data from several sources, ChartMogul provides you with concise and simple reports. It enables you to get insights into your customer subscriptions, cancellations, and different revenue metrics.

Analyze Marketing Channels
From ChartMogul

Features

Some features are:

  • Data Import and Export
  • Product Support
  • Reporting and Analytics
  • Revenue Recognition
  • Data Editing
  • Security
  • Mobile Subscription Analytics
  • Developer Hub
  • Integrations

Integrations

Some prominent integrations are:

  • Stripe
  • Braintree
  • PayPal
  • Google Play
  • MailChimp
  • Zapier
  • Hubspot
  • Slack
  • Geckoboard

Pros

  • User-friendly interface
  • Tracks customer attribution
  • Clear graphs and other visuals
  • Easy to share information among your teams
  • Native and 3rd party integrations
  • Files can be downloaded as CSV file to do in-depth analysis
  • Metrics API enables you to access ChartMogul and manage certain customers

Cons

  • Hard to reach customer support and delayed answers
  • Fewer metrics compared to other platforms
  • Limited search and filtering
  • Inconsistency with monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
  • Does not offer 100% integration with some of the sources

Pricing

ChartMogul offers three different price plans according to your MRR: Launch, Scale, and Volume. While Launch is free, Volume starts from $15k/year.

From ChartMogul

ProfitWell

ProfitWell is another tool that was specially created to track subscriptions and billing to help you with subscription growth. It offers different features for reducing churn rates, recognizing audit-proof revenue, and optimizing subscription pricing. In its dashboard, you can track different metrics to get revenue reporting and reduce cancellations.

Features

Some features are:

  • Revenue metrics
  • Retention metrics
  • Acqusition metrics
  • Engagement metrics
  • Enriched Segmentation metrics
  • Growth metrics
  • Subscription reporting and analytics
  • ROI analysis
  • Pricing software
  • Integrations

Integrations

Some applications ProfitWell integrates with:

  • Stripe
  • Zuora
  • Chargify
  • ReCharge
  • Braintree
  • Hubspot
  • Zapier

Pros

  • User-friendly interface
  • Offers powerful pricing strategy by its economic experts
  • Error-free calculations and analysis due to advanced AI and algorithms
  • Enables the usage of native integrations and ProfitWell Metric API
  • Offers mobile app both for iOS and Android devices
  • Secure and complies GDPR
  • Comprehensive free version
  • Quick customer support

Cons

  • Hard to integrate with other applications
  • Takes time to learn and familiarize yourself with all the features
  • Tools for accounting and revenue metrics are not as comprehensive as other alternatives
  • Not helpful with internal reporting
  • Counts customers who pay once and cancel as churn
  • You cannot customize your dashboard

Pricing

ProfitWell offers two price plans, which are ProfitWell Metrics and Enterprise. ProfitWell Metrics is a free plan with extensive features and tools. On the other hand, you need to contact a sales representative for the cost of Enterprise (offers customization and more support).

From ProfitWell

Baremetrics

Baremetrics is a subscription tool that tracks important metrics such as MRR and cash flow to provide daily, weekly, and monthly reports about your business. It monitors customers who are in trial, helps you to get a higher conversion rate, and analyzes each and every customers’ payments and history.

From Baremetrics

Features

  • Control Center
  • People Insights
  • Smart Dashboards
  • Recover
  • Forecasting
  • Email Reports
  • Trial Insights
  • Segmentation
  • Augmentation
  • Cancellation Insights
  • Benchmarks
  • Analytics API
  • Slack Tools

Integrations

Some prominent integrations:

  • Slack
  • Stripe
  • Braintree
  • Zoom Chat
  • Yodeck
  • Chargify
  • Chargebee
  • Slaask
  • Wufoo
  • Shift

Pros

  • Clear and easy-to-understand visuals
  • Segmentation feature separates your B2B and B2C customers
  • Easy integration with Slack and easy use of Slack tools for teams
  • Integrates with important platforms
  • Offers failed payment recovery tool
  • Tracks and analyzes important metrics as LTV, MRR, and ASP

Cons

  • Hard to adapt the tools and features
  • Need to be aware of what you need to track and look at
  • Pricing method is not suitable for early-stage startups because it’s based on MRR
  • Not enough distinction between churn and trial customers
  • Errors in calculations and data presented
  • Data refreshment time is not optimal

Pricing

Baremetrics offers free trials for all of its four different price plans. The costs range from $179/month to $447/month.

Chargebee

Chargebee is a recurring billing platform that provides services for all sizes of businesses, ranging from solo entrepreneurs to large-scale companies. While it manages every type of subscription and billing, it also prepares detailed reports about them. As your business grows, it offers you different features for your differing financial priorities.

Features

  • Subscription Management
  • Recurring Billing
  • Product & Pricing Models
  • Checkout & Self Serve Portal
  • Security & Compliance
  • Recurring Payments
  • Revenue Recovery
  • Globalized Subscriptions
  • Reporting & Analytics
  • Integrations

Integrations

Chargebee supports a wide range of integrations, dividing them into support, finance, marketing, reporting and analytics, collaboration, and eCommerce.

  • Microsoft Dynamics GP
  • Big Commerce
  • Google Analytics
  • Mailchimp
  • Refersion
  • Slack
  • Hubspot
  • Zoho CMR

Pros

  • Free plan for early-stage startups
  • A lot of possible integrations to enhance utility
  • Availability of self service portal
  • User-friendly and simple dashboard
  • Phone and online support
  • Safe data centers, where your data is protected from MITM and DDOS.
  • Handles many payment platforms, including PayPal, Stripe, GoCardless, and Amazon payments.

Cons

  • No free trial (you can ask for a free demo)
  • Expensive price plans for middle and big-scale businesses.
  • Cannot be used on mobile
  • Overwhelming amount of features that is hard to understand how to use
  • Non-flexible subscription duration
  • Limited reporting (you cannot see reports by both local and converted currency)
  • Delayed customer support and inconsistent answers

Pricing

Chargebee offers a free version (Launch) for early-stage start-ups; however, it can be costly for large-scale businesses. On the other hand, it is not the most expensive tool compared to the other billing tools.

From Chargebee

Recurly

Recurly is a recurring billing and subscription platform, which manages subscriptions, optimizes payment acceptance, and automates recurring billing operations. Giving it a huge advantage over its competitors in the market, Recurly tracks the whole cycle of your customers from beginning to end. This makes it easier for you to understand conversions and MRR.

Features

Some prominent features:

  • Subscription Plan Management
  • Recurring Billing
  • Recurring Payments
  • Intelligent Retention
  • Analytics
  • Partners and Integrations

Integrations

Some main platforms:

  • Avalara
  • Kount
  • Oracle NetSuite
  • Amazon Pay
  • Apple Pay
  • Braintree
  • GoCardless
  • Mailchimp
  • PayPal Payflow Pro and PayPal Payments Pro
  • Stripe

Pros

  • Wide array of native integrations
  • Detailed and clear subscriber records (renewal info, outstanding debts, etc.)
  • Intitutive and user-friendly interface
  • Fast customer support and helpful solutions
  • Full control over dunning process
  • Connects with different payment processing networks (Visa, Master Card, AMEX, and Discover)
  • Ease of scheduling invoices and payments
  • Alerts customers when they need to update credit card information

Cons

  • Delayed revenue statistics
  • Hard to set up and manage Coupon functionality
  • Does not show single payment invoice detailing the customer’s past due payments on a regular basis.
  • Lacking organization and categorization for reports
  • Does not show subscription details

Pricing

Recurly offers three different price plans that you can choose according to your business: Core, Professional, and Elite. However, none of the plans is free, and if you are a middle and large-scale company, you need to contact a sales representative for price offerings.

From Recurly

ReCharge

ReCharge is a billing and subscription tool for Shopify products, which aims to turn “transactions into relationships.” Because ReCharge covers a wide range of websites (Beauty, Lifestyle, Health, Food & Drink, etc.), it can help you with any type of business without any problems. It also gives flexibility for your customers by offering them the ability to swap subscriptions, edit the subscription renewal dates, and skip renewals.

Features

Some key features:

  • Subscription billing
  • Merchant tools
  • Shopper tools
  • Analytics dashboards
  • Payments
  • Support
  • Integrations

Integrations

Some examples:

  • Arpu
  • Attentive
  • Google Analytics and Google Autocomplete
  • Honeycomb
  • Littledata
  • Mailchimp
  • Postscript
  • Rebundle
  • ReferralCandy
  • Zapier

Pros

  • Easy and quick configuration between Shopify and ReCharge app
  • Secured payment information
  • Allows different types of subscription products in the same cart
  • Relatively user-friendly
  • Easy management for the admin
  • Well-organized

Cons

  • Need to create two different accounts for ReCharge and Shopify; They have different account management areas
  • Customers have difficulty in logging into their accounts and change recurring orders
  • Hard to get use to the app and understand the features and tools
  • Slow customer support (no phone support)
  • Sometimes glitches occur and app slows down

Pricing

ReCharge is free for the Standard price plan, and $300/month for the Pro price plan.

From ReCharge

Zuora

Zuora is a cloud-based software that provides insights into your company to easily and successfully become a subscription business. Zuora aims to solve complex problems of ERP, which traditional ERP platforms cannot solve: subscription billing, quoting, payments, billing, orders, and renewals.

Feature

Key applications:

  • Zuora Billing
  • Zuora Collect
  • Zuora Revenue
  • Zuora Central Platform
  • Zuora CPQ

Integrations

Some examples:

  • Accenture
  • IBM
  • RedFast
  • Zephr
  • NetSuite
  • MasterCard
  • Stripe
  • Amazon Pay
  • Apple Pay
  • PayPal
  • GoCardless

Pros

  • Supports direct debit options across the world
  • Offers training
  • The Workflow Collection add-on saves time for collections automation
  • Easy and clear system reporting
  • Manages revenue recognition per ASC
  • Personalized and customer-specific bills
  • Organized and user-friendly interface

Cons

  • Takes long time to implement and integrate
  • Each application costs separately
  • Custom pricing system; nontransparent pricing system
  • Requires time to understand how to create reports you need
  • A lot of tedious steps to go through to give a command
  • Limitation of uncommon invoicing structures

Pricing

Zuora offers custom price plans according to your business’s scale. You need to contact a sales representative for more information.

UI screens of Zuora products
From Zuora

SaaSOptics

SaaSOptics is another subscription management platform that helps you with subscription billing, revenue recognition, and analytics. It automates financial operations for your B2B SaaS businesses and enables you to quickly get accurate SaaS metrics and analytics. Because it doesn’t depend on spreadsheets and common financial operations, it gives a great advantage over its competitors.

Check out all SaaSOptics alternatives!

Features

Core features:

  • Order Management
  • Revenue Recognition
  • Billing & Invoices
  • Payments
  • Customers & Renewals
  • Financial Reporting
  • SaaS Metrics & Analytics

Integrations

Some important integrations:

  • Salesforce
  • Hubspot
  • Pipedrive
  • Oracle NetSuite
  • Xero
  • Stripe
  • Avalara

Pros

  • Comprehensive collections tool
  • Easy to understand reports; concise and clear information
  • Excellent customer support
  • Flexible contract management
  • Organized and user-friendly interface
  • Robust and highly configurable revenue recognition

Cons

  • Limitations to control you have over reports, customization, and file types
  • Difficult to customize and organize the dashboard for your own preferences
  • Autopay is controlled at the customer level
  • Error in transitions between SaaSOptics and other platforms
  • Heavy on manual labor

Pricing

You need to contact a sales representative for price plans.

Conclusion

It is crucial for your business to track its subscriptions and billing processes to offer the best service to your customers. Even though Chargify offers a lot of features to track and analyze data, it has some limitations. Therefore, looking for other alternatives according to what you expect from a platform can be beneficial for your business’s future and success. There is no definite answer to which platform you should choose; however, you can compare alternatives to find the best one that suits your needs.

FAQ

What is subscription billing software?

Subscription billing software manages recurring billing, subscriptions, and cancellations for businesses that provide subscription-based services and products.

How much does Chargify cost?

Chargify offers four different price plans: Essential, Standard, Specialized, and Custom. The price plans start from $599/month (Essential) and increase up to$3,499/month (Specialized). For the Custom plan, you need to contact a sales representative.

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