7 Best Free and Cheap Subscription Billing Software

If you’re looking for free and cheap subscription billing software, you’re in the right place. While there are countless tools today’s business leaders need to run their companies successfully, few are more important than the right billing software.

Subscription billing software supports companies in automatically collecting payments from customers, often based on a monthly subscription or package. Subscription billing software supports all kinds of companies, from gyms and fitness companies to software vendors.

Free and cheap subscription billing software may not have all of the advanced features offered by some more expensive solutions. However, these offerings can be perfect for business leaders with a limited budget, just getting started in building their brand.

Today, we’re going to be looking at just a handful of the best subscription billing tools, and what makes them so effective.

What are the Best Free Subscription Billing Tools in 2023?

1. Quickbooks Payments
2. Pabbly
3. Chargebee
4. Recurly
5. Stripe Subscriptions
6. Braintree
7. Zoho Subscriptions

1. QuickBooks Payments

If your idea of the perfect subscription billing software is something that allows you to manage your cashflow reports, accounts receivable, and countless other financial details in one place, QuickBooks has you covered. QuickBooks helps companies streamline their cashflow management and payments environment into one easy-to-use ecosystem.

With QuickBooks Payments, you can create and send invoices which can be paid instantly, or you can set up recurring subscription invoices for your customers. Since your recurring billing solution will be integrated with your QuickBooks accounting tools, you can save yourself a lot of time.

QuickBooks will automatically match payments to invoices, so your books are constantly balanced. You can also create and send invoice reminders on the go, and see at a glance which of your invoices are outstanding, and which have been paid in-full. Customers also get a range of ways to pay, including debit and credit card, PayPal, Zettle, and others.

Pricing

While there’s no free package available from QuickBooks payments, the pricing is surprisingly affordable For the first 6 months, you can get a package for self-employed sole-traders costing only £4 per month, which includes full self-assessment features, as well as subscription and billing tools. If you’re charging VAT too, you can also manage this with the £6 per month package.

The Limited Company packages start at £6 per month too, and allow you to access tax estimates, VAT submissions ready to be sent straight to the government, and complete cashflow tracking tools.

Best for: This recurring billing system is perfect if you want access to invoice templates, accounting software, and subscriptions in one place.

2. Pabbly

Pabbly is an interesting choice for companies in search of billing tools, because it actually offers a lot more than just basic billing technology. The simple platform comes with a host of different products, including form building, and marketing tools.

The subscription module of Pabbly allows you to set up a comprehensive automated billing system with no transaction fees. There’s the option to create attractive customizable checkout pages, access EU VAT validation, and even collect tax alongside your payments.

Pabbly supports more than 35 payment gateways, and is completely GDPR compliant, with a range of features you wouldn’t normally see from subscription billing teams, like auto-email notifications, multi-tier affiliate modules, and pop-up checkout pages.

Pricing

The free version of Pabbly allows you to collect up to $100 per month from unlimited customers, but you don’t get your own domain. You will have access to multi-currency and multi-lingual payment systems, however. Plus, all the bonus features like affiliate management and API integrations are still available on the free plan.

Paid options start at $19 per month for the “Standard” package, which allows companies to collect unlimited revenue from up to 50 customers. This package does include a custom domain, as well as all the features of the free service.

Best for: Pabbly supports flexible payment collection for smaller businesses in the midst of growth. It could be great for smaller companies.

3. Chargebee

Chargebee is one of the top most popular recurring billing tools on the market, offering the perfect combination of exceptional usability, and a fantastic range of features and products. With this service, you can simplify subscription and revenue management in no time, as well as accessing a range of customization options with API connectivity.

Chargebee offers support for more than 100 local currencies and payment methods, making it ideal if you have international currency. The solution is also extremely easy to use, with plug-and-paly integration to more than 23 payment gateways.

The customer portal feature from Chargebee is particularly compelling, as it ensures your customers can go in and make changes to their account information and subscriptions. You can also use Chargebee to find new revenue opportunities through methods like flat pricing and usage-based pricing too.

Pricing

Chargebee has a free “launch” package which allows you to collect up to $100k in revenue for up to 3 users. There’s a secure checkout, dunning support, options to issue credit notes, up to 6 pricing models, and A/R aging reports.

The paid packages start at $249 per month, billed annually, which allows you to accept around $600k of revenue per year, with all the features in Launch for up to 10 users. You also get a custom domain, customer portal, multi-language support, sales tax automation, CRM integration, advanced analytics, and accounting integration.

Best for: Chargebee is an excellent tool for rapidly scaling companies with a huge, global customer base. It can even help you to reduce churn with notifications and reports.

4. Stripe Subscriptions

Stripe is one of the better-known payment processing solutions on the market today. The company offers a wide range of ways to accept payments from your customers, including access to subscription billing and invoicing services. With Stripe, you can quickly and easily set up automated systems for collecting more revenue, without the headaches.

The flexible billing logic included in Stripe makes it possible to offer everything from per-seat pricing, to more complex metered billing. You can also offer coupons, free trials, prorations, and more. As an added bonus, Stripe comes with a range of customization options, as well as the ability to integrate with other solutions through API access.

One of the best features of Stripe Subscriptions is it’s powerful analytics and reports. You can collect information about growth, churn, and financial health, with automated reports, and tools for revenue recognition.

Pricing

Pricing from Stripe is a little different to some of the other subscription billing tools we’ve looked at so far. Rather than paying a monthly fee, you’ll pay a percentage of all of the payments you accept back to Stripe. The “Starter” package allows you to create subscriptions, offer discounts, and manage recurring billing for a 0.05% fee.

The “Scale” package allows companies to automate revenue operations with complete billing and reporting solutions, with an 0.8% fee.

5. Recurly

One of the most renowned subscription management platforms available today, Recurly is dedicated to helping brands around the world accept payments with speed and simplicity. What makes Recurly particularly unique is it’s machine-learning approach, which consistently optimizes billing and helps companies to maximize revenue.

Recurly supports back-office integrations to all kinds of gateways, processors, and payment methods. It also comes with intelligent insights and powerful analytics. With Recurly, you can create and support a host of different subscription combinations, including fixed recurring options, quantity-based subscriptions, usage-based charges and more.

You’ll have access to a number of different global payment gateways, and a range of payment options, including PayPal, ACH, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, and invoicing. On top of all that, the deep plan insights ensure you know everything there is to know about your customers, so you can improve your chances of reducing churn.

Pricing

Unfortunately, there’s no free package available for Recurly, but you can access the “Core” package for $199 per month, which allows you to accept up to $1 million in revenue. This is a lot mor than you’d typically get from most recurring payment solutions.

The core package includes advanced automation features, tools for accelerating subscriber growth, and simplified payments and billing. However, you won’t get all of the functionality until you upgrade to the “Elite” package, which is priced by quote.

Best for: If you’re a larger company accepting a huge number of payments each month, then Recurly may be one of the cheaper options for you.

6. Braintree

If you’ve heard of payment gateways and recurring online payments, you’ve probably heard of Braintree. This powerful solution for SaaS companies and other vendors has become one of the top recurring billing software options in recent years.

Although it’s not a complete tool for subscription management, it does make it easy to accept credit card payments regularly through a range of payment options. Small businesses can set up subscription plans, track payments in an admin center, and even track revenue in real-time.

If you’re looking to build a subscription business from scratch, Braintree has a number of tools to help with your business needs, including the option to set up a range of flexible pricing structures. You can even create prorated subscriptions to help with customer retention. Braintree also offers dunning management, reporting tools, and a convenient checkout environment for debit and credit payments, as well as Venmo, Apple Pay, PayPal, and other options.

Pricing

Rather than paying a monthly fee for your subscription management software from Braintree, you’ll pay transaction fees for every payment managed through the platform. The exact amount you spend will depend on the countries you’re operating in, and where you’re selling.

For instance, users in the US will pay standard fees of around 2.9% plus 30 cents for every transaction. There’s also an extra 1% charge on all card payments from cards issued outside of the US, and another 1% for non-USD payments.

Best for: if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution for managing payments from all kinds of customers, Braintree could be the perfect choice.

7. Zoho Subscriptions

Zoho is a market-leading provider of all kinds of crucial software for today’s businesses. The full Zoho ecosystem covers everything from productivity to customer support. You’ll also be able to use Zoho Subscriptions for a convenient recurring billing experience.

Focused mainly on the needs of smaller businesses and freelancers, Zoho’s subscription billing software is straightforward and easy to use. You can automate all kinds of subscriptions, send VAT-compliant invoices, and make sure you always get paid on time.

Handling the entire billing lifecycle, you can use Zoho to provide your customers with a wide range of payment options, before eventually collecting the cash you need. You’ll also be able to tailor the subscription experience to different users with customizations, and access extensive metrics to help you with producing insightful reports.

Pricing

The free package supports only 1 user and 20 subscriptions, making it great for smaller companies and freelancers, but not ideal for companies undergoing rapid growth. With the free package, you’ll have access to hosted payment pages, multi-currency support, a Stripe integration, offline payments, a client self-service portal, and subscription metrics. The free package also includes 24/5 email support.

If you upgrade to the first paid package at £39 per month, you’ll be able to accept payments from 500 customers, and support 3 users, with 3 automated workflows. The service comes with all the features of the free package, as well as offline payments, client self-service portals, REST API access, and advanced analytics. You’ll also get phone support.

Best for: This is a great tool for smaller businesses and freelancers without a huge number of customers to cater to.

Choosing the Best Subscription Billing Software

As you can see from the options listed above, accessing amazing free and cheap subscription billing software doesn’t have to be as complex as it seems. There are plenty of tools out there to help you enhance the customer experience, without breaking your budget.

If you’re not sure where to start with choosing the ideal subscription billing tools for your needs, we’d recommend looking for a service which offers a free demo, so you can test the features before you sign-up. It’s also worth looking for whether your billing software integrates with other tools like Chargify, Salesforce, and Shopify, so you can align more of your workforce.