The best recurring billing software should both send automatic invoices and process the customer’s payment automatically. Most businesses can manage their recurring invoices through accounting software, such as QuickBooks Online and Wave, which provide a simple all-in-one solution.
Another option is a payment gateway, such as Helcim and Square, which provides recurring invoices and the ability to manage customer subscriptions for free — you only pay the transaction fees. Finally, businesses might want specialized billing software, such as Stax Bill and Zoho Billing, that charge a fee but allow you to choose your own payment gateway.
Recurring billing transaction fees | Starting subscription fees | Bookkeeping software | Unique features | |
---|---|---|---|---|
QuickBooks Online | QuickBooks Payments: 2.99% | $30 per mo. — includes bookkeeping software | All-in-one | • Industry-leading accounting software • Highly customizable invoices |
Helcim | 2.43%–3.18% + 25 cents | Free | No real-time integrations | • Subscription manager • Manage trial periods • $6 maximum fee for automated clearing house (ACH) payments |
Wave | Wave Payments: 2.9% (most credit cards), 3.4% + 60 cents (Amex) |
Free — includes bookkeeping software | All-in-one | • High-quality free accounting software • All-in-one solution |
Square | 3.5% + 15 cents | Free | Integrates with QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks, and Zoho Books | • Instant access to cash • Point-of-sale (POS) hardware available for brick-and-mortar stores |
Stax Bill | Depends on your chosen payment gateway | $2,388 per year | Integrates with QuickBooks Online and NetSuite | • Application programming interface (API) • Choose your own payment gateway |
Zoho Billing | Depends on your chosen payment gateway | $50 per mo. | Integrates with Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online | • Great mobile app • API • Manage trial periods |
QuickBooks Online is by far the most popular small business accounting software in the United States and is our top pick for the best small-business accounting software. It integrates with QuickBooks Payments with a push of a button, which allows customers to preauthorize payments for recurring invoices. One advantage of QuickBooks’ popularity is that it is very easy to find a bookkeeper with expertise in QuickBooks but it’s also a bit more expensive than other small-business accounting software.
QuickBooks Payments:
Users must have a subscription to QuickBooks Online to use QuickBooks Payments and recurring billing.
QuickBooks Online (all plans include recurring invoices):
New QuickBooks Online users can choose between 50% off for three months or a 30-day free trial.
Ideally, your recurring billing system should be integrated with your overall bookkeeping system, and QuickBooks Online is the most popular small business bookkeeping software in the U.S. If you already use it for your bookkeeping, it only makes sense to use it for recurring billing as well. Turn on the QuickBooks Payments feature (watch this how-to video), and your customers will have the ability to pay invoices online. They can also preauthorize future payments when you send them a recurring invoice.
If you don’t use QuickBooks Online, you should seriously consider subscribing. Beyond recurring billing, QuickBooks excels in inventory management, online bill payments to vendors, project accounting, class and location tracking, payroll, and much more. You can always find help through their extensive network of independent QuickBooks ProAdvisors.
The biggest drawback of QuickBooks Online is the cost. If you already have bookkeeping software that works well for you, the most cost-effective option will be to choose a payment processor, such as Square or Helcim, that can fill your need for recurring payments without an additional monthly fee.
Helcim is a payment platform that charges low credit card fees and specializes in subscription billing through the Helcim Subscription Manager. Helcim can also send customized invoices and offers lightweight POS hardware for businesses looking for something other than a traditional checkout line. We recommend it for businesses centered on many different subscription plans with a high volume of subscribers.
Credit card processing rates from Helcim are based on their cost plus 0.4% of the transaction plus 8 cents per transaction. The results are very low rates, but it’s a little complicated to know the exact rate you’ll be charged because the cost varies by card type.
We really like the Helcim Subscription Manager and think it’s a great tool for businesses whose primary business is subscription-based, such as a gym or online publication. You can create an unlimited number of subscription plans and then add subscribers manually, or you can send them a link to add themselves. The subscription manager can manage free trials automatically and bill your customer automatically once the free trial expires. It will also calculate and bill for prorated periods.
The drawback we see with Helcim is a lack of true two-way integration with any accounting software. It does provide a synchronization tool that can export some data to and from QuickBooks Online, but we’d much rather see a real-time integration. It also has a very limited integration with Xero that allows the transfer of payments received via Helcim on invoices issued in Xero. This means that you’ll need to input most of your Helcim activity manually into your bookkeeping system.
Wave Accounting offers a free accounting plan that can integrate with Wave Payments. Wave Accounting is a very capable cloud-based accounting software that we awarded the top spot in our guide to the best free accounting software. When combined with Wave Payments, Wave Accounting can send recurring invoices automatically so that your customer can choose to pay automatically or individually as each invoice is received.
Wave Accounting (both plans include recurring invoices):
Wave Payments:
Wave Accounting Pro subscribers have the 60-cent per transaction fee waived for the first 10 Amex transactions each month.
It’s important that your invoicing system is integrated with your general bookkeeping system to ensure all invoices and payments are included in your income — and Wave provides a free and easy way to do this. Beyond the bookkeeping features, it allows you to provide good-looking, customized, recurring invoices to your customers with some of the lowest payment processing rates we’ve found.
There aren’t many downsides to choosing this free accounting software, although its processing rates for Amex are higher than the options in this guide. If your business offers a variety of different subscription options to many of your customers, you might consider something with a dedicated subscription manager, such as Helcim.
Square is a very popular payment platform and offers some good recurring billing options. In addition, it is an excellent choice for brick-and-mortar businesses that need a traditional POS system to check out customers. Users have instant access to their cash from credit card transactions when they open a Square Business Checking account for free.
We like Square because you can get same-day access to your cash from credit card sales. The easiest way to access your cash immediately for free is to set up a Square Business Checking account, which is also free. If you prefer, you can initiate a same-day transfer to your existing checking account for a 1.75% transaction fee. We also like that Square is available on the go. Its recurring billing charges can be set up in your Square dashboard, Square Invoices App or Square POS App.
On the downside, Square doesn’t have a built-in bookkeeping system, so you’ll need to establish and maintain an integration. While not required, we highly recommend integrating your invoicing and bookkeeping to guarantee that all invoices issued and payments received are properly recorded. Square has integrations available for all the major small business accounting software, including QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks and Zoho Books.
Stax Bill is a sophisticated accounts payable system that combines subscription management with great analytics and integration with NetSuite, a popular accounting software for businesses that have outgrown QuickBooks. Stax Bill also offers a powerful API for large businesses that need even more flexibility to integrate with their existing systems.
Pricing is based on a company’s annual recurring revenue (ARR):
You’ll need to add a payment gateway to Stax Bill, which will require the payment of transaction processing fees.
We think Stax Bill is a good choice for large companies because of its ability to integrate with existing systems through its API. It also offers sophisticated features and analytics that are unavailable in the other products in this guide. We especially like the self-service portal, which can reduce the staff needed by large companies to answer phone calls and register subscribers.
The additional features of Stax Bill come with a substantial price tag. While most of the software in this guide is free — you only pay for the payment processing — Stax Bill charges an annual fee on top of payment processing fees. The sophistication of Stax Bill is also going to require a large commitment of time and money for large companies to set up and integrate Stax Bill with their current systems.
Zoho Billing is one of the many Zoho apps available to help manage your business. Like all the Zoho apps, Zoho Billing is built with the mobile app in mind. While there is a desktop interface, most of Zoho’s features are also available while using the mobile app.
Subscription management requires the Professional plan or higher.
Additional users can be added to any plan for $9 each per month.
You can choose Zoho Payments, Stripe, Authorize.net or CSG Forte for your payment processing and will need to pay those transaction fees on top of your Zoho Billing subscription.
Like all Zoho apps, Zoho Billing has a user-friendly dashboard that makes for a great user experience. It also has a great mobile app called “Billing Management – Zoho” on the App Store. The app allows you to manage customers, send invoices, and even manage your product catalog.
The only thing we find missing in the app is the ability to create new subscription plans. However, you can create new customers easily and add them to existing subscription plans. We also like that Zoho Billing has good integrations with both Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online.
Aside from the mobile app, we don’t see a lot of features in Zoho Billing that aren’t also included in the free options provided in this guide. We think the main reason to choose Zoho Billing is that you are a Zoho Books user or looking for a mobile app to manage invoices and subscriptions.
The best recurring billing software for your business depends on your current bookkeeping software, costs and whether you have only a few customers who need recurring bills or if your entire business is run on a subscription model.
Regardless of the recurring billing software that you choose, eventually, the income and cash flow need to make their way into your financial statements. The easiest way to make this happen is by choosing bookkeeping software that can send recurring invoices.
If you choose a payment processor or specialized billing software, ensure it has a quality bookkeeping integration or, at the very least, see to it that you have a plan for how you’re going to get the information into your bookkeeping system at least monthly.
You need to consider both the flat monthly fee and the cost of processing the credit card or bank transfer:
If your entire business revolves around customer subscription plans, then you need a recurring billing solution that can manage many subscription plans easily and let you add and remove customers to and from each subscription plan. Many subscription managers even offer secure portals where your customers can manage their own subscriptions.
If you need to send invoices in addition to processing monthly charges automatically, then be sure to consider the look and customization options of the invoices produced by each option. Generally, specialized billing software will give you more customization options than the free software from payment processors.
We conducted in-depth research on each of the alternatives in this guide, including obtaining trial subscriptions whenever possible. We contacted customer service representatives to fill in the missing information we couldn’t find on a provider’s website. Of particular interest was the cost, features around subscription management, and how the software integrated with various bookkeeping options.