How to pick a recurring billing & payment provider

How to Pick a Recurring Billing & Payment Provider

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Overview

Subscription management and recurring billing apps can be a bit overwhelming in regards to what it all means.

In order to save you the confusion, we have created a beginner’s guide to subscriptions, payment gateways and merchant accounts.

As well as defining these aspects, the companies who provide these services are listed.


Overview

Payment Gateways

Merchant Accounts

Subscrip7on & Recurring Billing Programs

Company Comparison Charts

How Do I Pick What’s Right for Me?

An Addi7onal Method to Narrow it Down.


Payment Gateways

Payment Gateways are the backbone of online payments and e-commerce of all kinds. If someone is taking your credit card online, they are probably using a Payment Gateway.

These gateways connect you to all the major credit card companies in order to make it easy to collect any kind of credit card you want without having to submit to Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance. Source: hIp://7nyurl.com/qjlpm8j


Merchant Accounts

Once the credit card is charged, the payment needs to go somewhere. This is where a merchant account comes in.

Essentially, a merchant account is a type of bank account that allows businesses to accept money from payment cards. If you wish to accept money online, you’re going to need a merchant account.

You might not always realize one of these accounts is involved due to the fact that some Payment Gateways will provide you with this account behind the scenes. Regardless, there is always a merchant account in the mix.

Source: hIp://7nyurl.com/qzsctah


Subscription & Recurring Billing Services

Payment Gateways and Merchant accounts have you covered when you want to charge a credit card and make sure that the money ends up in your account. But, what about payments that need to be charged and/or adjusted every month? Subscription and Recurring Billing services contain a credit card vault and a list of recurring charges. These systems make sure that the right people get charged the right amount every month.


Subscription & Recurring Billing Services

Some services focus entirely on the problem of Recurring Billing management and were built on top of existing payment gateways and merchant accounts. The companies that focus on recurring billing as their core have developed a bunch of features to make your life as a software developer easier. Examples of this include sending emails to your customers with their invoices, pro-rating upgrades and downgrades, and managing dunning (i.e. handling when a credit card has expired or rejected a charge).


Subscription Management: Comparison Chart

*Zuora also offers some finance features that don’t seem to require subscription integration.


Other Gateway Payment Models: Comparison Chart

*Zuora also offers some finance features that don’t seem to require subscription integration.


How Do I Pick What’s Right for Me?

In general, there are three major questions you must ask yourself in order to narrow down your search:

What do your payments look like?

Where are you?

How much can you spend?


Question 1:What do your #Payments Look Like?

Are you doing simple plan-‐based billing or are you charging for variable

usage?

If you’re building something complicated, then you probably want to look at a company that focuses on SaaS as their primary business.

If you’re doing simple plan-based billing, you'll be pleasantly surprised at how easy it can be to configure a Hybrid gateway to fit your needs.


Question 2: Where are you?

Some providers are only available in select countries or

regions.

What is the assortment of

providers that are available in your

area?

Payment processing law is complicated and highly region-dependent.

You want to make sure you have the right mix of Payment Gateway and management layer to help you navigate the legal maze for where your company is headquartered,


Question 3: How Much #Can You Spend?

Most hybrid gateways don’t charge extra for their subscrip6on layers. This allows you to keep the cost of small projects rela7vely low.

However, if you need the power of subscrip6on-‐focused services for more complex projects, you’re going to have to pay extra.

Most companies have a mix of a monthly fee plus transac6on fee, and don’t charge extra to get started. However, some companies charge upfront fees and only work

with clients with over $1M in yearly revenue.


An Additional Way to Help #Narrow It Down

At the end of the day, you need to make sure that you trust your provider to be easy to use, give good support, and grow

along with you.

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How to pick a recurring billing & payment provider

Technology

recurring billing apps

existing payment gateways

payment cards

credit card vault

kind of credit card

major credit card companies

merchant accountsonce

gateway payment models