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In this article, we’ll compare two popular subscription billing systems, Stripe vs. Recurly. We’ll also discuss how Baremetrics can help enhance your SaaS business.
When you’re setting up your subscription business for e-commerce success, you will need a system to process online payments that allows automation for accepting subscription payments.
Both Recurly and Stripe are capable of doing so and integrate well with Baremetrics to get better analytics on the data you get through these two payment platforms.
When you’re ready to get started, sign up for Baremetrics 14-day free trial.
Stripe: Pros & Cons
Stripe is a common payment processing system used by a wide range of businesses.
Designed with an easy setup in mind, Stripe offers a plug-and-play e-commerce subscription billing software that can be easily integrated into most e-commerce checkout systems and websites.
Whether you have a website from an out-of-the-box builder like Squarespace or Wix, or you’ve invested in a completely custom-built site, Stripe can easily integrate with any e-commerce workflow to make the process of collecting payments simple.
Reporting
Stripe offers base-level insights about monthly revenue, churn, and retention rates. These insights can be applied to workflows within Stripe, which are essentially customizable funnels for checkout and billing management.
If you’re looking for deep insights about your customers, it’s better to use a tool like Baremetrics, which integrates with Stripe, to provide better analytics. The primary focus of Stripe is to serve as a billing system, so detailed reports aren’t readily available directly within the platform.
Sign up for a free 14-day Baremetrics trial.
Payments & Payouts
With Stripe, you can accept payments from leading credit cards, debit cards, and ACH debit methods, both domestically and internationally. Stripe doesn’t accept third-party payments from services like Apple Pay or PayPal.
Stripe processes payments through a secure, proprietary gateway rather than through a method of your choice. As a result, receiving payouts can take a few business days.
You have the flexibility to set whether you’d like payout disbursements as soon as you receive them or at regular intervals, such as monthly or bi-monthly.
Recommended reading:Stripe vs. PayPal.
Pricing
Stripe billing is a straightforward usage-based model. Stripe does not charge a monthly fee but charges 2.9 percent + 30 cents for every transaction.
If you have a high volume of transactions or a more expensive product, this can add up very quickly and become very expensive in the long run.
Recommended reading:Stripe vs. Gumroad.
Additional features
In addition to e-commerce payment processing, Stripe offers options for in-person point of sale terminals and invoicing, making it a versatile solution for a wide range of businesses.
Recurly: Pros & Cons
Recurly is a popular payment processor. It is robust and powerful for processing payments for businesses at every revenue level.
Recurly supports integrations with Webhooks, MailChimp, Salesforce, and Shopify to help you easily integrate it into your existing eCommerce business.
Reporting
Recurly delivers reports that offer insights about your subscribers, revenue, and subscription plans. These insights are centered primarily on how money moves, letting you identify areas for improvement and pricing optimization.
Recurly’s reports and analytics combine insights on individual transactions, subscription tiers, and product performance, including base-level information about MRR and customer churn.
Pairing these transactional insights with additional data from a subscription analytics tool like Baremetrics will give you the full picture of your business performance, from individual transactions to monthly and annual revenue.
It’s simple to get started with a 14-day free trial of Baremetrics.
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Payments & Payouts
With Recurly, you can accept payments via credit card, debit card, ACH, invoicing, and third-party payment tools such as PayPal, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay. Checkout is secured with PCI-compliant gateways, and there are dedicated options available for iOS and mobile payments.
Payouts are distributed via a payment gateway of your choice, meaning you’ll get access to your funds as quickly as your banking institution allows.
Pricing
The core pricing plan for Recurly is $149/month + 0.9 percent of revenue. At this level, you receive base-level access to Recurly features and can process payments using one gateway.
If you want access to more advanced features or additional gateways for international payments, you need to contact sales about one of the higher-priced tiers.
Additional Features
Recurly offers a dunning management solution, notifying customers about failed payments via an alert you set. This works best when used in tandem with Recover from Baremetrics, a dedicated solution for recovering failed payments through dunning emails.
By combining customizable email campaigns, in-app reminders and paywalls, credit card capture forms, and in-depth analytics, you can simplify your collection process and maximize your retention.
Check it out with a 14-day free trial of Baremetrics.
Recurly also supports international payments and global payment processing. If you want access to additional features for e-commerce, such as mobile-specific and iOS payment solutions, backup customer payment methods, and phone support, you will need to pay for a higher-tier subscription.
Get Detailed e-commerce Subscription Billing Analytics with Baremetrics
Baremetrics works in tandem with leading billing systems like Stripe, Recurly, Chargify, and Chargebee to offer the most detailed and comprehensive insights and automation functionality to enhance your subscription business at every level.
Baremetrics offers a wide range of features designed to maximize your subscription business.
With people insights, you’ll have a rich view of your subscribers and their interactions with your brand, including noting upgrades, downgrades, and other key user behaviors throughout a customer’s life cycle.
You can also create smart dashboards that allow for customization, letting you see the numbers that matter most to your business as needed. Baremetrics charges a simple, flat monthly fee calculated based on your Monthly recurring revenue (MMR).
This way, if you’re a startup or small business you won’t get stuck paying enterprise prices for the data you need. If you want to take it for a test drive and see how you can enhance your e-commerce billing system and subscription management.
Get started with Baremetrics with a 14-day free trial and check out our live demo!
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