From sending invoices, to managing subscriptions and complying with international tax regulations – there are several things you need to do to get paid from software customers.
SaaS payment solutions offer an easy to use payment gateway to process and manage your subscriptions securely. It understands the intricacies of the recurring billing process and tiered pricing plans and helps you optimize your SaaS subscription models for better sales and increased revenue.
This article shares a list of the best SaaS payment solutions you should consider for your business.
SaaS payment solutions are cloud-based payment gateways that enable you to collect customer payments. These solutions can integrate with your product, sales quotes, billing systems, payment processes, accounting systems, bank accounts and more.
SaaS companies in particular, must follow the entire subscription life cycle, allowing customers to upgrade, downgrade, renew, or cancel their subscription plans at any time.
This process can be quite challenging when done manually, as every billing change must be approved, processed, collected, and reported on SaaS payment solutions take some of the hassle out of this process by automating billing, invoicing, and managing subscription plans, thereby making SaaS billing easier and more reliable.
An efficient SaaS payment solution takes the stress out of your billing and invoicing processes. It helps you offer a seamless payment process to your customers with no interruptions.
Here are some key pointers to ensure you find the right solution for your SaaS business.
An ideal SaaS payment solution accepts various payment methods for easier payment completion. This includes -
Offering multiple payment options helps potential customers choose their preferred recurring billing method. It maximizes your chances of successful payments while giving you access to a global customer base.
The SaaS payment solution should offer an invoicing tool, or robust accounting system integrations, to generate clear and concise customer invoices. Your chosen platform should automate the process of recurring invoices and sync this data with your existing accounting systems. It should also support multiple pricing models and process customer payments without interruptions.
Your payment solution should integrate with your third-party systems and provide a seamless buying experience to your customers. For instance, it should integrate with your existing tech stack via self-serve APIs without relying on developers to complete the integration process. It should also allow additional customizations to suit your SaaS billing requirements and help you deliver seamless payment experiences to your customers.
Some payment solutions take a small percentage fee for each transaction other vendors charge a flat recurring amount (aka ‘platform fee.’). Hence, we recommend conducting thorough research and choosing a payment solution with low transaction, setup, and other fees.
It is essential to evaluate your transaction volume before shortlisting a solution. Try to avoid solutions that charge high revenue-based fees. You may also negotiate fees with the payment solution provider if you are processing a large volume of transactions every month.
The SaaS payment solution you choose should offer global support by providing multiple currency options, secured payment gateways, and ensuring banking and tax compliance with native support or integrations to tools that support this, such as Avalara.
Further, the payment solution should offer fraud prevention measures and other security-related safeguards to combat payment-related fraud.
SaaS businesses need a payment solution that can handle a large customer base, offer complex pricing models, and accurately streamline billing processes. Here are some of the best SaaS payment solutions available today.
Stripe offers intuitive payment solutions for SaaS businesses looking to accept payments globally. This flexible payment gateway seamlessly integrates with your product and simplifies SaaS billing for your business.
Stripe offers features such as subscription management, payment reconciliation, invoice creation and management, fraud management, and more, along with a seamless checkout module to complete the payments.
Pricing - Stripe pricing is based on transaction volume. It is 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction with an additional fee of 1% for international and currency conversion transactions.
Cacheflow is the best SaaS payment solution to simplify your payment process. It helps you close more deals by streamlining your quote-to-cash process. It collects your SaaS payments upfront from your customers by offering complete flexibility in your payment processes. It accepts multiple payment methods and optimizes your pricing strategies to build delightful customer experiences.
Cacheflow is also known to automate your SaaS subscription management process. It can automatically send payment reminders, trigger invoicing, and direct debit payments. This reduces the burden of following up with customers and increases the efficiency of your sales team.
Pricing - Cacheflow has a publicly available pricing structure and can provide custom quotes after a demo.
Chargebee is another subscription management and billing platform designed to handle SaaS payments. It does not offer its own payment gateway and merchant account.
However, it does offer seamless integration with payment providers like Stripe and PayPal. It is an ideal solution for businesses with large volumes of subscriptions across several pricing plans. It helps you monitor your subscription revenue and grow your SaaS business.
Pricing - Free up to your first $250K and 0.75% on billing afterwards. You can visit their website for more details on other pricing plans.
Braintree is a subscription billing provider that offers you intuitive subscription management tools. It was acquired by PayPal in 2013. Braintree is designed especially for mobile users. Besides handling payments, it provides you with fraud detection tools to spot fraudulent transactions.
Braintree supports multiple payment methods and is available in more than 45 countries worldwide.
Pricing - Braintree pricing is based on the payment method your customers choose. It does not have any setup or monthly platform fees.
PayPal supports 50+ different currencies and is one of the most reliable platforms for processing SaaS cross-border payments. Its intuitive system can process both fixed and variable subscription amounts while providing other important features, such as customer authentication, fraud protection, and more at an additional cost.
Pricing - PayPal pricing varies based on the mode of payment. For card transactions, it is 2.59% + $0.49 per card charge.
Finding the right SaaS payment solution can be quite tricky. We recommend you understand your current requirements as well as what you might need in the future before investing in one. Switching payment and billing systems gets exponentially harder as your company size increases, so it’s better to prepare for the future than trying to play systems catch-up.
Cacheflow is a SaaS payment solution that allows you to collect payments effortlessly via a B2B checkout flow. It offers an all-in-one solution to manage your subscriptions, enables new payment options, and keeps your customers updated about their payment status in real-time.
Book a demo to learn how Cacheflow can streamline payment processing and help you gain a competitive edge.
