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The Future of Billing: Comparing Togai, Recurly, and Stripe

16 Mins Read
Smuruthi Kesavan
Published On : 26/08/2023

TL;DR

  • You should weigh the pros and cons of Togai, Recurly, and Stripe Billing based on your business's billing complexity, volume, and need for customization.
  • Togai stands out for B2B companies with its ability to model monetizable events and provide real-time analytics. It offers tax automation through integrations as well.
  • Togai's solutions empower businesses to adapt their pricing models dynamically, offering a significant advantage in today's demanding landscape.
  • Stripe Billing offers a simple, user-centric design with flexible usage-based pricing but may incur higher fees for large transactions and lack robust customer support.
  • Recurly is easy to set up and navigate, with a variety of payment options, but has limitations in feature set and support for complex pricing models.
  • Consider the pricing plans of each platform, with Togai's tiered pricing, Stripe's transaction-based fees, and Recurly's initial free period, to find the best fit for your SaaS billing needs.

Togai Vs. Recurly Vs. Stripe Billing: An Overview

All SaaS businesses need one requirement: Exceptional Subscription billing software or SaaS billing software that effortlessly calculates, collects, and records payments from your customers. It should deftly handle the intricacies of various subscription types, discounts, and payment methods while ensuring a seamless billing experience.

To simplify your choice, here’s an in-depth comparison of Togai, Stripe, and Recurly, the top three billing platforms.

Founded in 2022, Togai is a pricing, metering, and billing platform for B2B companies. Togai's solutions offer a comprehensive approach to address the current challenges in the market. Providing organizations with the necessary tools and valuable insights empowers businesses to adapt their pricing models dynamically and stay ahead in today's demanding landscape. Togai allows enterprises to model any action on their product as a monetizable event by eliminating the need for significant engineering efforts.

Recurly was launched in 2009 and has been a widely preferred billing solution for SaaS businesses. This powerful subscription management software that works with multiple payment processors is built with security features to support complex billing processes.
Stripe is an equally powerful payment processor that seamlessly integrates with multiple third-party apps, including Recurly. This payment processor works with subscriptions and offers an add-on solution called Stripe Billing to your Stripe gateway.

Also read our blog that sheds light on how to transform your business with Saas billing software.

Togai vs Recurly vs Stripe Billing: A Quick Comparison

Feature Comparison Togai Stripe Recurly
Real-time metrics & reporting Yes No real-time metrics Real time reporting
Billing cycle customization Yes (Any combination possible within a single plan) Limited (Only one cycle allowed per plan) Yes (Allowed)
Pricing model Yes (Any combination possible) Yes (Choose only one per product) Yes (Any combination possible)
Minimum commitments Yes No Yes
Scheduled pricing changes Yes, completely flexible with a timeline view Yes Yes
Free trials Yes Yes Yes
Supporting different payment providers Yes No Yes (Limited)
Multi-currency support Yes Yes Yes
Entitlements (feature access & limits) Yes No Yes (Based on Subscription level)
Integration (Sync with other tools) Yes (Integrates with one click) No Yes
Discounts Yes Yes Yes
Custom workflows Dynamic private and public workflows No Yes

What Are The Pros & Cons of Recurly, Stripe & Togai?

One of the main aspects to analyze before choosing your billing platform is weighing each short-listed option's advantages and disadvantages. You want a platform that simplifies customer billing rather than complicates the process.

Let's dive deeper into the key distinctions among the providers by examining their advantages and disadvantages.

Pros, Cons, & Pricing Plans For Togai

Togai is a pricing a billing platform that empowers businesses to test and refine their pricing strategies, offering a remarkable level of adaptability. With Togai, businesses have the double advantage of using an optimum pricing model to maximize revenue and deliver customer value.

Advantages of Togai:

  • Recording and utilization of time-series usage data to seamlessly perform tasks like invoice calculations, leveraging data for usage, and collating revenue analytics. (This convenience is unavailable with Stripe, which adopts a hands-off approach and makes you do the metering yourself. )
  • Caters to every business's unique pricing and billing needs.
  • Easy customization for individual user accounts and s
  • Simplifies intricate billing processes.
  • Quick pricing adjustments to eliminate time-consuming manual work.
  • Supports migration and round-the-clock priority.
  • Addresses all billing issues, thereby mitigating delays in processes.
  • Allows easy customization enabling businesses to offer affordable prices.
  • “Entitlement” allows businesses to align features and grants exclusive access to selected functionalities.

Disadvantages of Togai

The only drawback of Togai is its inaccessibility to tax automation. But, Togai provides integrations for it. As a result, Togai can handle anything that can be performed by Adyen integrations or other custom integrations, including dunning logic.

Pros Cons
Effortless usage-based pricing management Tax automation not enabled. Togai, however, integrates with Adyen for tax automation, making it an advantage for users.
Unparalleled flexibility to make quick pricing adjustments
Beyond just a platform - A Partner with real-time solutions

Pricing Plans

Interested in Togai's pricing plans? Contact us now for customized solutions tailored to your business needs!

Stripe

Stripe is a fairly basic tool compared to Recurly and Togai. Stripe Billing is easily accessible as well.

Advantages of Stripe

  • User-centric design ideal for small businesses selling a minimum number of products.
  • Easy acceptance for subscription payments.
  • Adaptable usage-based pricing specially designed to cater to businesses using consumption or usage-based pricing models.
  • Lack of fixed monthly fees makes it an affordable option for small-budget businesses. Comparatively, Stripe costs less than Recurly.

Disadvantages of Stripe

On the flip side, Stripe may not be ideal because of the following limitations:

  • High percentage fee that does not work well for businesses volumes. (Stripe's gateway charges 0.8% of your revenue and an extra fixed fee.)
  • Vendor Lock-in with Stripe's Ecosystem is an obvious limitation of the service. Because Stripe has its own products, it is dependent upon them. For instance, if you've integrated Stripe Billing and Stripe Payments to handle subscriptions and customer transactions, it may be hard to branch out.
  • Lacks the robustness to handle complex billing situations.
  • Large transaction volumes result in double the number of usage records due to the lack of an event-based framework.
  • Lacks the flexibility to allow mixed billing periods within a single subscription.
  • In live mode, there is a limited rate limit of 100 read and write operations per second.
  • Subpar customer service and inadequate seller protection are other issues with Stripe. A recent thread brings attention to an incident where the platform failed to detect suspicious orders leading to the seller being burdened with transaction fees and dispute expenses.

A screenshot of a review given by a Stripe customer on the lack of seller protection.

Pros Cons
User-centric design Spiraling percentage fee
Flexible usage-based pricing plans Not a robust billing solution
No fixed fee Lack of flexibility mixed billing periods
Comparatively more cost-effective than Recurly Event-based architecture dilemma
Vendor lock-in with stripe ecosystem

Stripe Pricing

Stripe’s pricing plan, which is offered at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, benefits you with a plethora of advantages like:

  • Quick payments
  • Real-time analytics
  • Tools for optimized checkouts
  • Better security and compliance
  • Global payouts
  • Robust communication support

Stripe charges extra for selling your products or subscriptions globally and for in-person payments.

Although Stripe was initially intended to serve the e-commerce and B2C business landscape, its framework may not be compatible with everyone. Customization- which is a core necessity- may not be possible without making lucrative deals.

Also Read: Stripe Billing Pricing: Are You Overpaying Stripe?

Recurly: Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Recurly’s subscription billing platform is designed to cater to subscription-based SaaS, media, healthcare, consumer goods, and education.

The platform is preferred for its:

  • Easy to use dashboard, which takes only minutes to create an account. All the necessary tools are conveniently located on the left-hand side, and they provide informative pop-ups to expedite the setup process.
  • Free demo without having to submit any payment details.
  • Easy-to-use navigation, which is ideal for customers and business admins.
  • Easy payment transactions supported by more than twenty payment gateways.
  • Gateway failover services to provide backup when payment gateways don’t work.
  • Multiple payment options like ACH, credit cards, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay.
  • Easy-to-create subscription plans to offer various tiers or products for customers.

Disadvantages of Recurly

As far as its disadvantages are concerned, Recurly has:

  • Limited features compared to Stripe and Togai.
  • Restricted payment gateway support
  • Restricted reporting capabilities
  • Lack of adequate support for complex usage-based and tiered pricing models.
  • Trustpilot’s review thread exposes Recurly’s complicated onboarding and billing practices that can lead to legal issues for unpaid bills on user accounts.

This screenshot displays a customer review about Recurly's complicated onboarding and billing practices that caused legal problems.

Pros Cons
Ease of use with clear dashboard Limited Features
Focused on payment options Limited payment gateway support
Effective subscription management Limited reporting capabilities
Limited support for complex billing models

Recurly Pricing

If you are looking for Recurly’s pricing plans, here’s what you can choose from:

  • Elite which offers customized plans
  • Professional, which also offers customized quotes
  • Core is free of any platform fees and allows you to use the first $40,000 without any charges.

Read on to explore the overall benefits of Usage-Based Billing in our comprehensive guide.

Togai Vs Recurly Vs Stripe: Pricing Quote Comparison

The pricing models for Togai, Stripe, and Recurly differ significantly from each other. It is crucial to have a clear understanding of these details to effectively scale your business and manage your budget.

Togai

Togai’s pricing comes in three tiers:

1. Free Tier: First 50,000 cumulative invoices are absolutely free

2. Standard Paid Tier: $100/Month or $1000/Year
25k free invoicing per Month or 250k free invoicing per year
0.5% overages applied thereafter

3. Premium Tier: Offer customized pricing for companies in the growing stage. You can contact Togai’s sales team for more information.

Stripe

Stripe’s basic package charges 2.9% + 30 cents for every successful transaction.
For all additional for billing services it charges:
5% on recurring payments
8% for advanced features

Recurly

Customers using Recurly have the amazing opportunity to access and utilize the platform for a generous full year of limited usage.

After which they are charged 0.9% charge for revenue over $40,000 per month. Post one year, the price rises dramatically to $249 per month

Getting It Right With SaaS Billing Solutions

Subscription billing can be tricky, even with the best billing platform. Despite all the automation, you still need to keep an eye on:

  • Consistent follow-ups for error messages
  • Prompt response to bank rejections
  • Proper syncing of software with other tools

Without these monitoring approaches, you may miss out on payments, rejections, system failure to update, or synchronization. Eventually, you may lose out on revenue.

Togai: The Better Choice For SaaS Billing

At Togai, we truly comprehend the significance of efficiently handling your SaaS billing system, but we also acknowledge that this task can be quite demanding and time-intensive. That’s why we guide you with implementing your SaaS billing solution to ensure seamless billing without any hiccups.

Our services offer invaluable human oversight to ensure the utmost accuracy of your reports and data. With our assistance, your SaaS billing solution becomes a time-saving asset for your business.

Take a moment to Schedule a demo to understand the advantages of Togai for your business.

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Togai's flexible solution swiftly addressed our pricing & billing needs, cutting our launch time from months to days.
Nikhil Nandagopal, Founder
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