SubscriptionFlow vs. Recurly – Choosing the Right Subscription Management Platform for SMBs
For every business, the needs vary from one to another. Subscription businesses have various and changing requirements that demand a lot of customization for a seamless process.
Dozens of subscription management tools are there in the market for businesses with subscription management requirements that can help them manage their billing, subscribers, payments, and more.
Many of them offer a range of features and functionalities. Some cater to a broad range of audiences, whereas some offer custom solutions to a selected audience.
SubscriptionFlow and Recurly, both are renowned brands in the subscription management market and they both offer more or less similar features though the differences exist.
This article aims to draw a comparison between the two to address the SMB concerns interested in availing subscription management services.
The comparison aims to answer the questions such as what do you aim to get from the platform? What features will be beneficial for your business? Are the available features tailored to your needs? And, the list goes on.
Let’s dive deeper into it and answer your queries.
What is SubscriptionFlow?
SubscriptionFlow is a subscription management platform providing features of recurring billing, invoicing, subscription processes, and their management targeting small to mid-range businesses (SMBs).
What does it offer?
The subscription management platform is equipped with tools, software, and features that render the core functions of any business with recurring billing and subscription handling requirements. From marketing, sales tax management, proration, to integrations, API documentation, and self-service portal – all available at SubscriptionFlow.
SubscriptionFlow provides a holistic platform with a wide range of options to go for. Not only this, but its seamless integrations with third-party applications also help in streamlining business processes without any halts.
As the number of online platforms tends to grow, businesses are marching towards making their services online. Keeping into consideration the requirements and increasing growth of online businesses, SubscriptionFlow targets a large number of verticals (industries) such as eLearning, health & fitness, media and publishing, insurance companies, and much more.
Coming to billing and invoicing, this subscription management platform is undoubtedly an inclusive platform that is highly customizable. As it is highly customizable and enriched with flexibility, merchants or business owners leverage them to customize them in accordance with the way they want.
Enabling customers and merchants to build a relationship of trust, helping them manage the billing changes with accuracy during downgrading, upgrading, or cancellation of the services by a customer.
Another feature of SubscriptionFlow that has proven to support customer retention is the self-service portal. This portal enables customers to take complete hold of their account and make the changes as per they want, anywhere, anytime.
It gives customers the freedom to access their portals, manage them, and get independent. It is a big plus that is crucial for subscription management customers and helps SaaS merchants and subscription business owners to offer an exclusive customer experience.
What is Recurly?
Recurly is a purpose-built company serving recurring revenue companies. Aiming at enterprises to provide robust features that handle subscription management and recurring billing seamlessly.
What does it offer?
For enterprises running their business on a large scale, there is a need for a full-bodied system that can handle large customer databases in a most organized way.
Currently, Recurly is dealing with 10+ categories – serving customers. Aiming to provide an uber good experience to large enterprises, it also offers integrations for recurring billing businesses.
Recurly deals with a limited number of industries and with enterprise-level clients.
Subscription Management: SubscriptionFlow vs. Recurly
Subscription management is the key purpose of any subscription management platform and the rest follow it. Subscription management entails customer data management (organizing leads and customers’ data to materialize more opportunities for upsells, cross-sells, and re-sells.), optimizing pricing plans, and plans management (free trials, freemium, etc.), a self-service portal, correspondence management, and facilitating customers with the best of features for seamless subscription management.
Subscription Management Features | SubscriptionFlow | Recurly |
Ease-of-Use | ✓ | ✕ |
Ease of Setup | ✓ | ✕ |
Quality of Support | ✓ | ✕ |
Payment Gateway Integration | ✓ | ✕ |
Sales Tax Management | ✓ | ✕ |
Pipeline Management | ✓ | ✕ |
Self-Service Portal | ✓ | ✕ |
Built-in Payment Gateway | ✓ | ✕ |
Flexible Customization | ✓ | ✕ |
Custom Object Creation | ✓ | ✕ |
Module customization on checkout pages | ✓ | ✕ |
Advanced automation tools | ✓ | ✕ |
Custom schedulers to perform scheduled actions | ✓ | ✕ |
Custom Workflows automation | ✓ | ✕ |
Industries: SubscriptionFlow vs. Recurly
In a comparison of the two subscription management platforms, SubscriptionFlow deals with a large number of industries as compared to Recurly. Recurly offers the option for a few industries to be managed through its subscription management platform.
Industries | SubscriptionFlow | Recurly |
SaaS | ✓ | ✓ |
Startups | ✓ | ✕ |
Consumer goods and retail | ✓ | ✓ |
Mobile App | ✓ | ✓ |
Health and Fitness | ✓ | ✕ |
Streaming Media | ✓ | ✓ |
Digital Media and Publishing | ✓ | ✓ |
eLearning | ✓ | ✓ |
Cleaning Business | ✓ | ✕ |
Real Estate | ✓ | ✕ |
Insurance Companies | ✓ | ✕ |
Magazine | ✓ | ✕ |
Nonprofits | ✓ | ✕ |
Telemedicine companies | ✓ | ✕ |
Business and Professional services | ✓ | ✓ |
Food | ✓ | ✕ |
Hospital Management | ✓ | ✕ |
Courier Company | ✓ | ✕ |
Alarm Companies | ✓ | ✕ |
Law firms | ✓ | ✕ |
Marketing Companies | ✓ | ✕ |
Gym Management | ✓ | ✕ |
Recurring Billing Management: SubscriptionFlow vs. Recurly
For SaaS businesses or those who work on a subscription model, billing is the key feature.
Let’s look at the features for billing management available at SubscriptionFlow and Recurly.
Billing Management Features | SubscriptionFlow | Recurly |
Recurring Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
Billing Portal | ✓ | ✓ |
Billing Rate Management | ✓ | ✓ |
Hourly Billing | ✓ | ✓ |
Add ons | ✓ | ✓ |
Multiple Charges | ✓ | ✕ |
Multiple Billing Models | ✓ | ✕ |
Automated Sales Tax Management | ✓ | ✓ |
Payment Gateway Integrations: SubscriptionFlow vs. Recurly
For SaaS businesses having a large customer userbase from all around the world; payment gateways play a crucial role. On Subscription management platforms such as SubscriptionFlow and Recurly, various payment gateways are integrated to provide customers with easy access so they do not get limited over what is available to them and what is not. With the help of payment gateway integrations, users can choose from a wide range of payment gateways such as PayPal, Authorize.Net, and so on.
Let’s have a look at the payment gateways of both subscription management platforms.
Payment Gateway Integrations | SubscriptionFlow | Recurly |
Authorize.Net | ✓ | ✓ |
PayPal | ✓ | ✓ |
Stripe | ✓ | ✓ |
Adyen | ✓ | ✓ |
Amazon Pay | ✕ | ✓ |
Apple Pay | ✕ | ✓ |
Braintree | ✓ | ✓ |
CardConnect | ✓ | ✓ |
GoCardless | ✓ | ✕ |
Final Comments
When there are several platforms available, it gets confusing when it comes to choosing one for your business.
This comparison aims to help you conclude choosing the one while keeping the key features of both subscription management platforms. SubscriptionFlow, being a highly customizable subscription management platform along with a wide range of features and industries, takes the edge over Recurly for small to mid-range businesses.
For a better understanding, schedule a demo now with SubscriptionFlow and get to know us more.