Recurly vs Zoho Subscriptions

Last Updated:

Our analysts compared Recurly vs Zoho Subscriptions based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Subscription Management Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Zoho Subscriptions Software Tool

Product Basics

Recurly is a subscription and recurring billing management platform that makes use of machine learning to improve accuracy. As a result, it simplifies the process for mid-market and enterprise businesses. The vendor also optimizes the billing workflow, thereby protecting existing revenue, increasing earning potential, speeding up the collection and simplifying revenue recognition.

A subscription dashboard helps manage accounts with recurring costs and allows easy sorting of renewed, expired or paid amounts. Users can draft invoices and choose between different payment collection methods. It integrates with payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe and keeps track of the money pertaining to specific accounts.
read more...

Zoho Subscriptions is a comprehensive software solution designed to streamline subscription management tasks for businesses. It is particularly well-suited for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and businesses that operate on a subscription-based model, offering them a way to efficiently manage recurring billing, customer subscriptions, and payment processing. One of the key benefits of Zoho Subscriptions is its ability to automate billing cycles, reducing the administrative burden on businesses and minimizing errors. The software also provides valuable insights into customer behavior and revenue trends, helping businesses make informed decisions. Popular features include customizable billing cycles, multiple payment gateway integrations, and advanced analytics. When compared to similar products, users often highlight Zoho Subscriptions for its user-friendly interface and cost-effectiveness. Pricing considerations vary based on the number of customers and the level of features required, with plans typically offered on a monthly subscription basis, making it a flexible option for businesses looking to manage their subscription services efficiently.

read more...
$99 Monthly
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
$15/Organization, Monthly
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
Small
Medium
Large
Small
Medium
Large
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • More Frictionless Billing: Use a clean and intuitive layout. Simplify billing complexities for subscription initiations and renewals. Ensure a seamless user experience. 
  • Better Payment Optimization: Minimize the inventory churn with machine learning. Maximize conversions with payment optimization and revenue recovery. 
  • Boost Subscription Revenue: Manage new product offerings. Test pricing plans, payment options and conversion tactics. 
  • Gain Flexibility: Ensure total flexibility during the dunning process, including sending notifications to clients every alternate day after a failed payment. 
  • Well-Informed Decision-Making: Leverage data from the subscribers, plan performance, billing and revenue to fine-tune the business with the right decision. 
  • Improved Speed to Market: Start processing subscriptions and grow subscriber base within weeks. Use a user-friendly platform that doesn't require any training. 
  • Minimize Credit Card Decline: Ensure customer retention by significantly reducing 60 common errors associated with credit card transactions. 
  • More Comprehensive Records: Get detailed account records for renewal information, past due amounts and more. 
read more...
  • Automate Billing: It automates billing and proration, ensures secure storage of customer’s credit card information and sends tax-compliant invoices on the business’s behalf.  
  • Payment Processing: Give customers the freedom to pay their bills online or offline. It processes payments in multiple categories and ensures that the business gets paid via PCI-compliant hosted payment pages.  
  • Customizable Subscriptions: Choose from numerous templates to create pricing tables with widgets. 
  • Customized Billing: Robust REST APIs give businesses the ability to automate mundane tasks, track subscription changes, create workflows, configure secure API host pages and customize billing APIs. 
  • Quick Integration: Seamlessly integrates with leading applications to help businesses manage all aspects smoothly. 
  • Reduces involuntary Churn: Avoid lost customers and revenue from payment failures, and maximize chances of boosting revenue with retries.
read more...
  • Subscription Management: Create an unlimited number of subscription plans. Provide plans with different billing models and frequencies. Give the users the flexibility to purchase single or multiple subscription plans, combining them with one-time products or services. 
    • Catalog: Create a record of key item details like price, description or taxability in custom fields. Monitor and analyze sales via API, exports or webhooks. Connect with one or more external management systems, such as product information management, through unique identifiers. Enable one-time purchases and recurring add-ons. 
    • Upsell Products: Upsell one-time products and services with the subscription plan and give subscribers the freedom to purchase complementary one-offs. 
    • Free Trial: Provide customers with a free trial subscription plan. Configure free trial programs and leverage the automated communication process to convert free trials to paying customers. 
    • Discounts and Promotions: Create and manage various promotional offers in a simple console interface to attract new customers and engage the existing ones. 
    • Gift Subscriptions: Provide gift subscriptions to the customers and build a loyal customer base using social proof. 
    • Subscription Lifecycle Management: Minimize workflow and reporting challenges by automating invoice generation. Boost efficiency and reduce cancellations by letting subscribers view the account details, download previous invoices or reactivate accounts. 
    • Subscriber Communication: Automate communication to provide subscribers with information regarding charges. 
  • Payment Optimization: Use over 20 supported payment gateways to give businesses the freedom to accept funds worldwide. Route transactions to backup gateways to ensure that the business sails smoothly in case of any crisis. 
    • Gateway Failover: Ensure business continuity with gateway failover, which routes transactions to a backup gateway. Make sure that the transaction gets processed even if there is an outage or issue. 
    • Payment Gateways: Connect merchant accounts with over 20+ payment gateways like Amazon Pay, PayPal and Stripe. 
    • Hosted Payment Pages: Get up and running without any coding and accept payment for subscription plans. 
    • Take Payment Data: Accept credit card and other payment data using Recurly.js.Customize and ensure a PCI-compliant checkout process. 
    • Mobile Solution: Accept mobile payments across platforms. 
    • Fraud Management: Identify and address fraud transactions. Minimize chargebacks and prevent account creation fraud. 
  • Billing and Accounting: Give users the freedom to create and support any pricing combination for the business and its subscribers. Automates parent-child relationships and payment responsibilities. 
    • Account Hierarchy: Automate parent-child relationships, payment responsibilities and get a clear view of the accounts related to each other. Ensure efficient finance and accounting workflows.
    • Invoices: Ensure billing is accurate and the processes are scalable by creating invoices for all billing scenarios, including charges, refunds and shipping fees. Ensure the customers are billed correctly by automatically emailing the invoices.  
    • Global Tax Rates: Calculate tax charges from the current rates, jurisdiction information and rules. 
    • Compliance: Ensure compliance with international digital tax laws. Provide local validation, localized invoice, and tax number under registration. 
    • Advanced Sales Tax Support: Connect Avalara and Vertex accounts to provide customers with advanced tax and jurisdiction rules as well as detailed tax reporting. 
  • Integration: Integrate with a wide range of software like Salesforce, NetSuite and QuickBooks to reduce the operating cost, improve efficiency and enrich the customer experience. 
  • Analytics and Insights: Provide actionable insights into the performance of business. Monitor the subscriber, plan and revenue data to make a well-informed decision. Get data from the analytics dashboard, reports and KPIs to steer the company. 
    • Analytics: Gain insights into business such as subscriber, churn rate, plan performance, revenue trend and KPIs to take a well-informed decision. 
    • Reports: Get reports required to monitor and manage plans, subscriber and revenue and growth. Check data in the way which is best for the business with built-in reports. 
    • Exports: Configure automated exports to retrieve data regularly. Unify data from different systems to gain an understanding of how the business is performing. 
    • Optimization: Gain visibility with data and knowledge into a customer’s relationship and buying behavior to optimize the subscription business and make a well-informed decision. 
  • Subscriber Retention: Use a statistical model and machine learning to optimize logic for each transaction. Recover 70% of failed subscription renewals with the revenue optimization engine. 
    • Recurly Analytics: Optimize marketing, finance and billing operations with the real-time data provided. 
    • Dunning Management: Manage credit card payment decline and other such complications by automatically sending a notification to the customer, alerting them of failed payment. 
    • Automatic Account Update: Improve a transaction’s success rate by monitoring changes in the account and automatically updating the subscriber’s record. 
  • International Support: Provides global payment methods, multi-currency options and global tax support to help businesses operate internationally with ease. 
    • Global Payment Method: Use the most popular payment gateways for domestic and international funds. 
    • Multi-Currency Options: Provide support for international currencies to attract, engage and retain more customers. 
    • Global Tax Support: Ensure tax compliance requirements are met with watertight integration with leading tax solutions for subscription businesses like Avalara and Vertex. 
    • Multilingual Communication: Communicate with subscribers in the native language and offer checkout forms in different languages to boost conversions. 
read more...
  • Automation: Set up billing frequency and cycle to automatically send out recurring bills before the due date without any manual intervention.  
  • Analytics: Provides 30+ analytical reports for revenue, subscription activity, churn rate and more. It also delivers reports via email to help the business make well-informed decisions 
  • Manage Multiple Subscriptions: It streamlines the management of multiple subscriptions. Send a single consolidated invoice to the customers who have subscribed to multiple products and services.  
  • Subscription Branding: Gives businesses the opportunity to expand their brand, either by choosing from several invoice templates or customizing every detail of the template.  
  • Recurring Payments: Customers have the freedom to pay through multiple channels, which increases the business’s chance of getting paid on time. Includes online and offline payment methods. 
  • Insights: Intuitive dashboards provide rich insights into the business’s financial health and metrics like the churn rate, monthly revenue and more to help make well-informed decisions 
  • Dunning Management: Reduce churn rate, save time and ensure smooth processing by automatically initiating payment recovery processes. Gives the system freedom to automatically trigger a defined course of action.  
read more...

Product Ranking

#42

among all
Subscription Management Software

#66

among all
Subscription Management Software

Find out who the leaders are

User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 113 reviews
Great User Sentiment 79 reviews
91%
of users recommend this product

Recurly has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 91% when considering 113 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

89%
of users recommend this product

Zoho Subscriptions has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 89% when considering 79 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (10)
n/a
4.55 (50)
4.48 (78)
4.5 (53)
4.0 (1)

Awards

Recurly stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

No awards.

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Easy to Use: Recurly is known for its user-friendly interface and intuitive design, making it easy for businesses to manage subscriptions, even without extensive technical expertise. The platform offers a straightforward setup process and clear navigation, allowing users to quickly find the features they need.
Integrations: Recurly integrates seamlessly with a wide range of third-party tools and services, including payment gateways, CRM systems, and accounting software. This allows businesses to connect Recurly with their existing workflows and automate tasks, saving time and effort.
Customization: Recurly provides a high degree of customization, allowing businesses to tailor the platform to their specific needs. Users can create custom subscription plans, pricing models, and billing cycles, as well as configure automated emails and notifications.
Analytics and Reporting: Recurly offers robust analytics and reporting tools that provide businesses with valuable insights into their subscription performance. Users can track key metrics such as churn rate, customer lifetime value, and recurring revenue, enabling them to make data-driven decisions to optimize their subscription business.
Show more
Effortless Recurring Billing: Users praise Zoho Subscriptions for automating recurring billing, eliminating manual invoices and payment chasing. This simplifies financial management and ensures predictable cash flow.
Clear Subscription Metrics: Zoho Subscriptions provides at-a-glance insights into key metrics like Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), churn rate, and customer lifetime value, empowering businesses to make data-driven decisions.
Simplified Customer Management: Users appreciate the centralized platform for managing customer subscriptions, including upgrades, downgrades, pauses, and cancellations, leading to improved customer satisfaction.
Show more
Limited Customization: Recurly's dunning management features, while functional, lack the flexibility needed to tailor email sequences and retry logic to specific business requirements. This can lead to challenges in optimizing dunning processes for maximum recovery and customer retention.
Reporting Challenges: Recurly's reporting capabilities have been noted as cumbersome, particularly when it comes to reconciling revenue recognition with GAAP standards. This can create additional complexities for finance teams during audits and financial reporting processes.
Pricing Structure: The platform's pricing model, which is based on a percentage of revenue, can become expensive for businesses with high-volume or high-value transactions. This cost structure may not be suitable for all businesses, especially those with tight margins or those experiencing rapid growth.
Show more
Difficult to Navigate: Users have reported that the interface can be difficult to navigate, making it challenging to find specific features or perform desired actions.
Limited Customization: Some users have expressed frustration with the limited customization options available, particularly regarding billing and invoicing processes.
Reporting Limitations: Users have noted that the reporting features are somewhat limited, making it difficult to gain comprehensive insights into subscription data.
Show more

Recurly has carved out its niche in the subscription management software market, but how does it truly stack up against the competition? User reviews from the past year paint a picture of a platform with clear strengths and weaknesses, making it ideal for specific types of businesses. Recurring revenue is the name of the game, and Recurly delivers with its robust invoicing and billing capabilities. Users consistently praise its ability to handle complex billing scenarios, including proration, usage-based billing, and multiple currencies. Recurly's dunning management tools also receive high marks for effectively reducing churn by automating payment retries and customer communications. Where Recurly seems to fall short is in its user interface and reporting features. The interface, while functional, is described as clunky and outdated by some users. Similarly, reporting capabilities are seen as lacking in customization and depth compared to competitors like Chargebee and Zuora. So, who is Recurly best suited for? Its strengths in handling complex billing make it a top choice for businesses with intricate subscription models or those operating in multiple countries. However, companies that prioritize a modern user experience and in-depth reporting may find better options elsewhere. Ultimately, Recurly's suitability hinges on your specific business needs and priorities. Keep in mind that the software landscape is constantly evolving, so it's always a good idea to check for the latest updates and reviews before making a decision.

Show more

User reviews from the past year paint a mixed picture of this cloud-based subscription management software. While many users sing its praises for simplifying their subscription billing processes, some have voiced concerns about its setup and occasional sluggishness. Users rave about Zoho Subscriptions' user-friendly interface and robust features, highlighting its ability to streamline tasks like tracking subscriptions, managing payments, and receiving timely alerts for upcoming renewals. They find it a breath of fresh air compared to juggling multiple systems or manual spreadsheets. However, some users have reported initial hiccups during setup and occasional slow performance, which can be frustrating. Despite these drawbacks, many users consider Zoho Subscriptions a valuable tool that saves them time and money. Overall, Zoho Subscriptions appears to be a good fit for businesses of all sizes looking for a comprehensive subscription management solution. Its ease of use and feature-rich design make it particularly appealing to businesses transitioning from manual processes or struggling with disjointed systems. However, businesses should be prepared for a potentially challenging setup process and occasional performance issues.

Show more

Screenshots

Similar Products


Infor CloudSuite Financials

Epicor Accounting

Sage 300 Cloud

Workday Financial Management

Traverse Software

Accountmate

Dynamics 365 Finance

ProLease

TRXio

ProMan ERP

Related Categories

WE DISTILL IT INTO REAL REQUIREMENTS, COMPARISON REPORTS, PRICE GUIDES and more...

SelectHub Products Reporting and Analytics
SelectHub Products Cost and Pricing Guide
Compare products
Comparison Report
Just drag this link to the bookmark bar.
?
Table settings