Recurring Invoicing Software: Top 10 Best Software

Recurring invoicing software can be a crucial tool for your business. But we know how difficult it can be to choose the right one for your business as there are tons of solutions available.

In this article, we will look at the benefits of a good recurring invoicing system and the important factors to consider when choosing yours. We will also compare the top 10 recurring invoicing software so you can make an informed decision for your organization.

Before we dive into the article, have a look at this guide we've worked on with Chargebee! Their team has produced a report on the state of the subscription management industry in 2023. If you're looking for growth strategies, starting with customer retention and pricing, this guide is a must-have!

Recurring invoicing software refers to systems designed to help companies send the same invoice to the same customer at regular intervals (weekly, monthly, annually…) for a specific product or service, containing the same invoice details.

Recurring invoicing software automatically invoices customers and handles the collection of payments.

Many businesses offer types of services or products that require them to create and send the same invoice to customers on a regular basis. They usually choose to invest in recurring invoicing software to automate invoice and payment processes in order to improve productivity and save money.

Businesses that often use recurring invoicing software include:

• Rental company’s (flats, office buildings, etc.) ;
• Subscription-based products and services (gym, software, monthly gift boxes, streaming services, etc.) ;
• Marketing companies ;
• Consultants ;
• And many more…

Identifying which recurring invoicing software is right for your business can be difficult.

When choosing a recurring invoicing software, you need to consider if it provides the features you need to run your business, and if it was designed for your type of business.

For example, you can ask yourself:

• Can it process international payments?
• Can it process all the transactions you perform each month?
• Does it support the types of payment methods you need?
• Does it integrate seamlessly with the other tools you use?
• Is it easy to get up-and-running?
• Can it run promotions?
• Does the vendor have experience in your industry?
• Is it adapted to the size of your business?
• And any other business-specific questions

Chargebee is a great software for businesses of all sizes: startups and enterprise-level companies alike. It is a plug-and-play cloud-based subscription business tool and billing solution that provides a wide number of products, features, and customizations for its customers. Businesses can use Chargebee to combine usage-based, one-time, and recurring pricing models, organize promotions and bill their customers accurately. It has a sleek and easy-to-use API and provides both free and paid plans, making it accessible to all.

• Subscription management
• Recurring billing and invoicing
• Recurring payments
• Accounting and taxes
• SaaS reporting
• Enterprise billing
• Integrations
• Offline Billing
• Reports and notifications

Pros

• Free option
• Easy to use
• Customize payment options (flat fee, usage, custom)
• 100 different currencies and payment options
• Special promotions can be organized

Cons

• Quite expensive once you upgrade past their free plan
• No parent-child functionality
• Not possible to export multiple invoices in one go

FreshBooks is a web-based SaaS that is best for small business and freelancers. Freshbooks allows users to create and send invoices, track expenses, manage projects and clients, and view reports. It offers four different plans that vary in terms of the maximum number of billable clients and features available. If you're not sure Freshbooks is the right system for your business, you can try it for free for 30 days.

• Invoicing tools
• Mobile application
• Estimate and proposal conversion into invoices
• Multiple languages and currencies
• Integration with more than 100 third-party applications
• User roles and permissions to improve security

Pros

• Intuitive cloud-based app
• Complete bookkeeping system
• Unlimited invoices included in all plans
• Less expensive than other popular accounting software
• Electronic signatures on estimates and proposals

Cons

• Not possible to view reports or manage team members from the app
• Recurring invoice feature unavailable with Lite Plan
• Extra fee for additional users
• Lite plan only allows for five billable clients

Bonsai is an all-in-one business & financial management solution specifically geared toward freelancers, small businesses, agencies, and self-employed professionals. It integrates and automates many business management tasks such as proposals, contracts, billing, accounting and tax preparation. Bonsai’s all-in-one package is relatively affordable and features a very intuitive and simple interface.

• Ready-to-go interactive proposal templates
• Contract templates
• Expenses tracking
• CRM within the app
• Contact forms
• e-Signatures
• Time-tracking and task management
• Automatic invoice generation and sending
• Bonsai tax

Pros

• All-in-one solution
• Good customer support
• Strong mobile apps
• Easy to use
• Very useful time-tracker
• Great dashboard
• Looks professional when sending proposals and invoices
• Multiple payment and payout options
• Expense tracking
• Helpful with taxes
• CRM within the app

Cons

• Potentially expensive monthly cost
• Limited features
• Limited integrations
• Contract creation tool has its limits
• Time tracking feature doesn’t capture evidence of your work
• Only available in English
• Geographical limitations for payment options

Wave recurring invoicing software is very popular among freelancers and small businesses as it is completely free, with no limitations. It includes invoicing, accounting software, and receipt scanning. It is designed to help small businesses save time by providing a simple, all-in-one financial management tool via a suite of products that work seamlessly together. Wave can be a great and cost-effective option for small businesses and freelancers who don’t need extensive billing features.

• Better and faster bookkeeping
• Invoicing
• Calculation of tax and deductions
• Direct credit card payments
• Fully integrated single login solution
• Profit and loss statement
• Automatic data backup

Pros

• Free
• No commitment
• Reporting is easy to create, with many options
• Multi-currency
• Straightforward setup, easy to use
• Unlimited users
• Smooth transaction management

Cons

• Not appropriate for large businesses
• Limited third-party integrations
• Lacks time-tracking features
• Linking with bank account can be troublesome
• Basic reporting options
• Not able to set up separate income and expenses by classes or locations
• Customer support could be better

Zuora is a recurring billing software that is more suitable for high-revenue companies. As one of the leading business, finance, and billing systems rolled into one software, it offers many Fortune 100 businesses from the subscription economy like Zoom, CAT, Toyota, and NBC Universal sophisticated and flexible features and tools to help them meet their goals.

• Plan-based pricing catalog
• AR management
• Automated notifications
• Time based discounts
• Hierarchical enterprise billing
• Revenue recognition reports
• Account period management
• Key subscription metrics
• Taxation
• Quoting and subscription management in CRM
• Subscription insights and analytics in CRM
• Automated invoice generation and presentation
• Electronic payment automation
• One time, recurring and usage pricing
• Billing in advance and arrears
• Subscription lifecycle management
• Pre-built gateway integration

Pros

• Free trial
• Flexible
• Customizable
• Sophisticated features
• Highly secure
• Can support large volume of data

Cons

• Rates are on demand
• Complex and can be difficult to use
• Not for startups or small companies

Chargify is a billing and subscription management tool that is specifically designed for B2B SaaS companies to manage their monthly subscriptions. Providing you've got the budget, it is a great solution independent of company size, whether you’re a small business, a startup, or a large enterprise that bills large numbers of clients monthly.

• Multi-gateway support
• Customer portal
• Good recurring billing system
• Business intelligence tools
• ACH/echeck
• Invoicing
• Recurring billing API
• Dunning management
• Subscription management
• PCI compliant security
• Branded payment websites
• Mobile app
• Automatic emails

Pros

• Designed specifically for B2B SaaS companies
• No commitment: month-to-month subscription
• Stable and reliable
• Scalable
• Easy-to-use dunning system
• User-friendly interface
• Customer service available 24/7
• Easily adjustable customer bills and information
• Multi-currency
• Basic email marketing included to create email funnels

Cons

• Can be overwhelming
• Monthly subscription on the higher end of prices
• Each Chargify account can only charge in one currency
• Reporting tool
• Not ideal for one-time charges

Zoho has a specific tool called Zoho Invoice that serves as a free standalone recurring billing software. It can be integrated with Zoho Subscriptions to handle all your customer subscription billing life cycle from start to finish. Zoho is one of the best recurring billing software for small businesses and freelancers as it offers free and cost-effective options. It is also perfect for businesses that are either starting or don’t require a complex and expensive system and can handle plenty of billing processes.

• Recurring billing
• Recurring invoice reports
• Estimates and proposals
• Integration
• Powerful APIs
• Project invoicing

Pros

• Free and cost-effective pricing options
• Project time management features
• Easy to setup
• 1,000+ invoices per year
• Multiple integration capabilities
• Multiple payment methods
• Multiple currencies, multilingual

Cons

• Integration is not always seamless
• Must purchase Zoho Books for accounting functions other than invoicing
• Manages outgoing invoices only
• No approval workflows for issuing invoices

Recurly is an all-in-one integrated platform that helps companies with large recurring revenues around the world improve billing continuity and maximize revenue. The software provides tools to easily automate large-scale subscription billing by enabling teams to manage and optimize their subscriber lifecycles.

• Subscription management
• Flexible subscription billing models (fixed recurring, quantity-based, usage-based, one-time charges, hybrid options)
• Invoice and receipt customization
• Custom charges and credits on customer accounts
• Automated recurring billing
• Global sales tax management
• Integration with ERPs and CRMs
• Revenue recognition
• Intelligent retention
• Analytics
• Subscription renewal reminders

Pros

• Month-to-month service without commitment
• Machine learning to minimize churn and maximize revenue
• Many subscription billing models
• Multilingual
• Great customer support
• Analysis of subscriber retention and other metrics

Cons

• Interface isn’t intuitive
• No details on past due invoices when generating a single payment invoice
• No option to edit the quantity, pricing, and charge description once the invoice has been created
• Lacks options for customizing or disabling “session timeout”

Axonaut is an all-in-one tool and perfectly-integrated ERP/CRM software that helps businesses manage all aspects of their projects and activities as well as their customer relationships in order to be more productive and competitive. It is mostly suitable for start-ups, freelancers, auto-entrepreneurs and managers of SMEs (1 to 50 employees).

• Branded quotes and invoices
• Quotes to invoices conversion with one click
• eSignature
• Stripe and Gocardless enabled for online payment
• Manage deposits, invoicing status and balances, including for recurring invoices
• Bank transactions monitoring
• Detailed statistics
• Accounting tasks automation
• Custom export process
• Company-specific accounting codes Management
• Automation of sales, expenses and taxes

Pros

• Complete system: everything in one place
• Nice user interface
• Good mobile app
• Reactive support
• Great for small businesses
• Smart reminders help you follow up on outstanding invoices
• Direct connection with your bank account
• Affordable

Cons

• Takes time to learn
• Not suitable for large businesses
• Needs more integration

HoneyBook is an all-in-one software solution that prioritizes ease of use for entrepreneurs who want to streamline their admin tasks and ensure they are keeping pace with their prospects and customers. It offers small businesses plenty of tools for invoicing, expense management, profit and loss reports, client management, automated workflows, templates, scheduling, and more.

• Recurring payments
• Invoice templates
• Automations
• Mobile app
• Status notifications
• Invoice branding
• Contracts
• Payment reminders
• Project workspace

Pros

• All-in-one software (including CRM)
• Mobile app
• User-friendly
• Easy automation
• Good customizable templates for invoices, contracts, and more
• Time tracker tool
• Unlimited team members
• Personalized branding
• Visual pipeline for entire business
• 7-day free trial

Cons

• Data management and reports are not very detailed
• Expensive transaction fees for instant deposits
• Email feature can be confusing
• Doesn’t natively integrate with payment processors
• Basic and manual expense tracking
• Team collaboration
• Only offers currency support in USD and CAD

If your business provides products and services that require you to create and send the same invoice to customers on a regular basis, chances are you will benefit from investing in a good recurring invoicing software.

When choosing the right software for your business from this list, make sure it's right for the size of your business and offers all the features that will help you automate the billing and payment processes to improve productivity and save money. Want to discover more tools ? Learn more about various billing solutions in our guide on Best Billing Software for Small Businesses.