7 Min. Read

4 Best Subscription Management Software

July 22, 2024

Subscription management software is essential for keeping track of subscription-based sales and services. SaaS (Software as a Service) is the most common form of subscription software. However, physical and digital subscription business models are starting to become commonplace, too.

Thanks to subscription management tools, managing sales, accounting, and even marketing are easy. So, what are the best options when choosing subscription management software? We narrowed down the top performers to make your search easier.

Here’s What We’ll Cover:

FreshBooks

FreshBooks is a popular subscription management software. It’s ideal for managing various aspects of your business. From sales to projects to collaboration, FreshBooks manages your company in ways that make your life easier.

You can even share files among your project members for seamless integration and management. For greater convenience, FreshBooks centralises your files in a web-based storage system. Thus, searching and finding key files is effortless for you and your team.

Moreover, you get to choose who can access your files via permissions. When it comes to a powerful subscription management service, FreshBooks encapsulates it well. As you proceed with your various projects, FreshBooks lets your team members communicate with ease. They can leave feedback on projects and collaborate with one another.

No customer management software would be complete without project profitability. In fact, there are three central functions in this regard, including:

Project Profitability Details
Profitability Summary
Profitability Widget

Project Profitability Details allow you to see a detailed report of project profitability. Use this information to better manage your projects. If one is making nice profits for your company, you can see why and adjust other projects accordingly. It’s an effective way to ensure maximum results among your projects.

Profitability Summary gives you an overview of overall profitability among clients and projects. Use this data to compare projects that you are managing.

The Profitability Widget offers a quick breakdown of projects. With it, you can see:

Profitability of projects
Unbilled hours
Incomes
Costs

This kind of information is essential in managing your accounting processes. FreshBooks also makes it easy to automate clients’ recurring payments thanks to auto-bills. In a matter of seconds, you can arrange a secure subscription billing solution for automatic card charges.

The recurring invoice creation feature simplifies customer management. And you can set due dates for greater versatility. And only FreshBooks gives you the tools you need in a single place for easy access. It’s free to try and worth checking out.

You get to use this cloud-based accounting solution for a full 30 days to see how you like it. And if you decide to buy, there are several pricing options to choose from depending on your needs. For five billable clients, the Lite plan starts at £15.00 a month. For 50 billable clients, the Plus plan is £25.00 a month. And if you need unlimited billable clients, the Premium plan is only £35.00 a month.

FreshBooks also offers a customisable plan that lets you choose specialised features. If you’d like to try a demo of this plan, contact FreshBooks to request one.

Billsby

Billsby is powerful, customisable, and works well in integrating recurring billing plans. You get some unique and interesting features, such as:

Cycle, product, and plan hierarchies
Integration of planned actions
Customer value scoring

Advanced invoices have a sidebar that serves to assist customers in managing their accounts. Instead of receiving a static PDF, users can perform special actions, including:

Charging credit cards that fail on payments
Communication with support teams
Adjusting subscription plans

Embedded checkout is another feature of Billsby that supports custom fields and payment plans. It is much easier to implement subscription payments, as there is far less work needed from your development members.

Billsby’s dunning and retention are very customisable, letting you choose how you want to handle failed payments. What’s more, you can also establish an action plan for clients that no longer want your subscription service.

While not as robust as FreshBooks, there’s enough here to put Billsby on the map. It’s nice to be able to identify star clients (as well as clients that aren’t as beneficial to your brand). A free trial of Billsby is available. The company won’t charge you a fee until you earn a certain amount of revenue.

And if you aren’t profitable, Billsby won’t charge you, either. Once you start making money, you’ll get charged a 0.4% fee on generated revenue. The subscription billing software is unique, to be sure. But it’s ideal for clients who don’t want to have to worry about a large investment.

Zoho Subscriptions

Zoho Subscriptions is a pretty clever subscription management software option. It’s a good fit for recurring revenue, and it lets you manage customer subscriptions throughout their time with you. Also, Zoho makes it easy to accept recurring payments.

In fact, you can manage almost all applicable aspects of your business, including payment failure. There’s also support for a wide variety of payment gateways. As such, Zoho Subscriptions integrates with the likes of PayPal, Forte, Stripe Connect, and more. Setup is quick and easy, too.

The metrics Zoho Subscriptions offer are also beneficial. You can see how projects are doing in real-time. So you can use this data to make adjustments where needed for maximum effect. Zoho’s dashboard is simple but useful. Users should have no trouble getting the hang of its functions.

You can try Zoho Subscriptions for free, but some plans get pretty pricey depending on how many customers your business has. And because you’re charged monthly, you could spend as much as £181 every month.

If you’d like to explore further and compare Zoho Subscriptions with FreshBooks, check out our comprehensive guide: FreshBooks vs. Zoho Books.

Subbly

If you have subscription management platforms, Subbly may very well be a great fit for you. It helps you manage the entirety of your subscriptions with additional features that simplify your efforts.

For example, you can automate your business to assist you in managing monthly payment options. You can also adjust customer communications. Need to address a failed payment? Subbly has you covered.

Another nice addition is the ability to make coupons and run promotions. Subbly helps you give your customers reasons to stick around. And you can employ these specials for as little or as much as you like. And you can further manage these features and more with Subbly’s handy subscription catalogue.

You can freely adjust billing methods, how often clients get charged, when products expire, and much more. There’s a lot here to enhance the customer experience. You have a couple of options for how you use Subbly. You can spend about £14 a month if you wish to use Subbly by the month.

But you’ll save money if you switch to annual billing. The yearly plan comes out to about £10 a month if you do it that way. Features are somewhat limited, however. If you want it all, the price increases to about £28 a month on a per-month basis, or £21 a month if you go with the annual package.

Key Takeaways

Managing your subscription business is easier than ever, thanks to these entries. If you want to ensure that your needs are met, FreshBooks offers comprehensive plans that are both affordable and versatile. And because there are several plans, you can find the one that best fits your business’s needs.

Don’t forget to check out our Resource Hub, too. We have many articles designed to assist small business owners in the UK. From starting your own business to submitting VAT returns, we make small business endeavours easy to manage.