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Subscription Management & SaaS Billing: Recurring Payments and Plans
Subscription billing for SaaS: Recurring payments, plan management, and usage-based pricing.
Subscription Management & SaaS Billing
Why Custom Subscription Management?
SaaS business models thrive on recurring revenue – the holy grail of the software business. But standard tools like Chargebee, Recurly, or Paddle are expensive: often 0.5-1% of revenue plus fixed fees. At an MRR of 50,000 EUR, that's 6,000-12,000 EUR per year going to the billing provider. Add limitations with complex pricing models and missing integration into your product logic.
A custom subscription management solution adapts to your business model, not the other way around. We develop subscription management systemswith everything SaaS needs: Flexible pricing models (flat, tiered, per-seat, usage-based), dunning for failed payments with intelligent retry strategies, proration for plan changes, andself-service portals for your customers.
We handle the integration with Stripe, PayPal, or SEPA direct debit. You focus on your product – and keep 100% of your revenue (minus payment processing fees, which you pay with any provider).
“Subscriptions are billing machines—without consistent period logic and dunning tiers, every upgrade becomes a correction posting.”
Björn Groenewold, CEO, Groenewold IT Solutions
Subscription Features
Recurring Billing
Automatic billing monthly, annually, or custom – with Stripe, PayPal, SEPA direct debit, credit card.
Plan Management
Plans, add-ons, upgrades, downgrades, trials, grandfathering – flexibly configurable without code.
Dunning Management
Automatic dunning for failed payments, card update reminders, cancellation flow.
Usage-Based Pricing
Billing by usage: API calls, storage, active users, transactions – with metering and aggregation.
Customer Portal
Self-service: change plan, update payment method, download invoices, reverse cancellation.
Lifecycle Emails
Trial reminders, renewal notices, downgrade warnings, payment reminders – automated and personalized.
Proration
Automatic pro-rated calculation for plan changes mid-billing cycle.
Churn Prevention
Cancellation flow with retention offers, pause option, downgrade alternative.
SaaS Metrics at a Glance
A good subscription system makes your most important KPIs transparent.
MRR
Monthly Recurring Revenue – your monthly recurring revenue, the most important SaaS metric.
Churn Rate
Cancellation rate – what percentage of customers cancel per month? Below 2% is good.
LTV
Lifetime Value – total value of a customer over their lifetime. LTV > 3x CAC is healthy.
CAC
Customer Acquisition Cost – cost per new customer (marketing + sales).
Net Revenue Retention
Revenue development of existing customers through up-/downgrades and cancellations.
ARPU
Average Revenue Per User – average revenue per customer per month.
Pricing Models
Flat Rate
One price for all – easy to understand, easy to sell. Example: 49 EUR/month.
Tiered Pricing
Different packages (Basic, Pro, Enterprise) with different features and limits.
Per-Seat Pricing
Price per user – scales with team size. Example: 10 EUR/user/month.
Usage-Based
Pay per consumption – ideal for APIs, storage, transactions.
Our Approach
Billing is critical – errors cost revenue and customer trust. We approach it systematically.
1
Pricing Strategy
Define pricing model, packages, trials, discounts, and metrics together.
2
Architecture
Design billing engine, payment integration, customer portal, and reporting.
3
Development
Build subscription system, integrate Stripe/PayPal, implement dunning.
4
Go-Live
Migrate existing customers, monitoring, optimization based on data.
Advantages of a Custom Solution
No revenue share to Chargebee, Recurly & Co.
Full control over pricing logic
Custom dunning strategies and retention flows
Integration into your product database and CRM
Arbitrarily complex pricing models supported
Full transparency across all metrics
What Does a Subscription System Cost?
Costs depend on the complexity of the pricing model and required integrations.
- Basic Billing: 15,000 – 35,000 EUR excl. VAT – Stripe integration, simple plans, invoices
- With Customer Portal: 35,000 – 70,000 EUR excl. VAT – Self-service, dunning, plan changes, metrics
- Enterprise: 70,000+ EUR excl. VAT – Usage-based, complex proration, multi-currency, reporting
Break-Even Calculation
Chargebee costs 0.75% + 299 EUR/month from the Scale plan. At 50,000 EUR MRR, that's 674 EUR/month or 8,088 EUR/year. A custom solution for 45,000 EUR pays for itself in 5.5 years. At 100,000 EUR MRR, it's already 2.5 years.
When Is a Custom Solution Worth It?
From approx. 30,000 EUR MRR, a custom solution becomes economically interesting. Below that, Chargebee, Stripe Billing, or Paddle are often the better choice – faster to start, less upfront investment. We advise you honestly.
Custom solution or SaaS tool?
Compare rising license costs with custom development – interactively over 5 years.
Discuss Your Subscription Project
Let's talk about your SaaS billing – free and non-binding. We'll show you whether a custom solution makes sense for you.
FAQ
Subscription Management
Billing, Stripe & Dunning
How much does subscription billing software cost?
The billing system cost calculator gives EUR 10,710 – 204,149 excl.
VAT as its non-binding overall range. Plan models, recurring billing, dunning, usage-based pricing and payment-provider integrations determine the concrete result; we scope these drivers in a short workshop.
Can you integrate Stripe or PayPal?
Yes.
We integrate Stripe, PayPal and other providers so subscriptions, invoices and dunning run automatically in your application.
Do you support usage-based pricing?
Yes.
We implement metered billing, tiered plans and hybrid models so you can offer usage-based and flat-rate plans in one system.
What about dunning and failed payments?
We build retry logic, reminder emails and grace periods so failed payments are handled automatically and churn from payment issues is reduced.
Dunning, Migration & Metering in Practice
How does dunning work for failed payments?
Automatic retry attempts after 1, 3, 7 days (configurable).
Emails to the customer with a link to update their payment method. Escalation to sales. Optional: grace period before cancellation.
Can existing customers be migrated?
Yes, we develop migration scripts for Chargebee, Stripe Billing, Recurly and other systems.
Customer data, plans and payment methods are transferred—without disruption for your customers.
How is usage-based billing implemented?
Through a metering system that captures usage (API events, storage, users).
At the end of the billing period, data is aggregated and converted into an invoice. Optional: real-time usage display for customers.
Solution: abo verwaltung
How subscription management is introduced
Four checks: triggering events, plans, dunning and accounting.
1. Name the events
Which usage or plan change creates an invoice. The payment provider only covers what it already holds.
2. Limit the plans
Upgrade, pause and cancellation are separate states. One price is not a plan model.
3. Separate dunning
Deadlines and blocks belong to the transaction, not a spreadsheet added later.
4. Connect accounting
The invoice goes to the system that already posts it. A second journal is not created.