Chargebee vs Zuora: Comparison for UK Businesses

Chargebee is a popular subscription management service which helps businesses in the UK acquire and retain subscribers, and manage recurring billing. Zuora also offers similar services in subscription management, along with some additional options which may best suit large and established businesses. But which is best from Chargebee vs Zuora? Read our Zuora vs Chargebee head to head comparison to help you decide.

We cover Chargebee and Zuora subscription billing services, plans and pricing - and also introduce Wise Business. Check out Wise if you need to manage your business finances across borders, and get paid in multiple currencies with no ongoing fees, and mid-market rate currency conversion. More on that later.

💡 Learn more about Wise Business

Chargebee vs Zuora - Comparison overview

We’ll dig into how Chargebee compares to Zuora in more detail later - but first let’s look at available features. As you’ll see, both providers offer similar services, with Zuora tending to appeal more to bigger businesses, and Chargebee having a more varied roster of company sizes.

Service	Zuora	Chargebee
Pricing	Zuora offers a free trial for some services, with all package prices disclosed upon discussion with the sales team1	Starter: No fee for first £200,000 billing cumulative, then 0.75% Professional: £499 per month for up to £80,000 billing, then 0.75% Custom pricing available2
Trustpilot rating	Zuora doesn't have claimed profile on Trustpilot	3.8 out of 5 Trustpilot score, Great rating, from 50+ reviews3
Invoice payments	✅	✅
Recurring payments	✅	✅
International payments	✅	✅
API integrations	✅	✅
Subscription	✅	✅
Payment links	✅	✅
In-person payments	❌	❌

What is the difference between Zuora and Chargebee?

While Zuora and Chargebee both offer overlapping subscription management services, they’re not the same and so you’ll want to compare them both to pick the right one for you.

Comparing Zuora vs Chargebee is quite tricky without getting quotes from each service for your own particular needs. As both providers can tailor make plans and offer a free trial, you should be able to talk to sales team members to understand a bit more about how the prices may stack up, based on your business requirements, making a comparison pretty straightforward. You can then select a free trial to test out the service without needing to immediately pay ongoing charges.

Chargebee review

Chargebee operates in subscription and recurring billing management, and its target customers sit in sectors like SaaS, education, ecommerce, media and publishing, and OTT/video.

Chargebee also offers a free trial to all customers, followed by different pricing models based on usage and business need. Ongoing packages start at £499 per month for businesses with smaller subscription numbers, right through to custom packages for large and established businesses.

Here’s a summary of the key Chargebee products available for businesses of all sizes:

• Subscription management - to retain customers and provide different payment methods
• Billing and invoicing - ideal for clients needing ongoing invoicing
• RevRec - GAAP compliant revenue recognition
• Payments and accounting - including integration with other tools where needed
• Reporting and analysis - delivered through interactive dashboards

Is Chargebee a payment gateway?

A payment gateway is the interface that allows businesses to process customer payments and receive payouts - for example when taking a card payment online, ro getting paid every month for a subscription through a bank transfer.

Chargebee is not a payment gateway in itself. To use Chargebee to take customer payments you’ll also need a payment gateway and merchant account, which could be provided by the same company (PayPal, for example). Chargebee integrates with well known payment processors such as Stripe, Braintree and PayPal, allowing you to continue to use the specific provider you prefer for your own business.

Is Chargebee safe?

Chargebee is PCI DSS Level 1 compliant, making it safe to use to or above normal industry standards. It has 99.9% uptime, and follows all industry requirements and standards in terms of security, privacy, tax and compliance.

Chargebee pricing

Chargebee's pricing is primarily based on volume of transactions needed, which means you can pick the scaled plan to match your own company’s needs:

• Starter: No fee for first £200,000 billing cumulative, then 0.75%
• Performance: £499 per month for up to £80,000 billing, then 0.75%
• Enterprise: Custom pricing and packages

Zuora reviews

Zuora offers an extremely wide range of products and services, with a focus on subscriptions and recurring billing, and plenty of adjacent products which can support businesses in these areas. Zuora offers products to businesses of all sizes, but they may be best suited to larger and enterprise level companies which need tailor made solutions.

Some of the areas in which Zuora offers services include:

• Billing and pricing services, including integration with many payment gateways
• Subscription management including acquisition and retention
• Revenue recognition
• Invoicing and tax compliance support
• Paywall operation including AI paywall service
• Metered data for usage pricing
• Analytics and ways to review and drive your business performance

We mentioned earlier that Zuora isn’t active on Trustpilot - but they do have a feature on TrustRadius which gives them a 7 out of 10 rating from 270+ reviews⁴.

Is Zuora a payment gateway?

Zuora is not a payment gateway. To use Zuora you’ll also need an account with a payment gateway, and a merchant account - which could be part of the same thing, or a separate provider account, depending on the circumstances.

Zuora offers integrations to 40 payment gateways to get paid by customers using 20+ payment methods, in any of 180 currencies. You can integrate with low or no code options, which means there’s little technological expertise demanded to get your service set up.

Is Zuora safe?

Zuora is safe to use for customers in the UK. It’s an established business which has been around since 2007, and which has been built with global security in mind. Zuora has enterprise grade security practices and standards in place, and a dedicated engineering team to improve and audit security on an ongoing basis.

Zuora pricing

While it’s available for all, Zuora may be best suited to large and well established businesses which have complicated needs - which means that its pricing is offered on a tailor made basis. If you’re unsure about whether or not Zuora’s services or costs will match your business needs you can book a free trial and a conversation with a sales representative who can take you through the options available to you based on your company’s size, scale and type.

Zuora vs Chargebee fees - Which is cheaper?

Whether Zuora vs Chargebee wins for you on fees will depend on your specific needs and turnover volume.

Zuora does not disclose any pricing information until you talk to a sales force team member - this allows you to get a personal quote for the services you need from their broad product range. While Chargebee does have some disclosed pricing, they also offer custom packages which might mean that you’re best off getting a price and package proposal from each, to compare and ensure you’re getting the very best deal on the table.

Manage your international business with Wise

If you’re growing your business internationally, check out Wise Business as a convenient, cheap and flexible option to receive foreign currency payments for your business.

Wise offers local and SWIFT account details for select countries and currencies, so you can get paid from customers directly or through PSPs and marketplace sites like Stripe or Amazon.

Take global payments and then hold your funds with Wise - accounts support 40+ currencies for holding and exchange, with no monthly fees. Then, when you convert between currencies - either in your account, to make a withdrawal, or to send money to others - you get the mid-market rate with low fees from 0.33%.

And it doesn’t stop there. Wise Business account can also be linked with debit card expense cards, and come with ways to send payments globally to 160+ countries, multi-user access, batch payments, accounting integrations, and access to the Wise API as a standard feature.

Get started with Wise Business 🚀

Use this guide to weigh up both Zuora vs Chargebee and see which may suit your needs - and don’t forget to check out Wise Business as a handy alternative for comparison if you’re looking to take payments in a selection of foreign currencies for low or no fees.

Sources used in this article:

1. Talk to Sales | Zuora
2. Chargebee pricing
3. Trustpilot Chargebee
4. Trustradius - Zuora

Sources last checked 24-Sep-2024