Subscriptions & Billing

For one-time payments and basic subscriptions, Payments (Stripe / Lemon Squeezy / Polar / Paddle) is enough. This page is for complex billing: usage-based, hybrid plans, entitlements, mid-cycle changes, dunning, revenue recognition.

Stripe-stack

• ★ Stripe Billing — the incumbent; subscriptions, usage-based, metered, prorations, dunning. Most apps stay here through tens of millions in ARR.
• Stripe Customer Portal — drop-in UI for upgrades / downgrades / receipts; free with Stripe.
• Stripe Tax + Stripe Tax Filing — see Tax & Compliance.

Usage-based / metered billing

• ★ Lago — open source + hosted; usage-based billing engine that sits in front of Stripe / Adyen. Free self-host; the OSS default.
• ★ Orb — hosted; same niche as Lago; powerful; great DX.
• m3ter — enterprise usage-based; expensive.
• Metronome — competitor; B2B AI / SaaS focused.
• OpenMeter — open-source metering only; pair with Stripe Billing.

Entitlements / feature gating (what plan gets what)

• ★ Stigg — entitlements + pricing-as-code; modern; generous free tier.
• ★ Schematic — competitor; clean UI; pricing experiments.
• Outseta — bundled SaaS suite (auth + billing + emails + CRM).
• Userful, Kana — alternative entitlement layers.
• Roll your own — a plans table + middleware that checks user.plan is fine for early stage.

Merchant of Record (handles tax + billing in one)

• ★ Lemon Squeezy — subscriptions + tax; great for indie SaaS.
• ★ Polar.sh — developer-focused MoR; subscriptions + one-off + sponsorship.
• Paddle — mature MoR; widely used.

Subscription-specific commerce

• Recharge — Shopify subscriptions; the incumbent.
• Ordergroove — Shopify / BigCommerce subscriptions.
• Bold Subscriptions — Shopify.
• Stripe Subscriptions for Shopify Plus — newer option.

Dunning / failed-payment recovery

• ★ Stripe Smart Retries — bundled; recovers ~30–40% of failed payments.
• Churnkey — paid; cancellation flows + dunning + offers.
• Baremetrics Recover — focused on dunning.
• ProfitWell Retain — same niche; free for some segments.
• Custom dunning emails — see Email.

Revenue analytics

• ★ Baremetrics — MRR / churn / LTV; Stripe-connected.
• ChartMogul — competitor.
• ProfitWell (Paddle-owned) — free MRR analytics.
• Stripe Sigma / Stripe Dashboard — built-in.
• Vitally, HockeyStack — broader B2B revenue analytics.

Quote-to-cash (B2B sales)

• Stripe Invoicing + Subscriptions — fine for self-serve B2B.
• Maxio (Chargify + SaaSOptics) — B2B billing + revenue ops.
• Salesforce CPQ, Zuora, NetSuite Suitebilling — enterprise.

Free trials / pricing patterns

• Free trial with credit card up front — best for conversion.
• Free trial without credit card — better top of funnel; worse conversion.
• Reverse trial (start on paid features, downgrade after N days if not converting) — strong pattern in 2026.
• Usage-based + commitment — hybrid; common for AI SaaS.
• Per-seat vs. per-org vs. usage — pick one and stick to it; mixing creates support load.

Implementation patterns

• ★ Webhook-driven state — never compute "active" from the DB; mirror Stripe webhook events. Use Webhooks infra (Svix / Hookdeck) to make this reliable.
• Idempotency keys on every Stripe API call.
• Cache product / price IDs in your DB; don't query Stripe per-request.
• Plan changes mid-cycle — Stripe handles prorations; test the math.
• Test in test mode + Stripe CLI — stripe trigger for every webhook event you handle.

Pick this if…

• Default new SaaS, simple plans: Stripe Billing.
• Usage-based metering, OSS: Lago.
• Usage-based, hosted, will pay: Orb.
• Indie / want tax handled: Lemon Squeezy or Polar.
• Entitlements as code: Stigg or Schematic.
• B2B with sales-led pricing: Maxio or Stripe + custom flows.
• Recover failed payments: Stripe Smart Retries first; Churnkey if you need more.