Chargebee Interactive Demo
Explore an interactive product demo of Chargebee, a subscription billing and revenue management platform that helps businesses automate recurring billing, optimize revenue operations, and scale subscription business models with flexible pricing and payment options.
What is Chargebee?
Chargebee is a subscription management and recurring billing platform used by SaaS companies to handle complex billing scenarios: multiple pricing models, free trials, plan upgrades/downgrades, proration, coupon management, and revenue recognition. Founded in 2011 in Chennai, India, Chargebee serves over 6,500 customers including Freshworks, Okta, and Calendly.
Chargebee sits between your product and your payment gateway (Stripe, PayPal, Braintree), managing the subscription logic, invoice generation, dunning management for failed payments, and customer portal — so your product doesn't have to build these workflows from scratch.
Chargebee RevRec handles ASC 606-compliant revenue recognition automation. Chargebee Retention (formerly Brightback) provides churn prevention tools with automated save flows and cancellation deflection.
How to get started with Chargebee
- 1
Set up your Chargebee site
Sign up at chargebee.com — free up to $100K in cumulative revenue, then 0.75% of billing. Create your site and configure your base currency and default billing frequency.
- 2
Create your product catalog
Define Plans (base recurring items) and Addons (optional extras). Set pricing for each plan across billing frequencies (monthly, annual, multi-year). Configure free trial periods and setup fees.
- 3
Connect your payment gateway
Connect Stripe, Braintree, or another supported gateway. Chargebee orchestrates the billing; your gateway handles the actual payment processing. Configure fallback gateways for redundancy.
- 4
Configure dunning and retries
Set up smart retry logic for failed payments — retry on day 3, 7, and 14 before marking a subscription as unpaid. Configure automated dunning emails that notify customers of payment failures.
- 5
Enable customer self-service portal
Chargebee's Customer Portal lets subscribers manage their own billing: update payment methods, download invoices, upgrade/downgrade plans, and cancel subscriptions — without contacting your team.
Who is Chargebee most useful for?
SaaS companies with complex billing requirements: multiple plans, usage-based pricing, multi-currency, or enterprise contracts with custom terms. Use Supademo to create interactive walkthroughs of your Chargebee billing configuration for your finance and ops teams.
Finance teams that need automated revenue recognition and accurate MRR/ARR reporting across complex billing scenarios.
Product teams implementing usage-based or hybrid pricing models that are difficult to implement directly on Stripe's API.
Growing SaaS companies that started on Stripe and are hitting the limits of what they can reasonably build and maintain in custom billing code.
Alternatives to Chargebee
Looking for alternatives to Chargebee?
Here are four tools worth evaluating depending on your needs.
Stripe's own subscription product. Simpler for companies already on Stripe with standard billing needs. Chargebee is better for complex multi-tier, multi-currency, or custom enterprise billing.
Chargebee's closest competitor. Similar feature set. Recurly is slightly more enterprise-focused; Chargebee has slightly better analytics and UI.
Acts as merchant of record handling global tax compliance. Better for companies that want to outsource tax liability. Chargebee requires your own tax setup; Paddle handles it for you.
More powerful for large enterprise with complex CPQ and quote-to-cash workflows. Higher cost and implementation complexity. Chargebee is better for growth-stage SaaS.
FAQs on Chargebee
Commonly asked questions about Chargebee. Have more? Reach out and our team will be happy to help.
What is Chargebee used for?
Chargebee manages the subscription lifecycle: plan creation, checkout, invoicing, payments, upgrades, downgrades, trial management, dunning, revenue recognition, and reporting — so SaaS companies don't build these workflows themselves.
Does Chargebee replace Stripe?
No. Chargebee integrates with Stripe (or other gateways) — it doesn't process payments itself. Think of Chargebee as the subscription logic layer that sits on top of Stripe's payment processing.
What is dunning management?
Dunning is the process of automatically retrying failed payments and notifying customers to update their payment method. Chargebee's dunning configuration handles smart retry schedules, automated email sequences, and subscription status management for failed payments.
Does Chargebee handle revenue recognition?
Yes. Chargebee RevRec automates ASC 606 / IFRS 15 revenue recognition for subscription and usage-based revenue. It defers revenue recognition from upfront payments and recognizes it over the performance obligation period.
Can Chargebee handle usage-based billing?
Yes. Chargebee supports metered billing where charges are calculated based on usage reported via API. You report usage events during the billing period and Chargebee calculates the invoice at the end of each period.
Is Chargebee free for early-stage companies?
Yes. Chargebee's Launch plan is free for your first $100,000 in cumulative billing revenue. After that, a 0.75% revenue share applies. This makes it accessible for early-stage SaaS without upfront subscription costs.