MoonClerk is not a bad tool for collecting recurring (and occasional one-time) payments. But while it offers a lot of features and is used by lots of small businesses and non-profits, it can also get expensive very quickly.
Because MoonClerk charges by volume of payments, once you get above the initial tier of up to $2000 per month in payments, your monthly subscription price goes up substantially.
Here’s how a recent reviewer on Capterra put it:
MoonClerk is punishing you for growing your business or non-profit; we don’t like it. So we went out and found five tools that you can use as an alternative to MoonClerk.
The 5 MoonClerk alternatives are:
PayForm
PayForm is a relatively new tool made by two guys from Chile. It’s pretty simple to use and offers some really good integrations. You can use it if you’re collecting one-time or recurring payments. Its biggest downfall is that it charges a transaction fee that ranges from 0.5% to 1.5% per transaction. If you’re processing larger payments, that can add up quickly. And if you want to be at the 0.5% level, you’re also going to pay $99 per month which, for a tool this simple, is a lot to pay.
There are also limited options for integrating any of your payment forms into your website or sending emails to your customers. You can send out a link to a hosted payment page or embed a form within a page on your site, but you can’t create an overlay or pop-up checkout. And once a customer has paid, you can’t send them a payment receipt, or any type of email for that mater.
And then there are the little things – like the fact that you can’t import in previous customers or payments or connect multiple Stripe accounts – that may or may not be important to you depending on your use case.
Personally, we also find the sign-up process to be a little deceiving. While you don’t need a credit card to sign-up, once you’re in the app and connect your Stripe account, you’re brought to a screen where you have to input in a credit card. You can’t back out, so you’re forced to put in a credit card regardless. Kind of defeats the purpose of a card-free sign-up process no?
Top 3 Pros
- Credit cards or PayPal
- Zapier integration
- Multi-currency
Top 3 Cons
- .5 % – 1.5 % transaction fee
- No pop-up checkout
- No dunning management
What does it cost?
$15 – $199 per month, with a per-transaction fee ranging from 1.5% to 0.5%.
ChargeKeep
ChargeKeep, our own tool, is probably the closest you’ll get to having the same functionality as MoonClerk (and a few extras…) at a fraction of the cost. We don’t believe in charging you for growing your business so we have no volume or transaction fees and our Basic plan starts at just $15 per month.
I have used MoonClerk and a few other tools… I love how simple and clean ChargeKeeep is, with the styling ability with CSS. Everything out there is so big and feature-packed when I think there are a lot of people who want that simple recurring model with a way to update cards. – MARROW MARKETING
Inside, you’ll find ChargeKeep super easy to use. In 5 min flat, you can create a payment form, style it to match your brand, and embed it in your website (or send a link to your customer). It’s honestly the simplest way to integrate Stripe into your business.
And once you start receiving payments, you can manage your customers inside ChargeKeep or send them to a customer portal where they can update their credit card or plan. And if a payment fails, ChargeKeep has built-in subscription saver (dunning) functionality that works around the clock to prevent and manage failed payments.
Want to skip ahead and give ChargeKeep a try?
Our Basic plan is just $15/month, with no transaction fees.
Top 3 Pros
- Great interface and simple to use and set up
- No extra fees aside from the monthly subscription
- Nearly all MoonClerk features including a customer portal
Top 3 Cons
- No Mailchimp integration
- No hosting of digital products
- No bank payments
What does it cost?
ChargeKeep is a monthly subscription (with no extra transaction or volume fees) and starts at $15/month.
PayFunnels
PayFunnels has been around for a few years and has grown due to its association with Sam Oven of consulting.com-fame. As a result, it mainly caters to consultants and its feature set is in line with the needs of that group.
Maybe because of that reason, it hasn’t had a lot of updates over the years. While it’s a pretty simple tool to use, it’s missing some main features found in many of its competitors: a customer portal, embeddable checkout, and the ability to customize payments forms.
On the plus side, it supports one-time or recurring payments in the currencies your Stripe account supports and its payment forms can be translated into five languages, a new feature. It is also one of two tools on this list that does not charge per-transaction or volume-based fees.
Top 3 Pros
- Simple to use and set up
- No extra fees aside from the monthly subscription
- Multi-currency and multi-language
Top 3 Cons
- Limited customization of payments forms
- No customer portal
- No embeddable checkout
What does it cost?
PayFunnels has one plan: $29 per month. Supposedly, the Sam Oven plan costs $9 per month, but when we tried to sign-up for that plan, we ended up being charged $29 per month regardless.
PayHere
PayHere, a relatively new tool made by a team from the UK, is interesting because while it’s a simple tool, it has also has a feature set that caters a lot to the developer community: an API and webhooks. The fact that the team is from the UK, also means PayHere can be integrated with your GoCardless account, a popular platform in the UK (and parts of Europe) for processing bank payments. Because PayHere is also Euro-focused, it has support for VAT.
So those are all pluses, especially if you’re a European user. But that same focus – a focus on those who want to extend the use of the tool through the API and webhooks – means that the tool itself is pretty non-intuitive and difficult to use for the average person. I mean here are the instructions for embedding your form into your website.
Not exactly copy and paste.
Instead of payment forms, you create “plans” which can mean either a one-time or recurring payment plan. But once a plan is created, you can’t edit it, so you make a mistake tough luck. You can’t go back and correct it. So there are smaller annoyances like that as well as many larger missing features such as a lack of a customer portal for updating credit card or plan details, limited branding and customization of the payment forms, and not a lot of options for integrating the payment forms into your website.
Top 3 Pros
- GoCardless integration
- API and webhooks
- VAT support
Top 3 Cons
- Hard to use for non-developers
- Limited customization of payments forms
- No customer portal
What does it cost?
This is another tool that charges a per-transaction fee, 2% in this case. There’s no monthly subscription fee, but you’ll be stuck paying the 2% on each payment you receive. Add that on top of payment processing fees of 2.9% or higher and you’ll be well on your way to giving away 5% of each transaction. A very high price to pay for a tool that is not super simple to use.
Would you rather not pay transaction fees?
Plans start at $15/month (with no extra fees).
SuperPay
SuperPay is another small app that integrates with Stripe to help you collect one-time and recurring payments. Recently redesigned, it has a nice interface, but lacks many of the features of the other tools in this list. Aside from the bigger missing features – such as a customer portal or the ability to embed a form in your site – there is no support for coupons or trials, custom form fields, language others than English, custom amounts, or different currencies.
And this is another app that charges a transaction fee; 1% in this case. Which is lower than with some of the other tools in this list, but it’s still a fee you have to pay on top of any Stripe payment processing fees.
The other issue with SuperPay is that in order to access any customization features, you have to upgrade to a monthly subscription which, to its benefit, does not have come with transaction fees, but it does increase the price of the tool to $49 per month. And $49 per month is a lot to pay for a tool that missing so many large and small features.
Lastly, it’s a bit wonky to use. You have to create customers before you can collect a payment (why?), payment forms are called “payment requests,” “payment links,” “payment plans,” and “recurring payments” (what exactly is the difference between a “payment request” and a “payment link”?), and the sign-up process requires you to give your address. Not for billing purposes, mind you, just because. Not sure why SuperPay needs our address?
Top 3 Pros
- Custom CSS
- SCA-compliant
- Nice interface
Top 3 Cons
- 1% transaction fee
- Customization limited to paid plan
- No customer portal
What does it cost?
Now that you’re here…
ChargeKeep is a super simple way to integrate Stripe into your business. If you liked this blog post, you’ll probably love ChargeKeep too.