Zoho Subscriptions Alternatives
If you’re looking for Zoho Subscriptions alternatives for accepting recurring payments in your small business, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll review five alternatives, go over the pros and cons of each, and let you decide which one would work best for your use case.
The five alternatives are:
PayFunnels
PayFunnels has been around for several years and is a simple alternative to Zoho. Originally founded by the team behind Proof, the app was sold several years ago and the new owner has made several improvements to the app since that time. What started out as a simple app that was only able to generate one-time or recurring payment links (or invoices), has grown into a more well-rounded software product with the ability to create more sophisticated recurring products and to manage payments and customers.
One of the pros of using PayFunnels is that unlike other recurring billing software products in this space, it does not charge a transaction fee on top of the regular monthly subscription. That can be particularly beneficial if you are selling a higher-priced product, as any added transactions fees on top of the base 2.9% Stripe payment processing fee can really eat into your profits.
On the other hand, while it’s simple to use, it does lack some of the basic functionality of other products in this list: subscription billing management, for instance. And it certainly lacks some of the more sophisticated features in Zoho Subscriptions, such as an API, a connection to every payment processor you can think of, a CRM, automation, and metered billing.
Top 3 Pros
- Easy to use
- No added transaction fees
- 14-day trial
Top 3 Cons
- No customer portal
- Limited subscription billing management
- No dunning
Pricing
PayFunnels is $29/month, with no added transaction fees apart from Stripe payment processing fees.
ChargeKeep
ChargeKeep, our own product, is a good alternative to Zoho Subscriptions, particularly if you run a recurring payments-based business. The entire product is designed with subscription billing in mind and while ChargeKeep does support one-time payments, you’ll get the most use out of it if you need to setup and manage subscriptions.
Subscriptions are set up via a payment form, which is just a checkout form your customers or clients use to set up the initial subscription. You have many recurring options when setting up a form. You can set the recurring timeframe, the duration of the subscription, you can select it to start immediately or at a later date, you can add a trial, and of course you can add a one-time payment or setup fee at the start of the subscription.
Payment Form Options
Once set up, subscriptions can be managed directly inside ChargeKeep. You can change the amount, the billing date, and even move customers to a different subscription, all without having to go back to the Stripe dashboard.
Subscription Management
And when you get a failed payment, ChargeKeep has you covered with a fool-proof payment recovery process (dunning), which retries failed payments in a way that optimizes the success of recovering a failed payment. Along the way, you are kept fully informed and know exactly when a payment has failed, when a customer updates their credit card, or where in the recovery process a subscription is.
Subscription Notifications
Failed Payment Recovery
ChargeKeep is easy to use, but it may not be the right choice for users or larger companies that are looking for features such as an API, multi-user support, or support or VAT European taxes.
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
Want to skip ahead?
…and just give ChargeKeep a try? If you’re liking this blog post, you’ll probably love ChargeKeep too.
Top 3 Pros
- Recurring payments focused
- Easy subscription management
- Effective failed payment recovery
Top 3 Cons
- No API
- No multi-user support
- No VAT
Pricing
ChargeKeep has one $29/month plan that includes all features and up to 100 active subscriptions.
MoonClerk
MoonClerk has been around for significantly longer than many of the other products in this list, save Zoho Subscriptions itself. Founded in 2013, and still run by the same folks who started it, MoonClerk is a solid option for a variety of different businesses: charities, consultants, coaches, and more.
Because it’s been around for almost 10 years, it has iterated on its product and has a full set of features that many users will find useful: the ability to set up many types of one-time or recurring payment forms, subscription management, and even a simple API.
These features do come at a cost, however, especially if you run a larger business (or just one that’s not in its initial stages). Because MoonClerk’s pricing is based on how much payment volume you have, the price of the monthly subscription can be a bit high for some users. While their basic plan is just $18/month, it quickly jumps to $35/month if you process more than $2000 in payments in a given month.
Here’s how a recent reviewer on Capterra put it:
Top 3 Pros
- Stable, mature product
- Good feature set
- Reliable customer service
Top 3 Cons
- High price
- No test mode
- Limited dunning
Pricing
As mentioned, the basic plan starts at $18/month but goes up to $550/month or more for higher volumes.
PayWhirl
PayWhirl has been around since 2013 and, like Zoho Subscriptions, has a robust feature set which will be attractive to a number of different subscription-based business models. In fact, out of all the apps in this list, it’s probably the one that closest matches Zoho feature-for-feature. It supports a number of different payment processors, not just Stripe, has an API, and it even integrates with Shopify, which none of the other apps in this list do.
But of course all those features come at a cost. PayWhirl’s pricing is based on a monthly subscription (which starts at $49/month) plus a transaction fee. On its free plan, that transaction fee is whopping 3% and goes down to 0.5% on its most expensive $249/month plan.
When added to payment processor fees of 2.9% or more, the double whammy of these combined fees (as high as 5.9% on the free plan) can very quickly eat into your revenue and profits.
Top 3 Pros
- Shopify app
- Upsells
- Lots of payment gateways
Top 3 Cons
- Slow interface may lead to lower conversions
- Some features only available for an extra $10/month
- HTML and CSS knowledge required for some features
Cons: SLOW! PayWhirl does not load quickly. Many of my customers have dropped out of checkout as either it doesn’t load or they get frustrated and quit. PayWhirl tracks all this as “abandoned carts”. – Capterra Review
Pricing
PayWhirl has three paid plans and one free plan. The three paid plans are $49, $149, and $249 per month. All plans have added transaction fees, which start at 3% for the free plan and go down to 0.5% for the most expensive $249/month plan.
These monthly costs are very similar to Zoho’s, which starts at $59/month and goes up to $299/month. Zoho, however, does not have added transaction fees so, depending on your monthly payment volume, PayWhile will likely be a lot more expensive for you.
Additionally, while some payment gateways such as Stripe come included with the monthly cost others, such as PayPal, come with an additional cost of $10/month.
Payhere
Payhere is the newest product in this comparison, having only been founded in early 2019. As a result, it’s not as full-featured as Zoho Subscriptions, PayWhirl, MoonClerk, or ChargeKeep, but it certainly does have enough features for you to get started with collecting online payments and/or setting up subscriptions.
It works similarly to the other tools in this list in that you create payment links, which can be either one-time or recurring, to collect payments from your customers. The recurring options for these payments links are somewhat limited, but one cool feature is that you can also create a “storefront,” which is a page that can display one or more of your payment links, allowing your customers to choose which plan, for example, they’d like to subscribe to.
The storefront feature is a cool one, but when it comes to managing your customers after they have purchased something from you, Payhere is somewhat limited. You can see your customers, subscriptions, and payments in the dashboard, but there is no way to refund a payment, update a subscription, or recharge a customer. Those types of actions require you to log into Stripe and do them there, requiring you to jump back and forth between two tools.
Top 3 Pros
- Easy to use
- Apple/Google pay
- Simple developer tools
Top 3 Cons
- 3% transaction fee
- No ACH
- No subscription management
Pricing
Payhere charges a 3% transaction fee on top of the regular Stripe transaction fee.
Still with us?
ChargeKeep is a super simple way to collect one-time and subscription payments. If you liked this blog post, you’ll probably love ChargeKeep too.
