From small-business support company Grasshopper comes Chargify, a billing and subscription system for web 2.0 and SaaS companies that eliminates the need to build bespoke applications.
Their RESTful API and hosted payment solution permit simple integration into any website, allowing businesses to charge customers on a recurring basis, manage subscriptions, achieve PCI compliance, and gain real-time business intelligence from their billing.
In addition to processing one-time and recurring transactions, Chargify handles free trial periods, promotions, refunds, receipts, and reminders.
Also, their pay-as-you-grow pricing seems ideal for small businesses and startups. The first 50 customers are free and range up to $1,500 for 15,000 customers or $2,500 for an unlimited number of customers. Chargify does not charge individual transaction fees.
Take a look at this demo video from the Chargify team:
The API accepts method calls via HTTP and returns responses as JSON or XML, allowing companies to keep the customer purchase flow on their own sites and authenticate users while passing the billing information to Chargify for processing.
Interested parties can sign up for the service, still in beta, at the Chargify website.
Now, it goes without saying that Chargify is far from the first billing software for small- and medium-sized businesses; competitors such as FreshBooks are fast becoming well-known heavy hitters in the space. We also found a couple billing services that offer an API – the Dutch MoneyBird, and two English-language services, Zuora and Vindicia. What – if anything – makes Chargify truly competitive in this increasingly crowded space?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments – especially if you have experience with using any of these online billing services!
