A PayPal company offering developer-friendly online payments.
2.89% + $0.29
online rate
$0
monthly fee
2-day
payout
Developers
SaaS
PayPal users
Chargebee Review
Subscription billing and revenue management platform that sits on top of 40+ payment gateways, from a free pay-as-you-go tier.
Editor's score: 4.3 / 5 How we scoreWhat merchants say about ChargebeeFounded 2011San Francisco, California, United StatesListing updated
We may earn a commission if you sign up through our links. Premier and Verified are paid listing tiers and appear higher in the default sort. How we rank.
Visit websiteWrite a review- Online rate
- Gateway fees separate
- Monthly fee
- $0 to $99 + overage
- Payout
- Varies
- Contract
- Month-to-month
- PCI level
- Level 1
- Regions
- Global
Overview
Chargebee is often compared with payment processors, but that comparison can be misleading. Chargebee is primarily a subscription billing and revenue management platform, rather than a payment processor itself.
That distinction matters when you're deciding whether Chargebee is something you actually need.
What Is Chargebee?
Chargebee helps businesses manage recurring billing, subscriptions, invoices, customer plans, and revenue-related processes.
It can connect with payment processors such as Stripe and other payment infrastructure rather than replacing every part of the payment stack.
Chargebee Pricing Plans
When evaluating Chargebee, look beyond the starting plan and consider:
- Monthly subscription cost
- Revenue or billing limits
- Transaction-related costs
- Features available at each level
- Number of customers
- Advanced revenue features
Chargebee vs a Payment Gateway
Chargebee and Stripe don't necessarily solve the same problem.
A payment gateway or processor handles payment transactions. Chargebee sits more around the billing and subscription-management layer.
For some businesses, using both makes more sense than choosing one over the other.
Chargebee Features
Important features include:
- Subscription management
- Recurring billing
- Dunning
- Usage-based billing
- Invoicing
- Revenue recognition
- Customer management
- Payment integrations
Is Chargebee Worth It?
Chargebee makes more sense when subscription complexity is becoming difficult to manage manually. A simple business with only a few recurring products may not need the same level of billing infrastructure.
Best for
SaaS billing
Usage-based pricing
Dunning and revenue recovery
Multi-gateway setups
Regions
Global
Industries
B2B SaaS
Consumer subscriptions
AI and developer tools
Media and publishing
Pros
- Covers the subscription mechanics plain gateways lack: mid-cycle plan changes, proration, trials, coupons and dunning that recovers failed renewals
- Gateway-agnostic across 40+ gateways in 150+ countries and 100+ currencies, with routing and backup payment methods to avoid processor lock-in
- Finance teams can close the books through its NetSuite, Xero, QuickBooks, Salesforce and Avalara integrations, and it is a PCI DSS Level 1 v4.0 service provider
Cons
- The percentage-of-billing fee stacks on top of gateway processing fees, and RevRec, CPQ and retention are all separately priced add-ons
- It is not a processor: merchants still need their own gateway contract, underwriting and settlement relationship
- Implementation costs are not published and its customer service rating trails its feature ratings on review platforms
Pricing
Pricing at a glance
Pay-as-you-go costs 0.80% of monthly billing value with no platform fee. The committed plan is $99 per month plus 0.65% of billing, and Enterprise Plus is custom-priced on an annual commitment. Gateway processing fees are separate and additional.
- Pricing model
- Subscription, Custom quote
- Contract
- Month-to-month
- Free trial
- Yes
- Monthly minimum
- None on pay-as-you-go
Fee breakdown
| Online card rate | Gateway fees separate |
|---|---|
| Monthly fee | $0 to $99 + overage |
| Setup fee | None published |
| Monthly minimum | None on pay-as-you-go |
| Early termination fee | None on pay-as-you-go, annual commitment applies to Enterprise Plus |
Listing updated How we keep listings current
Features
Payment methods
- Visa
- Mastercard
- Amex
- Discover
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- PayPal
- ACH
- SEPA
- Wallets
Integrations & deployment
- API
- Hosted checkout
- Drop-in UI
- Payment links
- Invoicing
Capabilities
- Recurring billing
- Multi-currency
- 3D Secure
- Tokenization
- Reporting dashboard
- Developer-friendly
At a glance
- Currencies
- 100+ billing currencies with multi-gateway routing by currency
- Payout
- Varies
- PCI level
- Level 1
- High-risk friendly
- No
Reviews
Chargebee reviewsReview analysis
Chargebee is rated about 4.4 out of 5 across roughly 1,030 verified G2 reviews, one of the larger and more reliable samples in subscription billing. Finance teams praise the automation and the revenue reporting. The most frequent complaint across G2, Capterra and TrustRadius alike is support quality, and the second is that the price climbs faster than the value does as you grow.
Read the full Chargebee review analysisWrite a review
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Frequently asked questions
- Is Chargebee a payment processor?
- No. Chargebee is a subscription billing and revenue management platform that sits on top of more than 40 payment gateways, including Stripe, Adyen, Braintree, Checkout.com, GoCardless, PayPal and Razorpay. The gateway moves the money and settles funds; Chargebee manages plans, invoices, dunning and revenue reporting around it, so merchants still need their own gateway account.
- How much does Chargebee cost?
- The 2026 usage-based model charges 0.80% of monthly billing value on the pay-as-you-go plan with no platform fee, or 99 dollars a month plus 0.65% of billing on the committed plan, with Enterprise Plus custom-priced. Gateway processing fees are separate. Revenue recognition, CPQ and the retention product are priced individually on request.
- Which payment methods can Chargebee bill?
- Whatever the connected gateways support: cards, ACH, SEPA and other direct debit schemes, PayPal and wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. Chargebee adds a backup payment method feature that automatically retries a stored alternative when the primary method fails, and it can route different currencies through different gateways.
- Who is Chargebee best for?
- SaaS and subscription businesses, including usage-billed AI and developer tools, that need billing logic a gateway does not provide: mid-cycle plan changes, dunning, consolidated invoicing, revenue recognition and finance integrations with NetSuite, Xero, QuickBooks and Salesforce. Businesses without recurring revenue, or those looking for a merchant account, are outside its scope.