

Ask HN: Subscription-billing management service for startups? - danso

We&#x27;re weighing options for how to handle customer billing and management for a subscription service. The options range from rolling our own with Stripe and Devise, to using an enterprise-level service such as Zuora.<p>Not having much hands-on experience in this field,  it&#x27;d be interesting to know what&#x27;s worked for other startups. Basically, the idea is to have accounts management separated from the main app&#x2F;service in question, so that the accounts system can be hooked into future subscription services we might build.<p>In terms of features, this is what I&#x27;m thinking:<p>* Handles billing information<p>* Handles payment processing<p>* Handles user authentication<p>* Provides the framework for customer online interaction (i.e. account activation, cancellation, email blasts for system-related announcements)
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dangrossman
[http://www.spreedly.com](http://www.spreedly.com) provides credit card
vaulting as a service. You can build your own billing system on top of it with
minimal PCIDSS compliance burden. They support 53 different gateways for using
that information once you've stored it, all with a single unified API.

You're also not locking yourself into a payment processor, which you are if
you choose to build on top of Stripe or anyone else. By not using any
processor's storage solution, you're free to bill your customers with one
processor one day, and another the next. You might like Stripe now, and they
might lock your account for suspected fraud tomorrow, or some new shiny
payment startup called Polkadot might be who you want to use in 3 years.

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palidanx
I rolled up my own using
[https://www.braintreepayments.com/](https://www.braintreepayments.com/)

but you should also check out

[http://www.chargebee.com](http://www.chargebee.com)

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heeton
[https://recurly.com/](https://recurly.com/) handles some of that I believe,
but I would always roll my own system using something like Stripe

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fastspring
Try all-inclusive SaaSy.com

