Best Recurring Billing software of 2026: which is right for you?

Managing recurring expenses is no easy feat.

You've got to deal with car insurance, housing costs, credit card bills, grocery shopping and on and on and on. There are a lot of things to remember, and missing payments on any one of these important expenses can result in very serious consequences.

Fortunately, there's recurring billing software specifically designed to prevent late payments, automate bills and take the stress out of the process.

Even more fortunately for businesses, the same accounting software can have a major impact on normalizing monthly income, managing customer subscriptions and keeping track of payments from a high volume of customers.

Because of the many benefits for businesses and customers, choosing the right billing software is essential. These systems are offered in a variety of configurations and platforms and at a number of different price points, which makes researching your options crucial to the selection process.

What is recurring billing software?

Simply put, recurring billing software is invoicing and payment software specifically designed to collect on a subscription basis. It's one of those ubiquitous pieces of tech that pretty much everyone uses without giving it much thought at all.

For example, anyone who holds a gym membership has probably been entered into a recurring billing system that holds their payment information, sends regular reminders of upcoming payment due dates and automates calculations for things such as state taxes and discounts.

Recurring billing dashboard from Zoho Subscriptions

There are plenty of benefits afforded to customers with recurring billing options, but it's hard to overstate the value this software offers to businesses—the number one advantage being that more and more consumers are shifting their preferences toward subscription-based services over pay-per-product models.

Consider Amazon Prime. The supply chain goliath's subscription-based service that provides users with access to faster shipping, streaming music and video and discounted products is now estimated to have about 80 million members in the United States.

The lesson here is that customers are willing to pay regular and repeated fees in exchange for goods or services they deem worth it, and, for the most part, any business can find ways to capitalize on the booming subscription economy.

What are common features of recurring billing software?

Before searching for a recurring billing software that best fits your business needs, you'll want to have an idea of what features are available to you, which ones would be nice to have and which ones are mandatory for your business model.

Here are some of the common functions found in most recurring billing products.

How is recurring billing software priced?

There are a number of different pricing models to choose from when determining how to set up your recurring billing process. The most common configurations are:

• Fixed price. This is the most basic billing configuration that simply charges the same amount each billing cycle.

• Quantity-based/add-ons. Begins with a base fee and then allows users to tack on additional services they'd like to have for corresponding additional costs to the weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly bill.

• Metered billing/variable usage. Bill customers according to usage instead of a flat rate.

• Packaged pricing. Allows users to select from a list of pre-priced packages or service bundles and pay that rate for that specific set of products or services.

• Custom pricing. Allows you to set your own charges for individual customers using whatever pricing system you prefer.

What are benefits of recurring billing software?

We've already touched on a few of the advantages offered with recurring billing software, but there are a few more—for both the consumer and the business—that are worth being aware of.

For customers, recurring billing systems take away the burden of remembering to make regular payments while also ensuring uninterrupted services—be that in the form of electricity to their houses or regular delivery of expected goods.

For businesses, especially smaller ones, recurring billing is an invaluable tool to normalize revenue and automate payment collection processes, so business owners can focus on other things.