6 Best Chargebee Alternatives for SaaS Billing and Monetization
Ryan Echternacht
·
02/23/2026
Why do SaaS teams outgrow Chargebee even when billing still works?
Chargebee functions well as a subscription billing platform. It supports recurring billing, payment processing, and core revenue recognition workflows. For early-stage SaaS companies, this covers most needs.
But as products scale, pricing stops being static. Access depends on plan, usage, trials, and contract terms. Teams introduce usage-based pricing, add-ons, and limits tied to real product behavior.
Engineering starts writing billing logic inside the app. RevOps needs consistent subscription management data shared between CRM, billing, and the product.
At that point, billing alone stops being enough. You need monetization control inside the product, not just on invoices.
This article compares the best Chargebee alternatives in 2026 and explains when each option fits.
These are the top Chargebee alternatives in 2026:
Schematic + Stripe
Orb
Stigg
Maxio
Paddle
Lago
Chargebee handles subscription billing well, but friction appears as revenue grows and pricing becomes more dynamic.
Its pricing model is tied to monthly or annual revenue thresholds. Once you cross those limits, you either pay overage fees (often around 0.75% of additional revenue) or move to an Enterprise plan. For fast-growing SaaS teams, billing costs rise simply because the business scales.
Support is another pain point. Many users report slow response times and unresolved issues, especially when billing problems affect live customers. When billing sits at the center of revenue operations, delays create risk.
Teams also struggle with usability. Chargebee’s interface is dense and hard to navigate, making routine tasks like managing plans, add-ons, or subscriptions more time-consuming than expected.
The biggest limitation appears when pricing logic needs to run inside the product. Chargebee does not enforce paywalls or entitlements at runtime. While it provides Entitlements APIs, engineering still has to call those APIs and build access control, usage checks, and limits in application code.
Not all Chargebee alternatives solve the same problem. Some focus on replacing billing and invoicing. Others extend billing by controlling plans, usage, and access inside the product.
The tools below reflect the most common paths SaaS companies and AI teams take once pricing logic moves beyond invoices and into the application.
Schematic is a monetization operating system for SaaS and AI companies, built on Stripe, that brings pricing and access control directly into the product. Stripe remains the billing layer. Schematic controls how plans, entitlements, and usage behave at runtime.
Unlike Chargebee, which focuses on subscription billing and downstream charges, Schematic becomes the system of record for plans, entitlements, limits, trials, credits, add-ons, and exceptions, then enforces them at runtime.
Teams choose Schematic when pricing depends on real product behavior.
Common use cases include granting trials of advanced features, enforcing usage limits to trigger upgrades, monitoring usage as accounts approach limits, and handling sales-led overrides without hard-coded logic.
Chargebee can bill for these scenarios, but it does not decide what customers can access in the product. Schematic does.
Engineering stops maintaining SaaS entitlement logic. Product and GTM can change pricing and packaging without code changes.
Central catalog for plans, entitlements, limits, trials, credits, add-ons, and exceptions
Runtime entitlement checks for feature access, limits, paywalls, and overages
Usage metering for seats, credits, tokens, API calls, MAUs, and AI usage
Bi-directional Stripe sync to align billing state with in-product access
Drop-in react components for checkout, upgrades, pricing tables, and customer portals
Revenue signals to identify upgrades, expansion, and churn risk
Low-latency evaluations designed for in-product enforcement
Starter – Free. Includes basic usage, limited subscriptions and overrides, unlimited flags and components, Stripe integration, and more.
Growth – $200 per month. Includes higher subscription and event limits, trials, add-ons, timed overrides, key integrations, and more.
Enterprise – Custom. Includes unlimited scale, advanced controls, data exports, premium support, and more.
Add-on: Teams – $500 per month. Adds unlimited webhooks and company overrides for larger internal teams.
Source: withorb.com
Orb centers on usage-based billing for SaaS and AI companies where consumption drives revenue.
Teams often compare Orb with Chargebee when static plans and invoice-first flows fall short for metered pricing and real-time enforcement.
Orb connects raw usage events to contracts, pricing logic, and invoices, so you bill from the same source of truth used by product and finance.
It supports hybrid pricing for self-serve and sales-led deals, with controls for limits, overages, and exceptions.
The platform focuses on billing accuracy and financial reporting for teams that iterate pricing frequently, including AI token pricing and fast-evolving usage models, rather than managing subscriptions alone.
Usage metering and high-volume event ingestion
Pricing models for tiers, overages, and hybrid usage
Customer-level usage visibility and spend controls
Invoice-grade billing and usage reconciliation
Integrations with CRM, data, and billing systems
Core – Custom pricing. Covers usage ingestion, metering, hybrid billing, and invoicing.
Advanced – Custom pricing. Adds data warehouse sync, CRM integrations, and premium support.
Enterprise – Custom pricing. Includes enterprise SLAs, dedicated support, and scale controls.
Source: stigg.io
Stigg positions itself as a MonetizationOS that manages pricing, packaging, entitlements, and usage as a single unified platform.
Teams often evaluate Stigg as a Chargebee alternative when traditional billing processes cannot express how access, limits, and usage should behave within the product.
Instead of acting as a comprehensive billing solution, Stigg augments existing billing systems by handling product-level monetization logic at runtime.
This approach supports hybrid billing models where plans, usage limits, and overrides change frequently between self-serve and sales-led flows.
Compared to Chargebee, Stigg focuses less on invoicing and more on enforcing pricing strategies tied to real usage, which can help teams align monetization decisions with customer lifecycle management without rewriting application code.
Centralized packaging and contract management through entitlements
Plan-based access control enforced in-product
Real-time usage metering aligned with pricing rules
Support for sales-led overrides and custom plans
Integrations with billing and data platforms
Sandbox – Free. A free plan for testing packaging, entitlements, and limited usage.
Growth – From $5,376 per year. Adds higher limits, experiments, and advanced features.
Scale – Custom pricing. Supports enterprise scale, higher volumes, and dedicated support.
Source: maxio.com
Maxio combines subscription billing with finance-grade reporting and revenue recognition for B2B SaaS teams.
It is often evaluated as a Chargebee alternative when finance needs tighter control over billing accuracy, reporting, and compliance without stitching together separate tools.
Maxio focuses on subscription and usage billing, invoicing, and automated revenue recognition, then ties that data directly into financial workflows.
It suits finance-led SaaS organizations managing complex contracts, audits, and compliance requirements, where billing data must stay aligned with accounting outcomes, unlike traditional accounting systems that operate after the fact.
Subscription and usage-based billing with support for custom pricing-based plans
Revenue recognition and reporting for GAAP and IFRS compliance
Invoicing, collections, and contract billing controls
Support for hybrid self-serve and sales-led motions
Integrations with ERP, payments, and finance tools
Grow – $599 per month. Covers core billing, invoicing, subscription management, and standard reporting.
Scale – Custom pricing. Adds advanced revenue management, project billing, and enterprise reporting features.
Source: paddle.com
Paddle operates as a merchant of record for SaaS and digital product companies that want to offload payments, tax, and compliance.
Teams often consider Paddle as a Chargebee alternative when global expansion increases tax exposure, compliance risk, and operational overhead.
Paddle takes responsibility for payment processing, fraud, refunds, and sales tax remittance, which simplifies billing operations, unlike traditional accounting systems that rely on downstream reconciliation.
It fits self-serve SaaS businesses where checkout, compliance, and payment reliability matter more than deep in-product pricing control or project billing.
Merchant of record model covering tax, VAT, and compliance
Subscription billing and localized checkout experiences
Global payments with fraud, refunds, and chargeback handling
Revenue and transaction reporting for finance teams
Built-in customer retention and dunning tools
Pay-as-you-go – 5% + $0.50 per transaction. Includes billing, payments, tax compliance, and fraud protection.
Custom pricing – Quote-based. Designed for high-volume or custom pricing-based business models with added support and services.
Source: getlago.com
Lago is an open-source billing platform built for SaaS and AI teams that need flexible usage-based and hybrid billing without relying on a closed billing system.
Teams often evaluate Lago as a Chargebee alternative when pricing logic changes frequently, usage drives revenue, or engineering wants direct control over billing behavior.
Lago meters events in real time, applies pricing rules to subscriptions and usage, and generates invoice-ready charges through APIs and a visual dashboard.
It fits engineering-led teams billing APIs, AI tokens, credits, or IoT usage, where billing logic must stay transparent and extensible.
Compared to Chargebee, Lago focuses on flexible billing execution and pricing flexibility, while leaving accounting, reconciliation, and finance operations to external systems.
Real-time usage metering for usage-based and hybrid pricing
Billing and invoicing for subscriptions, usage, and credits
Entitlements managed directly in billing logic
Support for custom contracts and enterprise plans
Open-source and self-hosted deployment options
Business – Custom pricing. Includes the core platform, usage metering, invoicing, integrations, and business-hours support.
Enterprise – Custom pricing. Adds premium support, dedicated solutions engineering, and self-hosted deployment options.
The right Chargebee alternative depends on how your pricing actually works today.
If you run a self-serve motion with global customers, you need support for recurring payments, localized payment methods, multi-currency billing, and multiple payment gateways.
A billing-first subscription management platform can cover this when plans stay simple and pricing rarely changes.
Sales-led SaaS with negotiated contracts leans toward tools built for contract billing, billing cycles, and strict revenue recognition requirements.
Finance teams care about clean revenue schedules, deferred revenue, and accurate billing data that feeds revenue reporting and revenue management.
Usage-heavy products introduce different pressure. Metered billing and high event volume demand reliable usage ingestion and pricing that scales with complex billing scenarios and complex pricing models. Billing alone does not solve enforcement.
Hybrid GTM creates the hardest case. You need flexible pricing models, trials, overrides, and in-product enforcement tied to real subscription data.
Most SaaS businesses end up with a split stack where billing infrastructure handles invoices and Stripe billing, while a monetization layer controls access inside the product.
Chargebee works when billing stays at the center of your workflow. Pricing gets harder once the product must enforce access based on entitlements, usage, trials, credits, and contract exceptions.
Most teams end up splitting responsibilities. Billing remains the source of invoices. A monetization layer becomes the source of truth for what customers can use in the app.
Schematic fits that monetization layer role. You model plans, entitlements, limits, trials, credits, add-ons, and overrides in one place. You enforce them at runtime, while Stripe handles billing.
Chargebee competes with tools for subscription billing and monetization, including Schematic, Stripe Billing, Recurly, Maxio, Paddle, Orb, Metronome, Stigg, Lago, Zoho Billing, and more. Schematic stands out when pricing and access control need to run inside the product, not just on invoices.
Yes. Chargebee is considered a unicorn. It reached a valuation of over $1 billion in 2021 following a Series G funding round and has since been reported at valuations of up to $3.5 billion. The company serves thousands of SaaS businesses globally with subscription billing and revenue management software.
Chargebee is a subscription billing and revenue management platform. Stripe is a payments and billing infrastructure provider. Chargebee manages plans, subscriptions, invoicing, and revenue workflows on top of payment gateways like Stripe. Stripe focuses on payments, APIs, and core billing primitives rather than full subscription operations.
No. Chargebee is not a CRM tool. It handles billing, subscriptions, and revenue workflows, not customer relationship management. Chargebee integrates with CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot, but does not replace tools used for sales pipelines, support, expense management, or payroll and hr solutions.