Recurring billing is a crucial feature for businesses that provide subscription-based products or services. Both Chargebee and Stripe are well-regarded players in the online payments space, with distinctive features catering to recurring billing requirements.
There can be several compelling reasons for businesses to consider moving their subscription management from Chargebee to Stripe. We typically see companies migrating from Chargebee to Stripe for the following reasons:
If a business is already using Stripe for other payment needs, it might want to centralize all payment-related activities within Stripe to reduce complexity.
Stripe's robust API allows for high customizability and can be a strong pull for businesses with specific or unique billing needs. This developer-centric approach can provide more flexibility for tailoring the subscription logic.
Depending on the volume and nature of transactions, Stripe's pricing could potentially be more economical for some businesses compared to Chargebee.
If a company already relies on tools and platforms that have native integrations with Stripe (but not with Chargebee), they might find it easier to maintain a seamless operational flow by using Stripe.
Stripe supports 135+ currencies and provides localized payment methods, which can be crucial for businesses planning to expand or serve international audiences.
Stripe provides a seamless and customizable checkout experience, which can help in reducing cart abandonment rates and improving conversions.
Stripe offers additional financial tools and services, like Stripe Issuing (for debit card issuing) and Stripe Radar (for fraud detection). If a business is interested in these features, consolidating everything under Stripe might make sense.
Given Stripe's API-first nature, businesses have direct control over the data and can manage subscriptions at a granular level. This can be vital for companies with evolving business models.
Stripe's infrastructure is built for scale. Businesses anticipating rapid growth might opt for Stripe, anticipating fewer hitches as they scale.
Using Stripe for both payment processing and subscription management reduces the dependence on third-party tools, which can sometimes lead to compatibility issues or data discrepancies.
Stripe has a reputation for constantly rolling out new features and tools, which can be enticing for businesses looking for cutting-edge solutions.
Moving subscriptions from Chargebee to Stripe Billing is a significant undertaking that involves careful planning, coordination, and execution. On the surface, moving subscriptions from one platform (Chargebee) to another platform (Stripe) should be relatively straightforward. The entities in both platforms largely align and have a similar structure.
Experienced software engineers know the more the layers of the onion are pulled back, the more likely some tears will be shed. It’s important to get into the details of the subscriptions to be migrated. Several important questions to answer are:
This can impact the actual execution time required to create the subscriptions in Stripe. This is time when you’re subscription platform will be inactive.
If some subscriptions were being paid manually (wire, check), those customers are unlikely to be in Stripe. If a subscription is migrated, that customer will need to be recreated in Stripe.
Chargbee coupons work as coupons and promo codes for end users, while Stripe has separate objects for each. Chargebee coupons allow special characters, like % and _, which are not supported in Stripe. Additional considerations need to be made for expired coupons that were previously applied as well as coupons at or close to the maximum number of redemptions.
If a Chargebee subscription is in a “Not Renewal” state, there will not be a next_billing_at parameter returned when getting the subscription from the Chargebee endpoint. If this subscription is moved to Stripe, the customer will be charged immediately.
One more thing to keep in mind is that if there are manual changes made in Chargebee to the subscription duration that are not aligned with Stripe's billing periods, it can cause the Stripe migration to break.
At the moment, Stripe doesn't offer a direct method to migrate subscriptions in a paused/cancelled state. Therefore, our approach for migrating paused subscriptions involves migrating subscriptions with a billing_cycle_anchor set to T+1 day, followed by programmatically pausing all those subscriptions using the Stripe API.
If a subscription with a manual payment method is migrated from Chargebee to Stripe, a customer will not be able to update this to an automatic payment in the Stripe Customer Portal - even if they’ve added a payment method. These subscriptions need to be updated via the Stripe Dashboard or API and then the customer can update the subscription.
Chargbee Billing Cycles need to be aligned with Stripe Billing Intervals. Information here can inform Product / Price definitions in Stripe. Chargebee allows for billing cycles longer than 1 year, while Stripe requires between 1 day and 1 year.
After several Chargbee to Stripe migrations, Growthmill invested in building some basic tooling to discover and analyze the subscriptions in Chargebee prior to undertaking the process of migrating the subscriptions to Stripe.
After several Chargbee to Stripe migrations, Growthmill invested in building some basic tooling to discover and analyze the subscriptions in Chargebee prior to undertaking the process of migrating the subscriptions to Stripe.
Growthmill has 9 certified Stripe professionals experienced in migrating recurring billing platforms to Stripe. Combined with out unique Analysis tool, we’re able to uncover the migration edge cases proactively, at the start of the project, before migrating subscriptions to Stripe. This can save clients the headache of chasing down one-off issues or incorrectly charging customers due to a gap in the migration process.
Reach out today to talk to one of our professionals about helping with a Stripe migration.
