Joshua D'Costa
Growth & Marketing
Jun 18, 2025
|
5
min
Recurring billing enables businesses to automatically charge customers on a fixed schedule like monthly, annually, or usage‑based. This simplifies revenue collection and minimizes dunning efforts
However, challenges like failed payments, global tax complexity, and compliance risks can eat into margins and distract teams from core product work. The ideal partner should automate billing workflows, guarantee compliance, provide flexible pricing models, and deliver actionable insights to help you grow efficiently.
Not all billing solutions are created equal. Some platforms act as your Merchant of Record (MoR), taking on the responsibility for collecting and remitting sales taxes and VAT/GST, while others offer deep customization for intricate pricing models but leave compliance squarely on your shoulders. Meanwhile, developer-focused tools trade “out-of-the-box” simplicity for ultimate flexibility in building bespoke checkout experiences.
In this guide, we’ll cut straight to the chase: you’ll learn how Dodo Payments, Chargebee, Paddle, and Stripe Billing each address these pain points, where they shine, and which questions to ask when choosing your ideal partner.
Dodo Payments’ Recurring Billing Offering
Dodo Payments is an emerging Merchant of Records solution designed specifically for SaaS businesses and Digital Creators. It simplifies global transactions by handling payments, and tax compliance chargebacks in 190+ countries.
Its Features
Merchant‑of‑Record (MoR) Model
Dodo Payments serves as the legal seller (MoR), handling sales tax/VAT collection, remittance, PCI compliance, and refund/chargeback management on your behalf
This offloads international tax filings and legal liabilities, letting you focus on product and customer acquisition.
Automated Billing & Dunning
The platform handles subscription renewals and applies smart retry logic for failed payments, all from a single dashboard. This reduces involuntary churn and maximizes revenue recovery without manual intervention.
Flexible Pricing & Usage Models
Dodo supports flat‑rate, tiered, volume‑based, and custom billing cycles, enabling you to monetize every aspect of your service from basic tiers to metered usage
Analytics & Reporting
Real‑time dashboards track Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), churn rates, and revenue by region or product line. Built‑in reports help forecast growth and identify at‑risk customers before revenue dips occur
Alternative Platforms
Chargebee
Chargebee is a versatile subscription billing platform with an intuitive interface and powerful feature set, ideal for businesses of any size. It streamlines plan setup, automates invoicing and payment retries, and integrates with tools like QuickBooks and Xero to minimize manual reconciliation and involuntary churn.
Paddle
Paddle acts as your Merchant-of-Record, handling global VAT/GST, chargebacks, and tax remittance so you can sell internationally without extra legal overhead. Its checkout adapts to 130+ currencies and 100+ languages, and self-service portals plus webhooks keep subscription changes in sync across your systems.
Stripe Billing
Stripe Billing offers developer-friendly APIs to build flat, tiered, or usage-based billing models directly into your application, giving you full control over every billing event. For a faster setup, it's hosted customer portal lets users manage subscriptions themselves, while built-in SCA and PCI compliance tools help you meet regulatory requirements.
Quick Comparison Table
Criterion | Dodo Payments | Chargebee | Paddle | Stripe |
MoR | ✅ Built‑in | ❌ | ✅ Built‑in | ❌ |
Global Tax & Compliance | ✅ Automated | ⚠️ Add‑on | ✅ Automated | ⚠️ Manual via Tax Rates API |
Billing Automation | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
Usage‑Based Pricing | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
API & Integrations | REST APIs + SDKs | REST APIs + Plugins | REST APIs | REST APIs + Webhooks |
Ideal For | Global SaaS & creators needing MoR | Scalable SaaS needing flexible logic | Global software needs MoR | Tech teams needing custom flows |
Choosing Your Best Fit: Key Questions
Do you need full Merchant-of-Record (MoR) support?
If you’d rather hand off the headache of international VAT/GST, sales tax remittance, and chargeback liability to a partner, look to MoR providers like Dodo Payments or Paddle.
They step in as the official seller on your behalf, so you don’t have to register in every country or wrestle with local tax filings. This can save countless hours of paperwork and reduce legal risk, especially valuable if you’re scaling rapidly across multiple regions.
How complex are your billing models?
If your plans include prorated charges, usage-based tiers, bundled add-ons or time-sensitive coupons, you’ll want a system that can handle those intricacies without custom code.
Chargebee shines here: its drag-and-drop product catalog and rule builder let you configure elaborate pricing scenarios in minutes. You’ll keep finance teams happy and eliminate surprise billing errors for customers.
What’s your team’s technical bandwidth?
Consider how much developer time you can dedicate to integrating and maintaining your billing solution. If you have a robust engineering bench, Stripe Billing’s flexible APIs let you build virtually any checkout flow or renewal logic you can dream up.
But if you’d rather avoid a heavy lift in your sprint backlog, a more turnkey option like Dodo Payments can get you up and running with minimal coding.
What’s your time-to-market and budget?
Launching fast is critical, but so is keeping an eye on cost per transaction. MoR solutions (Dodo Payments) often include compliance and tax services in their fees, which means you can onboard customers worldwide in days but you may pay a higher percentage on each sale.
Direct-pay gateways and API-first platforms usually have lower transaction fees but require more setup. Balance your urgency to go live against long-term margins to find the sweet spot.
Conclusion
Dodo Payments is the best all‑in‑one MoR solution for businesses prioritizing compliance, global reach, and minimal operational overhead
Chargebee is ideal for companies needing granular billing logic and seamless accounting reconciliation
Paddle shines for software vendors seeking turnkey MoR tax compliance in multiple regions
Stripe Billing remains the developer‑centric choice for teams wanting fully customizable subscription workflows and hosted customer experiences
