Finance leaders are expected to do more than manage budgets—they’re strategic operators. But too often, finance teams find themselves reacting to change instead of anticipating it. Growth accelerates, systems strain, audits loom, and what should have been thoughtful foundational work turns into a scramble.

Over the course of my career, I’ve learned that building ahead of the market pays off. It’s not about overengineering; it’s about giving your team the ability to move faster, make better decisions, and scale without disruption.

At Maxio, that mindset shapes everything we build. Our platform is designed to help finance teams lay strong operational foundations early, so they can stay focused on driving the business forward—not untangling systems later.

The Strategic Edge of Building Early

When finance teams invest in foundational capabilities early, they set themselves up to lead. That means putting key systems and processes in place while things still feel manageable—not when they’re already breaking.

The benefits compound over time:

• Faster access to accurate data. Integrating revenue, billing, and CRM data gives teams real-time visibility from day one.
  
• Operational clarity. A clean, connected tech stack reduces confusion and eliminates the need for manual workarounds.
  
• Scalable processes. As pricing models, products, or markets evolve, teams that build early can adapt without friction.
  

We’ve seen this pattern repeatedly across organizations using Maxio. Those that modernize early can scale seamlessly, while those that wait face rushed, high-stakes changes that disrupt operations.

How to Avoid the Roadmap Lag Trap in Finance

One of the biggest risks for finance teams is delaying key investments in hopes that “we’ll get to it later.” Later usually arrives during a period of rapid growth—or right before a critical audit—when time and resources are limited.

Teams that wait end up relying on vendor roadmaps that don’t align with their needs, forcing tools to stretch beyond their limits or spinning up manual stopgaps that won’t scale. Building early keeps you out of that trap. You’re not waiting for capabilities to appear—you already have them in place.

How Maxio Enables Future-Ready Finance Teams

Maxio’s unified revenue platform is built to give finance teams a foundation they can trust—one that enables speed, clarity, and agility well before pressure hits.

Key capabilities include:

• Real-time revenue visibility to close faster and more confidently.
  
• Frictionless quote-to-cash workflows, uniting CRM, billing, and ERP data into a single source of truth (explored further in our guide to building a unified tech stack).
  
• Interoperability by design, integrating seamlessly with systems like NetSuite, Salesforce, and HubSpot to keep your stack clean and connected.
  

These capabilities let finance teams act early—eliminating fragmentation before it becomes a barrier to growth.

What Early System Investments Taught Me as a Finance Leader

Early in my career, I led a finance team that implemented enterprise-grade systems well before we were “big enough.” At the time, some questioned the timing. But when the company scaled and was eventually acquired, those early investments became a differentiator. While others were untangling messy implementations, we were operating from a position of strength.

That experience shaped how I lead today—and why I believe so strongly in laying the groundwork early. It’s not a nice-to-have. It’s a strategic advantage.

Why Finance Leaders Need to Lead, Not Follow

Finance leaders have a choice:

• Build early and lead, or
  
• Wait and scramble to catch up later.
  

Teams that build ahead of the market aren’t reacting to external pressures—they’re anticipating them. They set the pace for their organizations, rather than being held back by outdated systems.

Maxio makes that proactive path practical.

Key Takeaways

• Building operational foundations early gives finance teams a strategic advantage.
  
• Waiting to modernize leads to higher costs, slower execution, and more risk.
  
• Maxio enables finance teams to anticipate change and build future-ready infrastructure before the pressure hits.
  

See It in Action

If your team is ready to stop reacting and start leading, now’s the time to build your foundation. Maxio gives finance teams the infrastructure they need to anticipate change—not chase it.
Request a demo to see how our unified revenue platform can help your team move faster, operate with confidence, and scale on your terms.

The financial health of any subscription-based business depends on how efficiently it manages cash inflows and outflows. Choosing the right billing and payment processing platform ensures that your company can manage transactions smoothly, automate recurring payments, and maintain accurate financial records.

What Is Payment Processing for Subscription Businesses?

Payment processing is the foundation of how recurring revenue companies handle transactions. It involves more than just collecting payments. Effective processing systems manage the entire payment lifecycle, including subscription renewals, refunds, and secure data handling across connected systems such as CRMs and accounting software.

For example, Maxio offers financial operations tools that synchronize data between systems like QuickBooks, Salesforce, HubSpot, and NetSuite. This ensures accurate tracking and consistent cash flow across the entire order-to-cash process.

Common Challenges in Managing Payments

Early-stage software companies often start with a simple payment gateway. While this approach works initially, it can quickly become inefficient as the company scales. Common challenges include:

• Subscription complexity: Managing upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations without automation can create bottlenecks.
• System silos: Disconnected systems lead to manual reconciliation and data errors. Platforms like Maxio centralize these functions to eliminate inefficiencies.
• Customer experience: Users expect flexible payment options and transparent invoicing. Modern payment platforms provide these capabilities to improve satisfaction and retention.

Why Billing Should Be Part of Your Core Strategy

Billing and payment processing is more than an administrative back-office task. When integrated into your overall business strategy, it improves operational efficiency, enhances the customer experience, and increases retention.

For example, integrating billing and payments with subscription management allows you to automate time-consuming tasks like invoice generation and payment reconciliation. This ensures that your operations run smoothly and your finance team can focus on higher-value activities—rather than spending all day chasing down payments.

Payment Processors vs. Billing Platforms

Before choosing a solution, it’s important to understand the distinction between payment processors and billing platforms. They serve different roles but work best together.

What Is a Payment Processor?

A payment processor manages the secure handling of transactions between customers and your business. It enables the acceptance of various payment methods, including credit cards, ACH transfers, and digital wallets.

Key capabilities:

• Transaction handling: Processes payments securely and quickly.
• Subscription payments: Manages recurring transactions for subscription-based pricing models.
• Integrations: Connects to billing platforms for seamless invoicing and data flow.
• Cost structure: Typically charges a percentage of payments processed plus a fixed transaction fee.

What is SaaS Billing Software?

On the other hand, SaaS billing software takes a broader approach by handling the lifecycle of customer billing. It’s designed to automate complex billing tasks, such as calculating subscription charges, managing usage-based pricing, generating invoices, and integrating with payment processors to collect funds.

Key capabilities:

• Subscription Management: Handles upgrades, downgrades, cancellations, and free trials.
• Invoice automation: Creates and sends invoices with calculated line items and taxes.
• Pricing flexibility: Supports multiple pricing models, such as flat-rate, usage-based, or tiered pricing.
• Data insights: Provides financial reports and dashboards for strategic planning.
• Cost structure: Often involves a fixed monthly fee, a percentage of total billings, or a combination of both.

SaaS billing Software vs. Payment Processors

Choosing Which to Implement First

When building your payment infrastructure, deciding whether to start with a billing platform or a payment processor affects scalability and efficiency.

Why This Decision Matters

Choosing the right starting point impacts more than just your payment process. It affects your company’s ability to:

• Simplify complex tasks like subscription management and recurring invoicing.
• Ensure timely payments and reduce revenue leakage from failed transactions or manual errors.
• Improve collaboration between your finance and product teams by automating workflows and reducing friction.
• Provide your C-suite with better financial data for forecasting and decision-making.

Why Start with a Billing Platform

Based on our work with thousands of subscription businesses, we’ve learned that most SaaS companies benefit more from starting with a holistic billing platform rather than a standalone payment processor. Benefits include:

• Holistic management: A billing platform manages the entire subscription lifecycle, from invoicing to revenue recognition and gives your business a comprehensive tool for scalability.
• Flexibility: Most billing platforms integrate seamlessly with multiple payment gateways, allowing you to choose the processor that best fits your needs down the line.
• Scalability: As your business grows, a billing platform supports advanced pricing models, international payments, and detailed reporting—features that many payment processors don’t offer.
• Automation: By automating invoicing, payment reminders, and reconciliation, billing platforms free up your team to focus on strategic initiatives.

The Pros and Cons of Each Option

Build vs. Buy: The Billing System Dilemma

Some companies attempt to build their own billing infrastructure. While this can seem cost-effective at first, it often leads to long-term inefficiencies. Custom systems can lack flexibility, are difficult to maintain, and divert engineering resources from core product development.

Challenges of building in-house:

• Development time detracts from product innovation
• High maintenance and support costs
• Limited automation and scalability

A proven billing platform allows your team to focus on growth instead of internal system maintenance.

How to Select the Right Billing Platform

Choosing the right platform involves evaluating your business needs, integration requirements, and long-term growth plans.

Step 1: Define Your Business Needs

The first step in selecting a platform is to thoroughly assess your business needs. Are you still finding product-market fit? Do you have an ample cash runway in case things go south? Are you rapidly expanding your customer base?

Based on these answers, consider the pricing models you currently use and whether or not you’ll need support for flat-rate, tiered, usage-based, or hybrid strategies. For example, we built Maxio’s subscription billing solution with this kind of flexibility in mind to make it easy to adapt to complex pricing structures as your business evolves.

You should also think about how much automation you need—automating tasks like invoicing, payment reminders, and reconciliation can significantly enhance the efficiency of your day-to-day operations. Additionally, you’ll want to evaluate the integrations that are vital to your workflows, such as CRMs, accounting software, or different payment gateways. 

Maxio connects seamlessly with leading tools like Salesforce and QuickBooks to ensure that you can continue using all the preferred tools in your tech stack. And if global expansion is part of your strategy, Maxio’s support for multi-currency transactions and compliance with international tax regulations makes it an excellent choice for SaaS businesses operating on a global scale.

Step 2: Compare Key Features

Once you’ve outlined your business needs, you should then compare the key features of the different billing platforms you’re evaluating. We even put a list together of the best subscription billing tools if you need a place to start your search. As you start evaluating these different tools, look for flexibility in pricing models and the ability to adapt them based on changes in your billing strategy. For example, if you’re finding it difficult to attract users downmarket, you may consider setting up a free trial or freemium pricing model.

Step 3: Evaluate Total Cost of Ownership

Consider both upfront costs and long-term value. A slightly higher subscription fee may yield a stronger return if it reduces errors and saves time. Maxio’s transparent pricing model helps businesses understand value without hidden fees.

Step 4: Review Support and Scalability

Customer support and scalability should also influence your final decision. You’ll want to choose a platform that offers reliable 24/7 support, comprehensive documentation, and the ability to scale with your business as transaction volumes and complexities increase. Maxio’s dedicated support team is available to guide you every step of the way, and our platform is designed to grow with your business, supporting higher transaction volumes and increasingly complex workflows. 

Step 5: Test Before You Commit

Finally, before you make a final decision, take advantage of any potential free trials or demos to test the platform in real-world scenarios. After all, just because a tool looks great on paper, doesn’t mean it will offer the same value once you take a look under the hood.

If you do manage to sign up for a free trial or demo, assess the user interface for ease of use, how the platform performs under typical workloads, and how well it integrates with your existing systems.

A well-chosen billing and payment processing platform strengthens your financial operations, improves customer satisfaction, and supports long-term growth. The right tools simplify recurring revenue management and reduce manual work for finance teams.

Explore how Maxio can help you streamline billing, automate payments, and scale your operations effectively.

When it comes to payment data security, PCI compliance is one of those topics that tends to surface only when something goes wrong. But as digital payments evolve, and regulators, processors, and consumers grow more vigilant, understanding what PCI means for your business is no longer optional.

Whether you’re processing thousands or millions of transactions each year, maintaining PCI compliance protects your customers’ data and your company’s credibility. Here’s what’s changed, what’s required, and how a partner like Maxio can make compliance less of a headache.

Understanding the Role of PCI in Modern Payments

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), founded by major card brands including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and JCB International, sets global standards for securing payment data.

At the core of their work is the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which every business that stores, processes, or transmits cardholder data must follow.

The latest version, PCI DSS v4.0, was introduced in 2022 to reflect how modern payment ecosystems operate. This includes cloud infrastructure, API-driven platforms, and third-party processors. A minor update, v4.0.1, was issued in mid-2024 to clarify requirements. The older v3.2.1 standard was officially retired on March 31, 2024.

The goal isn’t just to protect data; it’s to strengthen the trust that underpins every digital transaction.

Why PCI Compliance Matters More Than Ever

Data breaches are more frequent, more sophisticated, and more expensive. According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024, the global average cost of a data breach rose to USD 4.88 million, up 10 percent from the prior year. The U.S. leads the world at USD 9.36 million per incident.

Compliance isn’t about checking boxes. It’s about earning and maintaining trust. Following PCI standards demonstrates that your company is protecting sensitive payment information and reducing risk for your customers, your partners, and your business.

PCI DSS v4.0 introduces stronger controls around authentication, access management, encryption, and continuous monitoring. It reframes security as an ongoing discipline, not an annual task.

Do You Need to Comply With PCI DSS?

In short, yes. Every organization that accepts credit card payments must comply with PCI DSS.

However, the level of validation required depends on your transaction volume and how you handle cardholder data. PCI categorizes merchants and service providers into four levels:

• Level 1: Over 6 million Visa or MasterCard transactions per year, or any organization deemed high-risk by the card brands.
• Level 2: Between 1 million and 6 million transactions annually.
• Level 3: Between 20,000 and 1 million transactions.
• Level 4: Fewer than 20,000 transactions annually.

Maxio operates as a PCI Level 1 Service Provider, meaning we maintain the highest level of certification. For our customers, that means your compliance burden is significantly reduced because the systems handling your card data already meet PCI’s most rigorous requirements.

What PCI DSS v4.0 Means for Your Business

The latest version of PCI DSS introduced several updates to make compliance both more flexible and more sustainable:

1. Customized Implementation Approach – Companies can now use alternative controls if they achieve equivalent security outcomes to the defined requirements.
2. Enhanced Authentication and Access Controls – Stronger multi-factor authentication now applies to all accounts with access to cardholder data.
3. Expanded Testing and Continuous Monitoring – PCI DSS v4.0 shifts from annual point-in-time validation to continuous security validation.
4. Clearer Guidance on Third-Party and Cloud Providers – The Council now explicitly addresses shared responsibility across vendors and cloud environments.

According to the PCI Security Standards Council, future-dated compliance requirements extend into 2025, giving organizations time to adapt.For many companies, these updates mean more documentation and monitoring but also greater flexibility in how you meet compliance obligations.

Self-Assessment vs. Full Audit: Which Applies to You?

Not every business faces the same requirements. Depending on your transaction volume and data-handling practices, you’ll either conduct a Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) or undergo a third-party audit by a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA).

Here’s how it breaks down:

• Level 1 & 2 merchants must complete an annual audit by a QSA.
• Level 3 & 4 merchants can typically complete an SAQ, an attestation form that verifies compliance without a full audit.

There are multiple SAQ types depending on your setup:

• SAQ A: For merchants that fully outsource cardholder data handling to a PCI-compliant provider (like Maxio).
• SAQ A-EP: For e-commerce sites that influence but don’t directly handle payment data.
• SAQ C: For merchants who collect card data on their own secure web pages and transmit it to a processor.
• SAQ D: For service providers or merchants not covered by other categories.

If your business uses Maxio-hosted payment pages, customer portals, or tokenized API transactions, you’ll likely fall under SAQ A or A-EP, which means your PCI compliance process is far simpler than managing sensitive data in-house.

Simplifying PCI Compliance with Maxio

PCI compliance can feel like a maze, but solutions like Maxio were built to simplify it.

By using Maxio to manage your billing and payments, you effectively minimize your PCI scope. That means you never directly handle cardholder data because Maxio does. We securely tokenize and store payment information, ensuring that your environment remains outside PCI’s highest-risk categories.

Our PCI Level 1 certification means:

• All data transmission and storage meet the most rigorous PCI DSS v4.0 standards.
• We complete annual third-party audits and continuous internal testing.
• Our platform architecture separates sensitive data handling from your business logic.

This allows your team to focus on growth and customer experience, not on encryption protocols or compliance checklists.

How to Stay Ahead of PCI Compliance

Compliance isn’t static; it evolves alongside your technology stack. Here’s how to stay proactive:

1. Review your SAQ annually. Even if your setup hasn’t changed, PCI requirements might have.
2. Document your payment data flow. Know where data is captured, transmitted, and stored, even with third parties.
3. Train your team. Human error remains one of the biggest compliance risks.
4. Rely on PCI-certified partners. Working with a Level 1 provider like Maxio ensures your operations align with the latest standards.
5. Adopt continuous monitoring. Automated alerts and security scans help maintain compliance year-round.
   

The Bottom Line

PCI compliance isn’t a burden. It’s a framework for trust. The businesses that thrive are the ones that treat compliance not as a cost center, but as a competitive advantage.

By partnering with Maxio, you can simplify PCI compliance while maintaining the highest standards of payment security for your customers.

When it comes to handling payment data, secure by design isn’t just a standard—it’s a promise.

Chargebee is one of the most well-known subscription billing platforms for companies. Its ease of use and “Starter” offering, free until a company reaches $250K in cumulative billing, make it a popular choice for early-stage businesses looking to get started quickly. Once embedded, many startups expand into Chargebee’s additional modules over time, creating long-term stickiness.

But as companies grow, so do their financial operations. Revenue recognition becomes more complex, pricing models diversify, and investor reporting demands more precision. At this stage, many teams start evaluating Chargebee alternatives. That’s where Maxio comes in.

Maxio isn’t just a billing tool. It’s a finance platform built for companies that need to scale with confidence. By uniting billing, revenue recognition, and metrics in one platform, Maxio gives finance teams the ability to run billing without bottlenecks, flex as they grow, and lead with certainty.

Why Companies Start Looking for Chargebee Alternatives

Many teams choose Chargebee for its strong billing automation, unified UI/UX, and ability to get up and running quickly. However, several inflection points signal it may be time to evaluate alternatives:

• Mid-contract flexibility becomes critical. Chargebee’s system is built around standard subscription models. It doesn’t easily support mid-contract changes, often requiring new contracts instead of modifications, which can skew reporting.
  
• Reporting depth becomes essential. Chargebee offers topline reporting but lacks the ability to drill down into granular metrics by customer, product, or transaction. This makes board reporting and detailed financial analysis challenging.
  
• Revenue recognition requirements increase. Chargebee offers revenue recognition as a separate add-on, not bundled with its core plans, which can add cost and complexity as companies scale.
  
• Pricing models evolve. While Chargebee supports standard subscription pricing, usage-based billing requires integration with M3ter, introducing additional integration points and potential failure risks.
  

These challenges don’t mean Chargebee is a bad product. They reflect the natural evolution of companies as they move from startup to scale-up.

What to Look for in a Chargebee Alternative

If your company has hit or is approaching this stage, here are key factors to consider when evaluating Chargebee alternatives:

1. Finance-First Foundation

Look for a platform built not just for operations teams, but for finance leaders like CFOs, controllers, and revenue operations teams. This ensures your billing system aligns with financial reporting and compliance requirements from day one.

2. Native Revenue Recognition

Manual processes and third-party integrations introduce risk. A true alternative should offer built-in, ASC 606-compliant revenue recognition to reduce errors and prepare your company for audits or investor scrutiny.

3. Flexible Pricing Model Support

Companies need to evolve their pricing as they grow. Whether it’s usage-based, hybrid, or complex tiered models, your billing platform should support these natively, not through additional integrations.

4. Unified Metrics and Reporting

You shouldn’t have to export data to spreadsheets or another tool to understand your financial health. Look for real-time metrics, forecasting capabilities, and board-ready dashboards within the same platform.

5. Scalability Without Tool Sprawl

The right platform should scale with your business, not force you to bolt on more tools as you grow. Consolidation saves time, reduces errors, and simplifies audits.

Why Finance Teams Choose Maxio

Maxio was purpose-built to solve the challenges finance teams face as their companies scale. It’s designed for complex B2B billing scenarios, offering flexibility that Chargebee cannot match:

• Flexible contracts: In Maxio, invoice dates, revenue recognition dates, and contract terms can all be managed independently, supporting milestone-based and mid-term changes without workarounds.
  
• Granular reporting: Maxio delivers deep visibility into ARR, MRR, expansion, contraction, and churn by customer, product, and transaction, enabling accurate board-level reporting.
  
• Billing and finance in one platform: Maxio combines advanced billing capabilities with native revenue recognition and metrics.
  
• Finance-first design: CFOs and finance teams rely on Maxio to automate compliance, speed up month-end close, and produce audit-ready reports.
  
• Flexible pricing: Maxio supports fixed, usage-based, and hybrid models natively, eliminating the need for third-party tools.
  
• Metrics built in: Maxio tracks over 150 metrics out of the box, powered by live contract and usage data—not spreadsheets.
  

Chargebee vs. Maxio: Side-by-Side Comparison

Both platforms are strong in their own right. Chargebee is a great fit for startups with straightforward billing needs. Maxio is the natural choice when finance complexity, pricing sophistication, and reporting demands grow.

Choosing the Right Platform for Your Stage of Growth

If you’re a startup focused on getting billing up and running quickly, Chargebee’s Starter plan can be an excellent option. But if your finance team is spending too much time on manual workarounds, juggling multiple tools, or preparing for audits, it’s time to consider a Chargebee alternative that’s purpose-built for scaling.

Maxio gives finance teams the control, flexibility, and visibility they need to support growth confidently—without adding complexity to the tech stack. It’s built for B2B finance, helps you close the books without chaos, and delivers a financial picture that holds up to any level of scrutiny.

FAQs About Chargebee Alternatives

What are the best Chargebee alternatives?
For companies that have outgrown billing-only platforms, Maxio is a leading alternative thanks to its integrated finance and billing capabilities.

Why do companies switch from Chargebee to Maxio?
Typically, it’s driven by the need for flexible contract management, native revenue recognition, granular reporting, or reducing tool sprawl.

Does Maxio support usage-based pricing?
Yes. Maxio supports fixed, usage-based, and hybrid pricing models natively.

Final Takeaway

Chargebee is a solid billing platform for early-stage companies. But when your financial operations need to scale, Maxio offers a comprehensive alternative—uniting billing, revenue recognition, and metrics in one platform designed for finance leaders.

Ready to See Maxio in Action?

Maxio helps finance teams take control of billing, revenue recognition, and metrics—all in one platform built for scale. Request a demo to see how Maxio can support your team’s growth.

While no advice on budgeting is universally applicable, I spoke with dozens of leading CFOs, and these were the key takeaways.

Stop doing more

Budgeting is a series of guesses, all of which are wrong. Attempting to add more precision to a budget only makes it “precisely wrong”, not more accurate. There are diminishing returns in the budgeting process, and at some point, negative returns occur, meaning that the more time you spend on the budget, the less accurate it becomes.

Additionally, higher levels of detail do not help manage the business. A good friend of mine was the CFO at Duracell, which Berkshire Hathaway owns. He inherited a set of detailed variance reports, which he sent to Omaha every quarter (after much work by his team explaining the dozens of line-item variances). After a year or so, he asked HQ if they found the reports helpful, and they said, paraphrasing, “We don’t read those reports.” Of course they don’t, and the Duracell management team did not pay much attention to them either. Good teams don’t drive business results by managing to a detailed budget.

Budget your best guess

Best guess budgeting is better than stretch budgeting for three reasons.

Budgets help plan investment activities by answering questions like, How much money will I have? When you build a stretch budget, you intentionally make a less acute forecast that’s more likely to be revised later and thus disrupt investment activities. 

Second, stretch budgeting is a game played throughout the organization that requires back-and-forth negotiation, consuming a significant amount of time, and often results in gamesmanship. Alternatively, building a best-guess budget is easier and faster because everyone shares the same objective: “What do we think will actually happen?”

And finally, after numerous studies, there is no credible evidence that stretch budgets improves performance.

Report actual results to budget, forecast, and prior year

This will seem obvious to many of you, but a surprisingly large number of management and board reports are not structured in this way. 

To clarify, the budget is the annual plan, and the forecast is the updated budget based on actual results for the year, as well as any new information. Companies low on cash often reforecast monthly, while others tend to reforecast quarterly. 

Understanding performance relative to the original budget is helpful. Still, the budget can quickly become obsolete, which is why tracking performance against the forecast can provide more insight throughout the year. Performance relative to the prior year is what ultimately matters and provides important context.

So, as you approach budgeting season, keep these ideas in mind. Some suggestions here might not be right for your company, and others you may not be able to effect on your own, but hopefully, there are a few ideas here that will make your upcoming task more straightforward and also create a more useful budget. 

ATLANTA—September 30, 2025—Maxio, the leading platform for billing automation and revenue management, announced the addition of three accomplished executives to accelerate its go-to-market strategy. Earlier this year, the company welcomed Tracy Kraft as Chief Marketing Officer and Jared Mackey as Vice President of Account Management. Now, with the appointment of Monica Lee as Head of Sales, Maxio continues to scale under the leadership of CEO Branden Jenkins.

These leadership additions build on Maxio’s growing momentum in 2025. Earlier this year, the company launched Maxio CPQ, following its acquisition of RevOps.io, offering the ability to streamline complex quoting and eliminate costly manual errors. Maxio also introduced Maxio Metering, enabling usage- and value-based pricing tied directly to customer consumption, and showcased the upcoming Maxio Model Context Protocol (MCP), which embeds AI into finance workflows with governance, compliance, and auditability built in.

The company has also deepened its ecosystem with partnerships including Rillet and Sage Intacct, extending automation across the entire quote-to-cash cycle and reinforcing Maxio’s role as the connective layer for SaaS and AI companies. As part of its growing relationship with NetSuite, Maxio will sponsor and participate in the upcoming SuiteWorld conference.

“Innovation without leadership is wasted,” said Maxio CEO Branden Jenkins. “With Tracy, Monica, and Jared on board, Maxio has the leadership to turn its innovations into market impact. Their expertise strengthens our ability to help modern businesses simplify billing, gain clarity from their data, and accelerate growth.”

Manual finance workflows delay revenue, slow product innovation, and impede operations. Maxio eliminates these barriers by unifying quoting, billing, revenue recognition, and investor-grade metrics in one platform. Finance teams gain audit-ready reporting in real time, while product and operations teams can launch new pricing models faster and more confidently.

“Maxio is setting the pace for a new era of billing, pricing, and revenue operations, and the momentum confirms SaaS and AI companies are ready for a fundamental shift in how they monetize and scale,” said Tracy Kraft, CMO of Maxio. “My focus is on amplifying the stories of customers already transforming with Maxio and engaging the next wave ready for a smarter way to grow.”

About Maxio

Maxio is the billing and financial reporting platform trusted by over 2,000 SaaS and subscription businesses worldwide. With $18B+ in billings under management, Maxio empowers finance teams to scale recurring revenue, automate quote-to-cash and deliver the insights needed to grow confidently. Learn more at maxio.com.

Media Contact
Courtney Merolle, PRforMaxio@bospar.com

Get plug-and-play access to SaaS metrics—without ditching your existing billing software with Maxio Metrics.

Investor-Grade SaaS Metrics for B2B Finance Teams

At Maxio, we’ve partnered with thousands of B2B SaaS operators who run sophisticated finance teams and FinOps stacks. Still, when it comes to measuring growth and efficiency, too many teams lack a consistent, reliable view of the metrics that matter most.

Why do B2B SaaS teams struggle to align bookings, billings, revenue, and ARR/NRR?

• Competing definitions: There’s no governing body for SaaS metrics, so leaders disagree on what counts toward ARR, NRR, and other vital KPIs.
  
• General-purpose tools: Many finance platforms weren’t built for B2B SaaS metrics. Their dashboards go a mile wide and an inch deep.
  

What common fixes fail for SaaS metrics?

Spreadsheets break under ARR/NRR nuance
No amount of color-coding or access control eliminates formula risk or manual rework. And because SaaS metrics aren’t standardized like GAAP revenue, small definitional differences create big reporting gaps.

Are ERP modules enough for SaaS metrics?
ERPs solve real problems, but most were designed for manufacturing—not subscription models. Add-on modules for billing or SaaS metrics often miss the nuance needed to satisfy investors, acquirers, or day-to-day operators.

Custom BI burns time you need for analysis
Hiring an analytics pro to hand-craft dashboards can work—but it’s slow. Months spent building (and rebuilding) metric logic is time not spent analyzing the business and advising leadership.

How does Maxio Metrics deliver investor-grade SaaS analytics?

Maxio Metrics delivers investor-grade SaaS metrics and analytics for B2B SaaS—tied directly to the money movement in your business. Use it alongside your existing billing system or ERP as the source of truth, or run it as part of the broader Maxio platform for billing, collections, and revenue recognition.

Which SaaS metric reports come out of the box?

Momentum (snowball): categorize ARR consistently
ARR is automatically categorized into New, Expansion, Contraction, and Churn—the same way, every period. That consistency eliminates spreadsheet drift and makes trends obvious.

ARR/MRR: committed vs. live, handled correctly
Differentiate “committed” vs. “live” ARR, account for mid-term changes, early renewals, delayed starts, mid-month activations, and more—without one-off logic.

Cohort analysis: find retention and expansion levers
Drill into performance by start date, industry, segment, sales owner, plan, or any attribute you care about. Spot retention patterns and expansion levers fast.

Custom objects: enrich and segment your way
Bring in attributes from your CRM or GL to slice and dice by ICP score, customer size, location, and more. You can also enrich with attribution data to standardize segmentation.

Why do finance leaders and investors rely on this approach?

• Consistent definitions across periods and teams
  
• Audit-ready lineage back to transactions
  
• Drill-downs that explain the “why,” not just the “what”
  
• Fast time to value without a year-long BI project
  

Maxio powers thousands of B2B SaaS companies and is trusted by leading investors and operators to validate growth narratives, accelerate funding conversations, and run the business with precision.

Ready to level up your SaaS metric reporting?
Get a demo and see how quickly you can move from spreadsheet wrangling to decisions you trust.

FAQ

Can we bring in historical data?
Yes. Most teams import 1–2 years of history to establish baselines and trend lines. We’ll align on the right window during scoping.

How long does implementation take?
Implementations are designed to be quick. Depending on your data sources and import method (direct ingestion, CSV, or API), teams typically go live in days to a few weeks.

What’s the best “source of truth” for metrics?
We generally recommend billing/payments or your GL because they reflect the real financial relationship with customers. Some teams choose their CRM; we support that too, but finance-grade metrics are strongest when anchored to billing or GL data.the source of truth.

Most teams don’t think about billing until it breaks. In the early days, it’s duct-taped together with spreadsheets, Stripe buttons, and crossed fingers. But as customer counts grow and pricing gets more complex, that patchwork starts leaking revenue, eating time, and creating friction for both your team and your users.

However, a modern billing system doesn’t just automate payments. It can quickly become the backbone of your revenue operations (but only if you know how to set it up correctly). In this guide, we’ll break down what billing systems actually do, how to pick the right one, and how to set it up so it scales with your business from day one.

What is a billing system?

A billing system is the nerve center of your revenue engine, and the thing that translates your customers’ product usage into cash in the bank. It pulls data from your CRM, applies your pricing logic, runs it through your chosen workflow, and handles everything from payment collection to revenue reporting. It’s the connective tissue between your product and your bottom line.

In a modern SaaS business, this system touches nearly everything: invoicing, subscription management, tax calculation, proration, and collections. It’s also responsible for enforcing your billing process, turning messy real-world customer activity into clean, auditable transactions.

Done right, a billing system ensures it moves accurately, compliantly, and on time. Done wrong, and you’re staring down revenue leakage, spreadsheet chaos, and angry customers wondering why they were double-charged.

The real value is in how it translates customer usage into revenue. When a customer hits a usage milestone—say, 100GB uploaded or an extra user added—the billing system applies the right charge, updates the invoice, and triggers the next steps in the billing management cycle. This level of automation is what makes scale possible.

It also plugs into the rest of your financial management stack. MRR, ARR, LTV, churn, upgrades—every metric your CFO obsesses over gets its data from billing. That means your billing system isn’t just a backend ops tool, but also a strategic growth lever.

And it’s not just for finance:

• Product teams use it to test new pricing models.
• Sales uses it for quoting and upgrades.
• Support uses it to resolve billing disputes. 

In short, when your billing system works, it works for everyone.

Benefits of using a billing system

At the bare minimum, the main use case of a billing system is to automate transactions, but it can also be leveraged to upgrade your entire business. Here’s how it impacts operations, revenue, and the people on both sides of the invoice.

Reduces manual work and human error

Still generating invoices in Excel? Or chasing down past-due balances in Gmail threads? That’s how manual processes turn into bottlenecks. A proper billing system eliminates those friction points by automating your workflow and removing human error from the equation.

Accelerates cash flow

The faster you invoice, the faster you get paid. And in SaaS—especially in the early-stages—having reliable monthly cashflow is essential. With automated billing and integrated payment tools, you can streamline collections, reduce friction, and improve your cash flow across the board. Then, add in auto-pay, smart retry logic, and built-in dunning flows, and you’ll spend way less time worrying about late payments, and more time compounding revenue.

Improves customer experience

Customers don’t complain about billing when it just works. On-time, accurate invoices and self-service options like updating cards or switching plans all lead to higher customer satisfaction and a smoother customer experience. This kind of consistency is guaranteed when you’re using dedicated SaaS billing software vs. handling your billing processes manually. 

Enables flexible pricing models

If you want to:

• Test usage-based pricing
• Launch a hybrid model
• Offer tiered discounts without rebuilding your entire backend

Then using billing software will let you experiment with each of these pricing models without dragging engineering into every change. Plus, this flexibility allows you to create pricing that matches customer value, and drives long-term profitability.

Supports financial visibility and forecasting

Good billing systems also surface the data that actually matters: MRR, churn, expansion revenue, and usage trends. You can see what’s working, what’s leaking, and what’s ready to scale. For example, at Maxio, our SaaS metrics and reporting functionality allows you to access and analyze all of your customer subscription and billing information to make truly data-informed decisions.

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Improves compliance and audit readiness

When you’re preparing for a financial audit, or begin talks about a potential acquisition, you’ll want detailed, consistent records of your company’s financial health. A billing system with built-in tax and revenue recognition tools keeps you compliant with ASC 606 and ready for scrutiny. In other words, clean books equals faster due diligence and fewer surprises for you and your team.

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How does billing software use automation?

Automation is one of the biggest reasons to start using a billing systems. With these automations in place, your billing software can take dozens of time-consuming, error-prone tasks and turn them into background processes that just work.

Here’s how modern billing software puts automation to work across your business:

Automates recurring billing cycles

Once a customer signs on and an order is in place, automated billing kicks off as part of the broader order-to-cash cycle. From that point, the billing system handles everything downstream: generating and sending invoices based on the contract terms (monthly, quarterly, annually) without human intervention. No one’s manually pressing “send” on the 1st of the month. It’s automated, rules-based, and fully integrated with your revenue workflow.

You configure the rules once. After that, it’s fire-and-forget.

Handles complex usage-based billing in real time

If you need to bill per API call, gigabyte, or user seat, usage-based billing software can track usage in real-time by integrating with your backend. They apply pricing logic instantly, meter events, and update charges dynamically, without any manual intervention from your or your teams.

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Triggers event-based actions

Automated billing isn’t limited to fixed schedules. It also responds to customer actions. For example, when a trial ends, the billing system activates the subscription and sends the invoice. Or, if a payment fails, it triggers a reminder and starts a retry sequence. The events-based billing functionality lets you apply prorated charges and generate a new invoice automatically when a customer changes their subscription plan.

These actions are powered by pre-configured rules, webhooks, and notifications that ensure the billing system stays in sync with customer behavior.

Eliminates manual tax and currency calculations

Tax rates and currency conversions shouldn’t be managed manually. A billing system applies the correct tax rules based on region and ensures currency conversions are current and accurate. This reduces errors and eliminates time spent on manual data entry.

Improves cash collection and reduces involuntary churn

When a payment fails, a billing system can automatically retry the card, send follow-up payment reminders, and apply fallback methods if available. This makes it much easier to recover revenue without manual follow-up and keeps churn rates lower.

Feeds real-time dashboards and financial reports

Certain tools like Maxio automatically push your billing data into dashboards that track key metrics like MRR, ARR, churn, and payment status. This gives SaaS leadership teams real-time visibility into business performance and helps finance teams stay current without exporting spreadsheets.

Reduces dependence on engineering for changes

With the right billing system, non-technical teams can make updates without developer support. That includes pricing changes, discounts, new plans, and edits to invoice templates, which are all manageable through the billing system’s admin interface.

Common types of billing in SaaS

SaaS companies today have more flexibility, and complexity, than ever when it comes to monetization. With this in mind, choosing the right pricing model isn’t just about how you charge customers. It shapes how they perceive value, when they convert, and how they grow with you over the lifecycle of the relationship.

Below are the most common types of billing, along with examples and trade-offs to help you choose the right fit.

Flat-rate billing

What it is:

One price, one product, one plan. All subscribers pay the same amount regardless of how much they use.

Examples:

• $99/month for access to all features
• Clean, simple pricing pages with a “Starter” and “Pro” tier

Pros:

• Dead simple to implement and explain
• Predictable revenue for you, predictable spend for them
• No usage tracking or manual billing required

Cons:

• Doesn’t scale with customer value
  Power users may feel underserved; light users may churn faster
  Limited room for expansion revenue

Use when:

You’re targeting SMBs, early adopters, or buyers who want clarity over customization. Flat-rate wins on simplicity.

Usage-based billing (Metered billing)

What it is:

Customers pay based on what they consume, such as storage, API calls, tasks automated, or emails sent..

Examples:

• $0.01 per API call
• $5 per 1,000 emails
• $0.25 per GB transferred

Pros:

• Perfect alignment between price and value
• Scales automatically as customer usage grows
• Great for infrastructure, platform, and dev tool products

Cons:

• Revenue can be lumpy and harder to predict
• Customers may slow down usage to control costs (or experience bill shock)
• More complex to implement and communicate

Use when:

Your product has a clear consumption metric and your users vary widely in how they engage.

Recurring / Subscription billing

What it is:

Customers pay a recurring fee—monthly, quarterly, or annually—for continued access.

Examples:

• $49/month for Standard
• $499/year for Pro
• Think: Figma, Notion, Slack

Pros:

• Predictable lifecycle revenue
• Easier for forecasting, budgeting, and investor reporting
• Annual plans improve retention and upfront cash

Cons:

• Requires more upfront trust (or a free trial)
• Can leave money on the table if usage varies widely
  

Use when:

Your product has high stickiness and delivers ongoing value, regardless of activity level.

Hybrid billing (Subscription + Usage)

What it is:

You charge a base subscription plus a variable usage fee on top.

Examples:

• $99/month + $0.02 per additional message
• $500/month for 100K API calls, then $0.01 per extra

Pros:

• Combines predictability with flexibility
• Expands revenue as customers grow
• Accommodates light and heavy users without friction

Cons:

• More complex to communicate and implement
• Requires robust billing tools to handle overages and tiering

Use when:

You want to land with a stable monthly price and grow with your customers’ success. Hybrid gives you the best of both worlds, if your billing system can keep up.

What to look for in a new billing system

Choosing billing software is as much of a finance decision as it is a growth decision. The right billing solution can unlock pricing agility, reduce overhead, and scale with your customer base. But if you choose the wrong one, it can quickly become duct-tape infrastructure that slows every team down across your organization.

Whether you’re evaluating a startup-friendly tool or a robust enterprise platform, here’s what to look for based on your real business needs.

Security

Why it matters:

Your billing system will process customer data, credit card details, invoices, and millions in transactions. That makes it a prime target, and a potentially high-stakes liability for your organization.

What to look for:

• PCI DSS compliance for secure payment handling
• SOC 2 Type II certification
• Encryption at rest and in transit
• Granular permissions and audit logs
• SSO and MFA access controls

Bonus:

Look for providers that include built-in fraud detection or allow seamless integration with external risk tools.

Ease of Use

Why it matters:

If your finance team needs a developer to change a plan or issue a credit, that’s a bottleneck. Modern management software should empower your operators and not require engineering overhead.

What to look for:

• No-code UI for configuring plans, pricing, and customer logic
• Easy exception handling (credits, discounts, cancellations)
• Role-based access and intuitive navigation

Bonus:

Good documentation, responsive support, and an interface that doesn’t feel like it was built in 2008.

Automated Invoicing

Why it matters:

Manually generating and sending invoices might work for 10 customers. At 100+, it becomes a full-time job. At 1,000+, it becomes a risk.

What to look for:

• Scheduled recurring and usage-based invoicing
• Branded, customizable invoice templates
• Support for taxes, discounts, and multi-currency formatting

Bonus:

Built-in PDF generation and clear mapping of payment terms to contract logic.

Online Payment Capabilities

Why it matters:

If your billing flow doesn’t support how customers prefer to pay, you’re creating friction, and delaying revenue.

What to look for:

• Plug-and-play support for gateways like Stripe, PayPal, ACH
• Saved payment methods, auto-billing, and dunning workflows
• Support for both one-time and recurring payments

Bonus:

Look for systems that offer a white-labeled customer portal or seamless integration into your product experience.

Scalability

Why it matters:

Think about your billing processes with scale in mind. Your billing tool should evolve with your customer base, product catalog, and go-to-market strategy.

What to look for:

• Can handle complex pricing structures: tiers, bundles, overages
• Integrates easily with your CRM, accounting software, data warehouse, and analytics stack
• Handles global compliance: currencies, tax zones, invoice localization

Bonus:

Robust API coverage and sandbox environments for testing before rollout.

How to set up a billing system

Setting up a billing system is like setting up a revenue engine for your business, so you want to get it right from the start. 

Whether you’re ditching spreadsheets or migrating from a legacy tool, the steps below apply across the board. We’ll walk through each phase with general guidance and show how the process works inside Maxio as an example of best-in-class execution.

Step 1: Import customer information

Everything downstream, including your billing logic, reporting, and payments depends on clean data going in. You’ll need each customer’s contact info, payment methods, active plans, and any relevant history (like unpaid receivables, past invoices, or usage totals).

This is the time to eliminate duplicates, fix inconsistent records, and decide what data to carry over.

In Maxio, this setup starts by creating a “Site”. your dedicated billing environment. From there, you can import customers via CSV upload or Maxio’s RESTful APIs. You can also import historical billing records to maintain continuity in your invoicing process.

Step 2: Associate billing codes with usage or subscription options

This is where you define your monetization logic. Every SKU, feature, or metered event should map to a pricing rule: is it a flat monthly fee, a per-unit charge, or part of a bundle? Don’t forget to handle upgrades, downgrades, proration, and discounts. The goal is to ensure that every customer action is traceable back to a charge.

For this use case, Maxio uses a structured Product Catalog system to define products, components (SKUs), and their pricing models, including flat-rate, recurring, usage-based, or one-time.

You can configure billing intervals (e.g., monthly or quarterly), tiers, overage thresholds, and proration settings. Advanced settings let you specify sync cadence and map usage events directly to revenue recognition rules.

All of this reduces manual config and makes scaling pricing changes easier.

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Step 3: Connect payment gateways and banking details

Before you can collect payments, you need a live connection to a payment processing gateway. Think Stripe, PayPal, or ACH processors. You’ll also need to support a range of payment options: recurring charges, one-time transactions, credit cards, debit cards, even wire transfers for enterprise deals.

And don’t forget your dunning and retry logic. This is how you recover revenue from failed payments without chasing it down manually.

Maxio supports out-of-the-box integrations with all major gateways, including Stripe, PayPal, and their own Maxio Payments offering. You can set up automated payment processing, configure payment routing by geography or plan, and create rules for retries, reminders, and email comms.

The Maxio platform also supports multiple payment methods per customer and allows you to white-label the experience so billing feels native to your product.

Step 4: Build SaaS metrics dashboards and automate invoicing

Once the system is running, it’s all about visibility and automation. You want real-time access to billing KPIs (MRR, churn, failed payments) and a reliable invoicing process that scales as you grow. That includes automated invoice generation, tax calculations, custom templates, and delivery logic.

For example, Maxio auto-generates and sends branded invoice PDFs based on your configured billing cadence. You can customize invoice templates, add region-specific tax rates, and even support multiple languages or currencies.

Plus, invoices are grouped intelligently by account, queued, and sent based on due dates or triggered events.

Bonus Step: Sync with your general ledger

For growing teams, syncing billing data with your accounting software (like QuickBooks or NetSuite) is essential for accurate books and investor-grade reporting. You also need to comply with revenue recognition standards (like ASC 606) to ensure deferred and earned revenue are tracked correctly.

Maxio offers pre-built integrations to major general ledger systems, allowing us to track and categorize revenue over time based on the product rules you define. That means less spreadsheet work and more confidence in your numbers when audit season (or acquisition talks) hits.

It’s all exportable, auditable, and aligned with GAAP.

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Billing system FAQs

What is an automated billing system?

An automated billing system is software that handles the entire invoicing process, from generating and sending invoices to tracking payments and managing due dates, with minimal manual input. It eliminates time-consuming tasks like calculating charges or chasing late payments, making it easier to scale without adding headcount.

Which software is best for billing?

The best invoicing software depends on your company’s needs. Small businesses might prefer simple tools like FreshBooks or QuickBooks, while SaaS companies with complex pricing models often lean toward platforms like Maxio. Look for a solution that balances flexibility, automation, and reporting.

How can I automate customer billing?

You can automate customer billing by integrating your billing system with your product and CRM, setting rules for due dates, and using features like auto-pay, dunning, and dynamic invoicing. Most modern systems allow you to configure these settings once and let automation handle the rest.

How can a billing system improve business efficiency?

A modern billing system streamlines your metrics, improves cash flow, and reduces the burden on finance and operations teams. By replacing spreadsheets and manual processes with automation, you save time and get real-time visibility into revenue, customer behavior, and payment health.

If you’re running a subscription-based SaaS company, it’s crucial to understand that billing is central to your customer experience, revenue strategy, and ability to scale. 

This is because the SaaS billing process handles everything from setting pricing to charging customers on a recurring basis, all while keeping your company’s cash flow predictable and revenue recognition compliant.

In this guide, we’ll break down how the SaaS billing process works, what makes it different from traditional invoicing, and why choosing the right billing system is critical. We’ll also cover the core components of modern SaaS billing, common pricing models, implementation best practices, and what to look for in billing software as your company grows.

Understanding the SaaS billing process

The SaaS billing process is the end-to-end workflow that SaaS companies use to set pricing, generate invoices, collect recurring payments, and recognize revenue accurately. It starts with choosing a pricing model and extends through subscription billing, invoicing, billing cycles, and payment processing (ideally all handled within a centralized billing platform like Maxio).

When done well, this process scales with your business, reduces friction for customers, and ensures that your finance team stays compliant with evolving revenue recognition standards. It also enables clear, predictable billing that helps build trust with customers and gives internal teams the data they need to make better decisions.

The importance of effective SaaS billing management

The SaaS billing process is a strategic function that directly impacts cash flow, customer retention, and long-term growth. And when you streamline it using a dedicated billing platform, you can effectively reduce your company’s churn rates by:

• Minimizing errors
• Offering clear payment terms
• Automating invoice and renewal reminders

Investing in these billing strategies also ensures that subscription billing aligns with your business needs and revenue goals. By tracking key metrics like MRR and churn, finance leaders can spot inefficiencies early and adjust course. 

Similarly, when your billing system supports quoting, accurate revenue recognition, and flexible payment processing, it frees your team to focus less on fire drills, and more on scaling the business.

Key components of a successful SaaS billing process

An effective SaaS billing system is a coordinated set of efforts that supports how your business collects revenue, serves customers, and scales. From how you define your pricing to how you process payments, each component of the billing platform plays a direct role in customer satisfaction, revenue recognition, and long-term growth.

A defined pricing model

Your pricing model is the foundation of the billing process. Whether it’s flat-rate, tiered, usage-based, or hybrid, a clear and consistent pricing model ensures customers know what they’re paying for, and when. 

This transparency not only improves the customer experience but also enables predictable invoicing and revenue recognition. Sticking to a well-designed structure helps finance and product teams align around business goals while avoiding billing confusion down the line.

Clear, Concise, and Professional Quotes and Sign-Up Forms

[this would be a good space to write a bit about AB’s customizable self-signup forms and quote/contract outputs from RevOps]

Subscription management within a unified billing platform

Managing customer subscriptions across upgrades, downgrades, renewals, and cancellations is at the heart of any SaaS billing system. A strong subscription billing software solution gives your team a single source of truth to handle all of these events, without resorting to manual work or disjointed tools.

And by consolidating subscription management into one billing platform, SaaS companies can reduce inefficiencies, avoid data sync issues with CRMs, and improve the overall customer experience. It also ensures that key billing cycles stay accurate, helping you maintain clean records and predictable cash flow as your customer base evolves.

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Automated invoicing and real-time billing triggers

Manual invoice generation doesn’t scale and it leaves room for costly errors. However, automating your invoice generation ensures that your billing stays timely, accurate, and aligned with real customer actions. 

Whether it’s a plan renewal, a usage threshold crossed, or an upgrade to a higher tier, real-time triggers can initiate billing events automatically. This level of automation also speeds up payment collection, supports cash flow, and reduces billing cycle delays.

Multiple secure payment options

Offering a range of payment options—like credit cards, ACH, wire transfers, and digital wallets—removes friction at checkout and gives customers more flexibility in how they pay. And for SaaS companies operating across markets, support for multi-currency accounting software is essential to handle international transactions without headaches or delays.

Security is also critical. A modern billing solution should be PCI-compliant, offer tokenized payment gateways, and include automatic retries for failed transactions. These features improve payment success rates, protect sensitive payment information, and create a smoother customer experience across the entire billing platform.

Dunning automation to reduce churn

Dunning is the process of recovering failed payments, and it’s one of the most underrated levers for improving SaaS retention. A strong SaaS dunning system automatically sends reminders, retries failed charges, and gives customers a chance to update their payment information before an account is canceled.

Without dunning automation, you risk losing revenue to avoidable churn and putting unnecessary strain on your team. With it, you can protect your cash flow, reduce churn rates, and improve the customer experience, without lifting a finger.

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Customer notifications and billing communications

Clear, timely billing communications are essential to a great customer experience. Notifications about upcoming renewals, failed payments, or plan changes can help reduce surprises and keep your customers informed every step of the way.

These messages, whether delivered via email, in-app, or SMS, support retention by giving users visibility into their billing cycles and payment status. This kind of proactive communication also reduces support tickets, builds trust, and helps you maintain stronger customer relationships over time.

Revenue recognition and compliance features

As your company grows, so does the need for accurate, auditable revenue reporting. The right billing solution for your business should include built-in support for revenue recognition SaaS features, aligned with standards like ASC 606. Automating this process reduces the burden on finance teams and ensures clean, audit-ready records.

It also connects billing events (like invoice generation, renewals, or cancellations) directly to your financial reporting, giving you more visibility and fewer manual adjustments. With compliance built into your SaaS billing software, you can scale confidently while staying aligned with tax regulations and accounting best practices.

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Common SaaS billing models

There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to SaaS billing models. The right structure depends on how your product delivers value, how your customers prefer to pay, and how you want to scale revenue. 

In this section, we’ll break down the most common SaaS billing models, their pros and cons, and when to use each one.

Usage-based billing

Usage based billing software charges customers based on how much of the product they actually use, whether it’s API calls, storage, data volume, or active users. This usage-based pricing model aligns cost with value delivered, making it attractive for high-growth or variable-use customers.

However, without strong controls and forecasting, it can lead to unpredictable revenue. SaaS companies using this model often combine it with minimum commitments or tiered pricing to create more stable cash flow while still reflecting actual usage.

Flat-rate billing

Flat-rate billing is the simplest of all billing models: every customer pays the same fixed fee, regardless of how much they use the product. It’s easy to set up, simple to explain, and great for customers who value predictability in their subscription plans.

This model works best for products that deliver consistent value across users (think collaboration tools, time trackers, or basic CRM platforms). But while it streamlines operations, it may leave revenue on the table for customers who would happily pay more for advanced features or heavier usage.

Per-user billing

Per-user billing, sometimes called seat-based pricing, charges customers based on the number of individual users or seats on the account. It’s a familiar model in SaaS and works well for tools designed for teams, departments, or entire organizations.

This approach makes it easy to forecast revenue as accounts grow, and it naturally ties pricing to expansion. However, it assumes that value scales with user count—which isn’t always true. For products where one user can drive significant usage (or vice versa), per-user pricing can misalign costs with value and limit upsell opportunities.

Tiered billing

Tiered billing offers customers a set of predefined subscription plans, each with different pricing tiers, feature bundles, or usage limits. It’s one of the most flexible pricing models, allowing SaaS companies to serve a wide range of customer segments while creating natural upgrade paths.

A well-structured three-tier pricing strategy encourages customers to scale with your product, boosting revenue and improving retention. But if tiers are unclear or misaligned with actual customer needs, it can lead to friction and confusion, especially around upgrades, downgrades, or overages.

Freemium

Freemium is a billing model where the core product is offered for free, with paid subscription plans available for advanced features, increased usage, or enhanced support. It’s a powerful pricing strategy for driving adoption and growing a broad user base at low acquisition cost.

That said, freemium models only succeed when there’s a clear path to conversion. Without well-defined pricing tiers, compelling upgrade incentives, and strong onboarding, free users may never see enough value to become paying customers. Done right, though, it can serve as both a product-led growth engine and a low-friction entry point for new markets.

8 Best practices for SaaS Businesses implementing a recurring billing system

Even the best billing tools can fall short without the right processes behind them. Whether you’re launching a new system or optimizing an existing one, applying smart, repeatable workflows is what separates scalable SaaS businesses from reactive ones.

Below are eight best practices every finance and operations team should follow. Each one helps you automate tasks, reduce errors, and improve the overall billing experience for both your team and your customers.

1. Use automated billing software

Manually creating invoices or chasing payments is inefficient and error-prone. However, using automated recurring billing software helps you automate everything from invoice generation to payment collection.

It also supports long-term scalability. As you add new customers or pricing add-ons, your billing workflow adapts without introducing risk or overhead. That means fewer billing mistakes, less customer confusion, and more time spent on strategic finance work.

2. Offer flexible pricing plans

No single pricing model fits every customer, or every stage of growth for that matter. By offering flexible plans such as flat-rate, tiered pricing, usage-based, or hybrid models, you can serve a broader range of customer needs while optimizing revenue potential.

This flexibility allows SaaS businesses to experiment with pricing strategies that match different customer behaviors, product usage patterns, and market segments. It also makes it easier to introduce upsells, cross-sells, and custom add-ons as your product evolves.

3. Ensure clear and upfront billing terms

Transparent billing terms set the tone for a strong customer relationship. When customers know exactly what they’ll be charged, when payments are due, and what’s included, it builds trust and reduces disputes.

Setting clear billing terms also minimizes friction during renewals, upgrades, or downgrades, and helps ensure consistent payment collection across each billing period. Whether you’re charging monthly or annually, setting expectations around billing cadence, payment methods, and cancellation policies will help increase your customer retention and lower support volume.

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4. Provide multiple payment options

Offering a variety of payment methods—credit cards, ACH transfers, wire payments, or digital wallets—removes friction and increases the likelihood that customers will complete their payments on time. It also reflects an understanding of different customer behaviors and regional preferences.

The more options you offer, the easier it is to serve diverse markets. Built-in support for retries on failed payments and self-service payment updates can further improve payment collection and reduce involuntary churn.

5. Track metrics like MRR and churn

Your billing system shouldn’t help you collect payments. For example, at Maxio, we built our platform to also be a source of powerful insights. Tracking metrics like monthly recurring revenue (MRR), churn rate, and customer lifetime value gives you a clearer picture of how your business is performing and where it’s headed.

And with the right SaaS reporting tools, you can identify trends in customer behavior, evaluate the effectiveness of your pricing strategies, and spot issues, like rising churn, before they become major problems. These insights help finance teams make smarter decisions and continuously optimize their billing workflows.

6. Send timely invoices and reminders

Delays in invoice generation lead to delays in revenue. Full stop. To keep cash flow predictable and reduce the risk of late or missed payments, it’s critical to send invoices as soon as they’re due, and to automate reminders throughout the billing cycle.

Using tools like Maxio’s invoicing feature, you can schedule notifications that nudge customers before and after due dates so you never miss an invoice. These proactive touchpoints reduce confusion, lower DSO (days sales outstanding), and improve the overall customer experience.

7. Make upgrades and downgrades easy

When customers want to change their plan, whether it’s an upgrade for more features or a downgrade to reduce costs, the process should be fast, intuitive, and friction-free. If it’s difficult or confusing, you risk frustration and potential churn.

Enabling self-service plan changes within your billing system not only improves the customer experience, it also supports retention by giving users control over how they engage with your product. Flexibility here shows that you’re focused on long-term customer relationships, not just short-term revenue.

8. Test billing workflows before going live

Rolling out billing changes without testing is a recipe for errors, failed payments, and support tickets. Before launching a new workflow, simulate real-world scenarios, like signups, invoice generation, plan upgrades, and payment retries, to catch bugs or logic gaps.

This kind of testing ensures your system behaves as expected across edge cases, multiple payment methods, and international customers. It also gives your team confidence that every api call, email notification, and billing event will land exactly where it should (meaning no unwelcome billing surprises for you or your users).

Choosing the right SaaS billing software

Finding the right billing solution is about more than just finding the right mix features—it’s about finding the right fit. The ideal SaaS billing software should align with your business model, scale with your growth, and integrate easily with the tools your team already uses.

Here’s a quick framework to guide your selection process:

• Clarify your billing needs: Start by identifying how complex your pricing is. Do you offer flat-rate or usage-based pricing plans? Do customers pay monthly, annually, or via custom terms? Your answer should shape the functionality you look for.
  
• Look for essential features: At a minimum, your platform should handle invoicing, dunning, flexible payment options, and automated revenue recognition. The more you can centralize, the more efficiently your team can work.
  
• Check integration compatibility: Your billing tool should plug into your CRM, customer portals, and financial stack without heavy custom dev work. See which tools are supported via integrations.
  
• Evaluate scalability and pricing: Choose a system that can support your future customer base, not just your current set of users. Make sure the pricing structure is clear, predictable, and works for your stage and growth rate.
  
• Test usability and support: Even the best software can fall short if it’s hard to use. Evaluate the provider’s onboarding, support documentation, and customer service before making a commitment.

Automate your SaaS billing process with Maxio

A well-run billing process is the key to supporting long-term profitability, driving customer satisfaction, and giving your team the tools to scale. From choosing the right pricing model to handling revenue recognition, every part of your billing system should play a role in making your business more efficient and customer-friendly.

That’s exactly why we built Maxio: our platform is purpose-built to help SaaS companies automate complex workflows across the entire SaaS billing lifecycle. Whether you need real-time invoice generation, self-service plan management, or built-in SaaS payments, our unified billing platform has you covered. Maxio also supports ASC 606 compliance, global currencies, and integrations with leading CRMs, so your SaaS product stays aligned with finance and ops from day one.

Ready to simplify and scale your billing? Get a demo or explore Maxio’s SaaS payments solution today.

Breaking Through the “Insight Plateau”

AI has delivered real wins for finance teams. Large language models (LLMs) and related tools can summarize contracts, generate charts, and surface key metrics in seconds—work that once took hours of manual effort. However, many of these capabilities stop at what might be called the insight plateau: they show what’s happening, but they don’t move the work forward.

For finance leaders, that’s not enough. Knowing churn is rising or ARR is flat is only the beginning. The true value comes when those insights trigger automated, domain-aware actions that can perform updates to revenue schedules, targeted customer outreach, or clean reporting packages that flow directly into board decks. Closing that gap is where a Model Context Protocol (MCP) comes into play.

What is an MCP?

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a framework that allows AI to interact directly with structured workflows. Just as an API defines how systems exchange data, an MCP provides structured interfaces between LLMs and domain-specific tools/data. It bridges intent (“Generate a churn analysis”) with execution (“Update renewal forecasts, segment customers, and trigger follow-up actions”).

This isn’t about AI “magic.” It’s about embedding the context of domain rules—whether financial logic, compliance standards, or subscription structures—into a protocol that AI respects as it carries work forward. With MCP, AI doesn’t just describe what’s happening; it ensures AI actions are bounded by explicit rules, system constraints, and approval workflows.

Applying MCP to Finance

Today’s modern recurring revenue models depend on complex rules: subscription schedules, billing events, revenue recognition logic, and customer lifecycle stages. A finance-focused MCP encodes those rules so AI can automate workflows end-to-end without creating risk or rework.

This is the approach behind Maxio MCP—our implementation of the broader MCP framework designed specifically for finance. It understands subscription objects, required fields, downstream impacts, and the dependencies that make finance operations unique. By aligning AI with these rules, MCP makes execution-ready workflows possible.

From Insight to Execution

Consider churn analysis. An MCP-enabled workflow doesn’t just surface that churn is rising; it layers in firmographic data, customer segmentation, and ICP alignment to diagnose why churn is happening. From there, it can recommend targeted outreach and update forecasts—all without the finance team having to piece it together manually.

Or take ARR reporting. Without MCP, teams pull exports from multiple systems, chase missing context, and stitch together slides under deadline pressure. With MCP, AI can prioritize the trends that matter, highlight anomalies, and produce a clean narrative dataset in minutes. The result isn’t just speed—it’s a workflow that executes from start to finish with confidence.

Execution-Ready AI Versus Insight-Only AI

Insight-only AI helps finance teams interpret and summarize information faster, usually by surfacing descriptive analytics or generating narrative summaries. Execution-ready AI goes further. It is capable of coordinating actions across systems in a way that aligns with the organization’s governance, compliance, and operational realities.

Execution-ready AI doesn’t merely answer, “What am I looking at?” It also answers, “What should we do next, and can we do it now?” This shift is the difference between a fast analyst and a reliable operator.

Why Now: The Finance Context

Finance leaders are contending with:

• Data fragmentation: Customer data, billing events, and revenue schedules are scattered across CRM, billing, and accounting systems.
• Complex rules: Revenue recognition, deferred revenue, and subscription proration require careful handling.
• Manual workflows under deadlines: Board reporting and forecasting demand accuracy at speed.

In this context, AI that stops at insight creates more follow-up work. AI that is context-aware and action-oriented can close books faster, standardize reporting, and reduce the gap between measurement and execution.

The Role of Guardrails

Execution-ready AI must operate within clear boundaries:

• Financial logic and compliance: ASC 606, GAAP, and internal accounting policies.
• System constraints: How data is structured in CRM, billing, and GL systems.
• Approval flows: Which actions can be automated, and which require review.

MCP encodes these boundaries so the AI can safely move work forward without introducing risk.

Maxio’s MCP in Practice

Revenue Scheduling and Recognition

• Generate and validate revenue schedules for new bookings based on product, term, and billing cadence.
• Propose corrections for misclassified schedules and route to finance for review.

Churn and Retention Workflows

• Detect churn risk by combining usage patterns, contract terms, and ICP fit.
• Trigger targeted outreach, renewal playbooks, and forecast updates.

ARR and Board Reporting

• Consolidate inputs from CRM and billing systems.
• Highlight anomalies, prioritize trends, and produce narrative datasets and charts for board decks.

Building Blocks of an Implementation Approach

1. Map the domain: Subscription objects, lifecycle stages, revenue rules.
2. Define guardrails: Compliance policies, approval thresholds, and audit trails.
3. Instrument workflows: Identify steps that can be fully automated versus human-in-the-loop.
4. Iterate with feedback: Start with constrained scopes (e.g., revenue schedule validation) and expand.

Benefits for Finance Leadership

• Speed with control: Faster close and reporting without sacrificing accuracy.
• Fewer swivel-chair tasks: Reduce reconciliation and handoffs between tools.
• Confidence in action: Move from insight to execution with auditability and domain alignment.

Looking Ahead

The industry has celebrated AI’s ability to summarize and explain. The next wave will be judged by its ability to act—reliably, safely, and within the rules that govern finance operations. MCP is the missing link between intelligent analysis and accountable execution.

Take Action: Close the Execution Gap Before Your Competitors Do

The greatest barrier to effective AI adoption in finance isn’t access to insights—it’s the ability to act on them. Many teams successfully pilot AI tools but never integrate them into everyday workflows. The result: more awareness, less momentum.

The organizations that bridge this “execution gap” first will set the standard for speed, accuracy, and efficiency in finance. Execution-ready AI is no longer an emerging concept; it’s here, and it’s already reshaping how leading teams operate.

The opportunity is clear: embed AI into the workflows that matter most, remove manual bottlenecks, and reallocate your team’s time toward strategy and growth. Those who act now will be the ones defining the next chapter of finance operations.

Get hands-on with execution-ready AI—join the early access list for Maxio MCP.