BillaBear vs GetPaidHQ

BillaBear is a subscription management and billing system with Stripe integration, a REST API, and web, API, and self-hosted deployment options. It manages subscriptions, custom plans, add-ons, invoices, quotes, hosted checkouts, paylinks, vouchers, credit notes, dunning, and reports. Pricing models include fixed, usage-based, volume and graduated tiers, fixed-plus-unit, and per-seat charges. The system supports multiple brands and currencies, tax management, country and state rules, configurable thresholds, EU reverse charge, one-stop-shop, and VAT Sense integration. Workflows can retry failed tasks, including API requests. Invoice, quote, PDF, and email templates use Twig or email-service-provider templates. Integrations listed include Stripe, Slack, Freshbooks, Xero, Mailchimp, EmailOctopus, SendGrid, MailGun, and Postmark; Zendesk and Freshdesk integrations help agents find customer profiles. SDKs are listed for PHP, Java, Go, JavaScript, Ruby, and Python. The Starter plan is $1 a month, with $50,000 of revenue free. Managed cloud hosting is currently unavailable.

GetPaidHQ is open-source subscription billing software that customers can run on their own infrastructure and connect to a payment processor of their choice. It supports fixed, usage-based, tiered, and hybrid pricing within one subscription, plus proration controls and multiple currencies. Charges can be routed by region, customer, or failover. Built-in dunning detects payment failures, retries according to decline reason and customer history, and provides links for customers to update payment details. The product offers a REST API, webhooks, idempotency keys, and typed SDKs for Node, Python, PHP, and Go. Checkout.com and Paystack are supported; other processors can be added through the adapter interface. The MIT-licensed self-hosted plan costs nothing under MIT, while customers pay their own infrastructure costs. It includes community support. The maker says self-hosting keeps payment and customer data within the customer's infrastructure. GetPaidHQ is in open beta; managed Cloud is described as coming, with pricing being finalized and early-access terms available by contacting the maker. Its privacy policy is labeled a placeholder and should be reviewed by qualified counsel before reliance.