We came across Recurly while we were looking for billing automation to improve operational efficiency for existing customers. It supports a wide range of payment options like credit cards, PayPal, etc for the convenience of our customers. The subscription management is another self service portal which is widely used for making payments.
Pros
Billing automation
Payments and subscription
Self service portal
Cons
Limited customizations
Learning curve is not so easy
Likelihood to Recommend
Recurly is very flexible as it integrates with our ERP, CRM and other third party systems. It has robust security and ensures compliance with all regulatory requirements. It also provides reports stating the number of transactions taken place for a period along with reasons for failure and success thereof for further investigations.
Alaska Airlines uses Recurly to power both of their subscription products including customer acquisition / sign up, billing, dunning, and cancelation workflows. This allows Alaska to focus on core competencies and leverage Recurly's platform for employee ability to conduct subscriber management and product development as well as Recurly.js for customer workflows. Alaska utilizes Recurly webhooks to grant entitlements through our internal systems in real time. The embedded dashboards and data availability (via API and manual exports) allow us to identify opportunities, conduct ad hoc performance analysis, and reconcile revenues.
Pros
Easy UI for control of subscriptions, coupons, emails, etc. for non-tech individuals
Access to data
Communication of bugs and ability to contact support
Cons
Tool tips or guided workflows
Proactive identification and recommendation of opportunities.
Tracking of feature requests.
Likelihood to Recommend
Recurly is well suited for companies new to subscriptions, where it is not their core business competency, and where technical resources are limited.
VU
Verified User
Program Manager in Corporate (Aviation & Aerospace company, 10,001+ employees)
We use Recurly primarily for B2B billing functions (recurring and one-time.) It is being used by our accounting, customer service, and sales teams. A few years ago, I recommended Recurly to a fashion subscription company and they use it for their direct-to-consumer business. We like to use it because it has a great API and documentation plus the added flexibility to accommodate different customers on different billing set up. It is easy to use across all departments and compliant with PCI-DSS standards.
Pros
It handles 1:1 and 1:many accounts to subscription set up.
It has a good billing customization option (cadence, pricing, etc.)
Can easily set up a customer account and invoice - billing link can be generated so no need to take credit card info over chat, phone, or email.
Great and responsive customer support.
Supports multi-language.
Cons
It would be great to have an ability to edit the pricing, charge description, quantity after the invoice has been created. For now, you can only edit the bill-to address.
It would be great if it has an option not to timeout on a set amount of time. It could be pretty annoying to be asked to login and input 2-step code (if enabled) from time to time.
When issuing refunds, it would be nice if it wouldn't create another invoice...just update the existing one.
Likelihood to Recommend
I think it works best for scenarios where it involves recurring billing. A subscription-based business model can benefit on the platform and maximize its features. It has great customization when it comes to billing cadence, pricing, prepayment, discount options, among others. It also works perfectly with one-off charges so either way, it's a win. It has great integration with Stripe too.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Customer Service (Food & Beverages company, 51-200 employees)
We needed a solution in sales, as our current payment platform was limited. Recurly has been easy to use, we recieved all the support we need to troubleshoot and has made it so simple.
Pros
Link for customers to pay for their service
Provides email to the customer
We have access to see all activity and download receipts if we need to
Cons
I wish the customer had more visibility into their payments/account info
I would like it to be able to integrate with our ability to invoice customers, as not all want to pay with a credit card
Likelihood to Recommend
I think for us it is just a learning curve as we were using a different payment system before. And now we are using our platform to pay for products and Recurly to pay for their service. Hoping one day we use just one system, but Recurly has been great so far.
Recurly is our go-to product for our subscription monitoring across a number of departments (Marketing, Product, BI, etc). Keeping track of our subscribers throughout the entire lifecycle helps us keep track and optimize LTV. It allows us to track our numbers daily and can quickly see the results each campaigns produced that we can learn from.
Pros
Tracking subscriptions numbers
Automate user outreach for payments and expiration dates
Quickly generate coupon codes for use in a variety of campaigns
Cons
Streamlined integration with other products
Setting up default values to more quickly produce coupon codes
Page load times are very slow and sessions time-out quickly after short inactivity
Likelihood to Recommend
If you're tracking of any sort of subscription and it's important to your business then this product can help you. You want a tool that allows you to get setup and move quickly which Recurly does a great job at doing. It scales well and increasing the size and scope of your subscription business is handled well by the platform.
VU
Verified User
Director in Marketing (Consumer Electronics company, 51-200 employees)
