Running a software business means handling money from customers who expect things to work smoothly. They sign up, enter their card details, and assume the rest happens without a hitch. On your end, though, payment processing is a whole different story. You need something that handles recurring charges, works across borders, keeps fraud at bay, and ideally does not require a team of engineers to set up.
Picking the right payment processor shapes how your revenue flows, how your customers feel about paying you, and how much time your team spends wrestling with billing issues instead of building your product. Some processors are built with software companies in mind, while others started elsewhere and adapted over time. The difference shows up in the details: how quickly you can onboard merchants, how much control you have over the payment flow, and how easily the system grows alongside your business.
Here are 9 payment processing services worth considering if you run a SaaS company, starting with the one that fits the bill most completely.
Finix: Built From the Ground Up for Software Platforms
Finix earns the top spot because it was designed specifically for software companies that want to own their payment stack. This is a full-stack payment processor that lets you accept and send payments online and in-store, with direct connections to American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa.
What makes Finix particularly useful for SaaS businesses is the flexibility it offers. You can go the no-code route with Checkout Pages, Payment Links, Tokenization Forms, Virtual Terminals, and Merchant Onboarding Forms. These tools let you set up payment solutions in minutes without writing a single line of code. CEO Richie Serna has pointed out that this matters for the 22 million businesses operating without developers, but it also matters for companies that have developers and would rather spend their engineering resources elsewhere.
For subscription-based SaaS, Finix launched Recurring Billing directly in its dashboard. You can set up and manage recurring payments using no-code tools, customize payment plans for subscriptions or installment payments, and rely on built-in support for trial periods, smart retry logic, network tokens, and account updater. These features address the common headaches that come with recurring revenue models.
The company closed $75 million in Series C funding in October 2024 to expand its platform and scale operations. Finix also expanded into Canada, allowing businesses to manage payments across the US and Canada through a unified system rather than piecing together multiple providers.
Finix Payouts is another strong feature, letting businesses send money to any recipient in real time, around the clock, every day of the year. The platform won the 2024 UX Design Award in the Payment and Transaction and Finance categories, which speaks to how much thought went into making the interface usable.
For SaaS companies that want full control over their payment flow, support for PayFac-as-a-Service or full payments ownership, and a system that grows with them, Finix offers the most complete package.
Stripe: The Familiar Name in Subscription Billing
Stripe has become a default choice for many software companies, and there are good reasons for that. The platform handles payments, subscriptions, invoicing, accounting, and tax in one place. Companies like Zoom, Atlassian, and Slack run their payments through Stripe, which gives you a sense of the scale it can handle.
Stripe Billing earned recognition as a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Recurring Billing Solutions for Q1 2025 and in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Recurring Billing Applications. The platform’s Smart Retries and recovery flows saved businesses more than $6.5 billion in 2024 by reducing failed payments.
Pricing sits at 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. Stripe-hosted invoices reportedly get paid 3 times faster than traditional invoices, which helps with cash flow. OpenAI, Atlassian, and Figma all use Stripe Billing for their subscription management.
Stripe works well for fast-scaling businesses that need global reach and a reliable set of tools. The documentation is extensive, and most developers are already familiar with the APIs.
Adyen: Processing at Massive Scale
Adyen processes payments at a scale that few can match. The company’s payment volume grew almost 40 times over the past 9 years, from $36 billion in 2015 to $1.39 trillion in 2024. That kind of growth reflects how many large businesses trust Adyen with their transactions.
A report Adyen launched with Boston Consulting Group revealed a $185 billion market opportunity for SaaS platforms through embedded payments and finance, representing a 25% increase since 2022. The report noted that top platforms now generate more than 50% of their revenues from embedded payments and finance.
Adyen for Platforms lets businesses onboard users, process payments on their behalf, and pay out their funds. This integrates into commerce platforms, ordering or point-of-sale solutions, retail management systems, and SaaS platforms. If you need enterprise-grade processing with global reach, Adyen delivers.
Braintree: PayPal’s Gateway With Global Reach
Braintree, owned by PayPal, has been processing payments since 2007 and gained recognition in 2011 with its Vault technology for securely storing customer payment information. The platform operates in over 45 countries and processes more than 130 global currencies.
Transaction fees come in at 2.89% plus 29 cents. Braintree includes fraud protection, recurring billing, and customer vault features. The PayPal connection can be useful if your customers prefer paying through PayPal, and the platform handles the technical complexity of managing payment information securely.
For SaaS companies selling internationally, Braintree offers solid currency support and a mature infrastructure.
Paddle: The Merchant of Record Approach
Paddle takes a different approach than most payment processors. Rather than simply processing transactions, Paddle acts as the Merchant of Record. This means Paddle handles payments, subscription billing, sales tax compliance, fraud protection, and revenue recovery under one roof.
The company serves more than 3,000 SaaS clients across over 200 markets. Because Paddle is the merchant of record, it takes on the liability for sales tax and VAT, which removes a major administrative burden from software companies selling globally.
For SaaS businesses that want to simplify compliance and reduce the number of systems they manage, Paddle offers an all-in-one solution that handles the messy parts of international sales.
Chargebee: Subscription Lifecycle Management
Chargebee started as a subscription billing platform and has grown into a revenue management system. The platform handles recurring billing, invoicing, and trial management while integrating with most CRM and accounting tools.
Key features include trial management, taxation handling, dunning for failed payments, and self-service portals where customers can manage their own subscriptions. Chargebee works well for SaaS companies that need detailed control over subscription logic and want their billing system to talk to their other business tools.
The platform suits businesses that have outgrown basic billing solutions and need more sophisticated subscription management without building it themselves.
Recurly: Flexible Billing With a Free Tier
Recurly handles subscription management with automated and flexible billing tools, supporting a similar level of complexity as Chargebee. The platform serves streaming media, consumer goods, healthcare, and education businesses alongside SaaS companies.
For first-time customers, Recurly offers a free plan with no payment processing fees on the first €35,000 processed each month. This does not include Revenue Recognition features, but it provides a low-risk way to test the platform before committing.
Recurly aims to simplify subscription billing and revenue operations so businesses can focus on customer relationships rather than billing mechanics.
Square: From Physical Retail to SaaS
Square built its reputation with small businesses and physical retail, offering both a merchant account and payment gateway in one package. The company also provides physical hardware for in-person payments, which works well for brick-and-mortar stores.
For SaaS companies, Square can work if you also have a physical presence or if you are selling to small businesses that already use Square. The platform handles online payments alongside its traditional point-of-sale solutions.
Square ranks lower on the list because its primary strengths lie outside the SaaS world, but it remains a viable option for certain use cases.
Authorize.net: The Veteran Gateway
Authorize.net dates back to 1996 and was acquired by Visa in 2010. The platform specializes in card-not-present transactions and operates in the United States, Canada, and Australia while accepting payments in any global currency.
The all-in-one plan has no setup fee, a monthly gateway fee of $25, and per-transaction fees of 2.9% plus $0.30. Authorize.net is known for being developer-friendly, offering robust security measures, supporting recurring billing, and providing cost-effective solutions.
For SaaS companies that need a proven, reliable gateway with a long track record, Authorize.net delivers on the basics.
Choosing What Fits Your Business
Global SaaS industry revenue is projected to reach $339 billion in 2024, and payment processing sits at the center of how that money moves. The right processor depends on your specific situation: how much engineering time you want to invest, how much control you need over the payment flow, where your customers are located, and how complex your billing logic gets.
For SaaS companies looking for a comprehensive solution with PayFac-as-a-Service capabilities, modern no-code tools, recurring billing, real-time payouts, and direct card network connections, Finix offers the most complete platform designed specifically for software businesses that want to embed payments while maintaining full control.
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