I’ve spent years researching and using open-source projects for my business processes. However, finding a useful application for subscription billing was a lot more difficult than I expected. So I decided to put together a list of 100% subscription and billing automation tools. open source management I compiled this list with three basic criteria in mind. I have only listed open-source projects with commits within the past year. I have also only listed projects with public Github repositories. Lastly, I evaluated these applications based on certain critical features in a billing system, including: Being able to sell recurring (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly) subscriptions to customers. Subscription billing: Apply free trials to subscription offerings. Free trials: Being able to split the price of a service into separate dynamic intervals. For example, if you have a $1,000 service, and you want 20% upfront, 30% after one month, and 50% after three months. Split Pricing: Allow customers to request the subscription offering through a self-service portal. Self-service portal: Allowing add-ons to upsell subscription offerings. Add-on pricing: Stripe is the most popular payment gateway system. It is important for a billing system to have a direct Stripe integration. Stripe Integration: APIs to integrate with existing applications and have an extensible architecture for building plugins. Integrations and APIs: Let’s take a look! 1- Servicebot Servicebot dashboard Servicebot is the newest open-source subscription billing system on the market. The development started early 2017 and is mainly focused on automated billing. Demo Link: https://shardemo.serviceshop.io/dashboard Demo Username: servicebot@rhyta.com Demo Password: demo Github link (Download): https://github.com/service-bot/servicebot 2017 Start date: Javascript. NodeJS, React, Redux, PostgreSQL database. Built with: ⭐️ Feature 1 — : ✅ Subscription Billing ⭐️ Feature 2 — : ✅ Free Trials ⭐️ Feature 3— : ✅ Split Pricing ⭐️ Feature 4— : ✅ Self-service Portal ⭐ ️Feature 5— : ✅ Add-on Pricing ⭐️ Feature 6— : ✅ Integrations & API 2- Killbill Killbill was the first subscription billing management solution I found. The platform is based on Java. Killbill focuses mainly on processing internal subscriptions online. An admin user can log in to the system and add users, manage subscriptions, and process payments. Demo Link: http://demo.killbill.io/accounts Demo Username: demo_ro Demo Password: demo_ro Github link (Download): https://github.com/killbill/killbill 2010 Start date: Java & Ruby. MySQL database. Built with: ⭐️ Feature 1 — : ✅ Subscription Billing ⭐️ Feature 2 — : ✅ Free Trials ⭐️ Feature 3 — : ❌ Split Pricing ⭐️ Feature 4 — : ❌ Self-service Portal ⭐ ️Feature 5 — : ❌ Add-on Pricing ⭐️️ Feature 6 — ✅ (Only through a plugin) Stripe Integration: ⭐️ Feature 7— : ✅ Integrations & API 3- OpenSourceBilling (OSB) OpenSourceBilling is also an internal billing system. The project is smaller than Killbill, but it does come with some useful features. It is directed mainly towards project-based billing with time tracking and project invoicing. Demo Link: http://demo.opensourcebilling.org/ Demo Username: demo@osb.com Demo Password: <Just press sign-in. The password is already entered> Github link (Download): https://github.com/vteams/open-source-billing 2013 Start date: Ruby on Rails. MySQL database. Built with: ⭐️ Feature 1 — : ✅ Subscription Billing ⭐️ Feature 2 — : ❌ Free Trials ⭐️ Feature 3 — : ❌ Split Pricing ⭐️ Feature 4 — : ❌ Self-service Portal ⭐ ️Feature 5 — : ❌ Add-on Pricing ⭐️️ Feature 6— ❌ (But it does support PayPal) Stripe Integration: ⭐️ Feature 7— : ❌ Integrations & API Conclusion Finding an automated subscription billing system is purely dependent on your needs. It is important to understand that open-source does NOT equal free. You need to host the application, install and configure it. If you are a developer, I highly recommend using these open source applications to develop your billing system. If you are a startup needing a billing solution, and I’ll be more than happy to assist you with your decision making process. book an appointment with me Lastly, make sure to star the open source projects and give credit to the amazing developers that help open source projects happen. . Open source is the future
