Magic Quadrant for Recurring Billing Applications
A recurring billing application enables organizations to bill customers for one-time, subscription-based and usage-based fees for goods and services. It consumes orders and/or service contracts documenting the goods and services the customer has purchased, periodically generates fixed recurring fees, and ingests and rates product usage data. It issues one-time or periodic roll-up invoices to the customer and collects payments before determining recognizable revenue and posting to an external general ledger. APIs or UI fragments support a self-service billing portal. Modern recurring billing applications are an important customer touchpoint for measuring customer sentiment and for delivering marketing messaging.
No strategic planning assumptions provided.
Vendors must, among other requirements:
A: This research evaluates 17 vendors offering modern, cloud-based SaaS recurring billing applications suitable for cross-industry use. It covers vendors' ability to handle one-time, subscription-based, and usage-based billing for goods and services, including capabilities for order management, invoice generation, payment collection, revenue recognition, and general ledger integration. The evaluation is based on product demonstrations, vendor surveys, customer reference surveys, and financial data.
A: This research should be used by organizations seeking to procure or replace recurring billing solutions, particularly those looking for modern SaaS applications that can handle complex billing scenarios across multiple industries. It is valuable for IT leaders, finance executives, and digital transformation teams evaluating billing platforms for B2C and B2B use cases. The report should be used in combination with the companion Critical Capabilities report and discussions with Gartner analysts to create vendor shortlists appropriate for specific organizational needs and complexity levels.
A: Vendors must provide out-of-the-box support for ingesting orders and service contracts, generating periodic fixed charges, ingesting and rating usage data to generate usage charges, aggregating all charge types into periodic customer invoices, capturing invoice payments, and integrating received revenue with general ledger systems. At minimum, products must score at least 2.0 out of 5.0 for fixed recurring billing, usage billing, and invoicing capabilities.
A:
A: Ability to Execute focuses on current product capabilities, operational excellence, customer satisfaction, and market presence, with the heaviest weighting on Product/Service quality as determined by live demonstrations and benchmarks. Completeness of Vision emphasizes future direction, innovation, market understanding, and strategic positioning across industries and geographies, with heaviest weightings on Innovation and past execution of product roadmap.