Comparing the stats on ChargeOver vs Chargify (Now Maxio) is mostly in the details. They are both software focused on recurring billing and subscriptions and they both have a plethora of capabilities and offerings. Both companies were founded about 10 years ago by teams that formed after realizing there was a big issue in the billing industry.
Chargify and ChargeOver are neck-and-neck in many ways. However, let's dig into how the two apps differentiate from one another. Throughout this article, we've used several resources to gather reviews, testimonials and product specs, such as GetApp, Stackshare, Crozdesk, TrustRadius, G2, Capterra and WhataSoftware. Generally speaking, all sources found have scored ChargeOver higher in overall user reviews. But in a few of the specs, such as integrations, Chargify casts a bigger net.
According to GetApp the positive reviews for both companies revolve around providing great customer service. Chargify and ChargeOver are USA headquartered companies that cater to international customers such as those in Canada and Australia. Great customer service truly makes the difference when onboarding new software. The positive reviews also include talking about how both products are great for streamlining business. Although there are many pros, some clarification may come from the cons.
These quotes are pulled from recent GetApp submissions.
Cons for Chargify:
- "Relationship invoicing and customer hierarchies have been continuously buggy. Basic features like partial refunds were missing at first, or partially functional. Support response is quick, but unhelpful. Escalation takes a while for a permanent fix. We're having to add a secondary system for managing our customer subscriptions to work around all of the errors in Chargify. We have ongoing retraining of our employees for bug work-arounds."
- "Limited customization of the capabilities of the platform. Any kind of hierarchical invoicing (sending multiple invoices to a client) or billing for multiple subscriptions gets incredibly complex and hard to manage. Customization of invoices is also pretty limited."
- "Non-monthly subscriptions are not handled well and not incorporated into MRR/ARR properly when there are mid-cycle change Revenue recognition severely lacking for anything but monthly, credit card subscriptions Invoice handling severely lacking Integration capabilities for quickbooks are inadequate for anything but monthly credit card subscriptions Webhooks almost there but key data points are missing from key webhooks, like a customer ID on an invoice generated or invoice payment"
- "You get what you pay for and the steep price of this comes with steep rewards and benefits. If you paid less you still wouldn't get half of what they have to offer."
- "Some limitation on usage based products but minor with some workarounds available."
Cons for ChargeOver:
- "Set up takes a bit of time but this was only a one time headache."
- "The only thing I'd say missing was video tutorials to show new users how to navigate and when to reach out and ask for help for customized options (which they do to my surprise and delight)."
- "Xero integration is a bit manual, although it works *great* once it's setup."
- "It can be a bit tricky to teach new users at first because of all the features but once they get it then it is pretty straight forward"
- "There are some settings within ChargeOver where you have to contact your account administrators to activate them. For example, ChargeOver gives the option to have custom fields show up on invoices; however when I filled out the field, it didn't show up at all on our invoices. It wasn't until I contacted our representative at ChargeOver that I realized we had to request to have these custom fields activated. The positive in all of this is that ChargeOver has the ability to customize your experience with the software and your customer's experience, you just have to ask!"
As far as Key features go, ChargeOver scores higher with 62 features vs Charify holding only 46. Some of the features ChargeOver has that Chargify lacks includes:
- Business Analysis
- Client Management
- Communication Management
- Custom Fields
- Customer Activity Reporting
- Data Import/Export
- Data Migration
- Customizable reporting
- Email Alerts
- Product Catalog Integration
- QuickBooks Integration
- Real Time Analytics
- Real Time Data
- Receipt Management
- Receiving
- Reminders
- SSL Security
- Scheduled Reporting
- Tagging
- Task Management
Chargify does however have a few features not included currently on ChargeOver's app:
- Retention Management
- Customer Experience Management
- Calendar Management
- A/B Testing
- 2-Factor Authentication
Currently both softwares have a big selection of integrations. Chargify leads by having integration capabilities with around 50% compared to ChargeOver's 40% of the most popular apps. It's important to note that ChargeOver has an integration for Quickbooks Online and Quickbooks Desktop, where as Chargify does not have an integration for Quickbooks Desktop. Everyday ChargeOver and Chargify have teams working to develop new integrations. It is important to recognize that the size of these integrations and the number of users using each of these integrations varies.
Some of the other factors to compare are:
The ease of customizing the branding.
When sending invoices and receipts, customers would like to have their own branding to be public facing — not the software's branding. With Chargify, you must use their branding and domains on invoices and receipts. With ChargeOver you're able to customize the branding so that invoices and receipts are from your brand.
Flexibility with different billing scenarios.
Having the ability to be flexible with different billing scenarios is also another issue to compare. ChargeOver is capable of handling single edition billings and high volume subscription billings. Chargify does not support one-time invoices.
Lastly, both ChargeOver and Chargify are located in the USA and offer their services internally. ChargeOver embraces that with servicing multiple countries, means being able to have invoices with multi-currency support. Chargify requires multiple sites in order to handle different currencies.
ChargeOver caters to all sizes of small businesses and large enterprises. Many delight in a free trial that is enhanced with the experience of a one-on-one demo with a software expert.
Base plans for Chargify start at $5,000. Some customer feedback is that the base price is less value than what is spent on the software. It isn't surprising to hear that when Chargify charges you an extra % fee for every single payment made on top of your monthly service fees.
To learn more about the capabilities of ChargeOver, please schedule a meeting to talk to our team.
