ChaChing

Introduction to ChaChing

ChaChing is a subscription billing engine designed for businesses that already use Stripe for payment processing. It replaces Stripe Billing while retaining Stripe’s payment infrastructure, enabling customers to manage recurring billing, invoicing, tax compliance, and revenue analytics independently. The product targets small to medium-sized businesses—particularly SaaS companies and digital service providers—that seek cost efficiency, operational simplicity, and developer-friendly tooling without changing their existing payment processor.

ChaChing operates as a drop-in replacement for Stripe Billing’s subscription management layer. It handles the full lifecycle of subscriptions—including creation, modification, proration, renewal, and cancellation—as well as one-off invoicing, tax calculation, and financial reporting. By decoupling billing logic from payment processing, ChaChing reduces recurring billing fees by 50% compared to Stripe Billing’s standard pricing while maintaining full compatibility with Stripe’s APIs and payment methods.

Key Takeaways

• Reduces billing-related fees by 50% compared to Stripe Billing while continuing to use Stripe for payment processing
• Supports automated subscription management including mid-cycle upgrades/downgrades with accurate auto-proration
• Integrates with third-party tax providers (e.g., TaxJar, Avalara) and supports region-specific tax rules (VAT, GST, sales tax)
• Provides real-time revenue analytics including MRR, ARR, LTV, churn, and cohort-based event tracking
• Enables zero-downtime migration from Stripe Billing via a dedicated migration toolkit that preserves customer data and payment methods
• Offers developer-centric features: OpenAPI-compliant REST API, sandbox environment, and hosted payment pages
• Includes built-in capabilities such as smart payment retries, multi-phase subscription schedules, and automatic invoice reconciliation for ACH/wire transfers

How ChaChing Works

ChaChing integrates with an existing Stripe account using the Stripe secret key, granting read access to subscriptions, customers, and payment methods. During migration, users select which subscriptions to migrate—either all or a subset—and ChaChing imports associated dependencies (e.g., plans, coupons, metadata) to ensure continuity. After migration, ChaChing assumes responsibility for subscription orchestration, invoicing, and billing logic, while Stripe continues to process payments, handle disputes, and manage card vaulting.

The platform provides both no-code and code-first options: teams can configure subscriptions and issue invoices through the dashboard, embed payment links, or use Checkout-style hosted pages. For custom implementations, ChaChing exposes a standardized REST API with OpenAPI documentation, supporting webhook-driven workflows and real-time event streaming. All operations are backed by infrastructure with 99.99% uptime and sub-50ms average API response times.

Core Benefits and Applications

ChaChing is especially valuable for businesses seeking to optimize billing costs without architectural disruption. Its primary applications include managing tiered SaaS subscriptions with complex upgrade paths, issuing branded one-time invoices for professional services or setup fees, and ensuring global tax compliance across diverse product lines (e.g., digital vs. physical goods). Finance teams benefit from real-time MRR/ARR dashboards and automated reconciliation of non-card payments. Engineering teams gain agility through predictable API contracts, sandbox testing, and simplified migration from legacy billing systems like Chargebee or Recurly (with support in development).

The flexible pricing model—0.35% of monthly billing volume—makes it scalable for growing businesses, while enterprise customers can request custom arrangements. Additional features such as customer self-service portals, multi-workspace support, role-based access control, and comprehensive reporting further support operational maturity across finance, product, and engineering functions.