HACKER Q&A
📣 SkyLinx

Should I switch from Chargebee to Paddle for my SaaS?


Hi all.

At the moment I am using Chargebee for my SaaS, the product is excellent but it requires me to have accounts with Stripe and PayPal and, more importantly, handle everything myself including VAT, which I hate (I'm in the EU).

I know that Paddle, as a merchant of record, handles tax and several other things, and I like the idea of receiving just one reverse invoice per month which would make accounting easier too.

The problem is that since I launched a few months ago I already collected some 10s of subscriptions, mostly on the free plan but some are paid so the customers have provided payment details now stored either in Stripe or PayPal depending on what they chose.

So the main question is, is there a way to migrate from Chargebee to Paddle without asking my users to resubscribe with the new system? That would be pretty bad and I would very much prefer avoiding it. Has anyone here done this kind of migration?

Thanks!


  👤 seanwilson Accepted Answer ✓
> I know that Paddle, as a merchant of record, handles tax and several other things, and I like the idea of receiving just one reverse invoice per month which would make accounting easier too.

For what it's worth, I've been using Paddle for a few years for a paid Chrome extension (https://www.checkbot.io/) and it's been that simple for me. I put through the Paddle payments as my income on tax returns and I'm done for admin.

Chargebee does seem to have a lot more customer/subscription management features though so I would check Paddle has everything you need there.

Fastspring and Gumroad are worth looking at too as they handle VAT as well.


👤 going_to_800
The only problem with services like Paddle is that your customers are not your own anymore technically. The customer will belong now to Paddle and if something happens with Paddle or your account, you'll lose all of them.

PS: We're using Paddle for a few years and we're a bit concerned by this.


👤 skrish
Krish, founder of Chargebee here. I read your feedback in the comments about EU VAT and understand your preference to not handle this yourself. Thank you for the detailed note. I would love to explore how we can improve our offering to bring the best of both worlds even if it is not possible immediately. My email id is krish at Chargebee. Thanks.

👤 stevenkkim
Have you tried contacting Paddle about this? https://paddle.com/migrate

👤 colesantiago
How have you been managing VAT currently with Chargebee? Is this built in with them?