Accounting & Finance · head to head
BlackLine vs Chargebee
Chargebee
Accounting & Finance
Subscription billing & revenue management
- From
- $29/month
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: BlackLine listed on UK G-Cloud 13 at £1,150 to £2,160 per user per year for the public sector, with no free trial offered, per BlackLine's Finance Operations Management Solution pricing document; Chargebee priced as a percentage of billing, 0.80 percent on pay-as-you-go or 0.65 percent plus $99 a month on the committed plan, so the fee rises with revenue
- They diverge on capability: BlackLine covers Account reconciliation, Chargebee covers Subscription management.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which BlackLine and Chargebee actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price ($29/month), pricing model (subscription), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Accounting & Finance).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in BlackLine
- Account reconciliation
- Journal entries
- Task management
- Variance analysis
- Financial close
- SAP
- Oracle
- SOC 1/2
Only in Chargebee
- Subscription management
- Recurring billing
- Revenue recognition
- Dunning management
- Checkout pages
- Stripe
- PayPal
- Salesforce
Both cover
- NetSuite
- Web support
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
BlackLine
- Financial closenot Chargebee
- Reconciliationnot Chargebee
- Continuous accountingnot Chargebee
Chargebee
- Subscription billingnot BlackLine
- Revenue operationsnot BlackLine
- Pricing experimentationnot BlackLine
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
BlackLine
- Listed on UK G-Cloud 13 at £1,150 to £2,160 per user per year for the public sector, with no free trial offered, per BlackLine's Finance Operations Management Solution pricing document
Chargebee
- Priced as a percentage of billing, 0.80 percent on pay-as-you-go or 0.65 percent plus $99 a month on the committed plan, so the fee rises with revenue
- Split into four separate product lines, Billing, CPQ, RevRec and Growth, each with its own tiers and most quote-only
- CPQ Lite is free only for the first 50 quotes
- Revenue recognition pricing is demo-only
- Enterprise Plus requires an annual commitment
Pricing, plan by plan
BlackLine
$29/month- EnterpriseFree
- Custom pricing
- Account reconciliation
- Task management
Chargebee
$29/month- StarterFree
- First $250K revenue free
- Basic billing
- Invoicing
- Performance$599/month
- Revenue recognition
- Advanced analytics
- Multi-currency
Which should you pick?
Choose Chargebee if
- You need subscription management.
- You work on Web, Api.
- You also want recurring billing.
Questions people ask
- Is BlackLine or Chargebee better?
- Neither clearly leads. BlackLine starts at $29/month and Chargebee at $29/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, BlackLine or Chargebee?
- BlackLine starts at $29/month and Chargebee at $29/month.
- Does BlackLine or Chargebee run on more platforms?
- BlackLine runs on Web. Chargebee runs on Web, Api.
- What is BlackLine best used for?
- BlackLine is most often used for financial close, reconciliation, continuous accounting. Of those, financial close and reconciliation are not what Chargebee is typically brought in for.
- What can BlackLine do that Chargebee cannot?
- BlackLine covers Account reconciliation, Journal entries, Task management, Variance analysis. Chargebee covers Subscription management, Recurring billing, Revenue recognition, Dunning management. Both handle NetSuite, Web support.