Billsby vs Kill Bill

Billsby and Kill Bill both handle subscription billing, but they trade off differently between convenience and control. Billsby is a hosted SaaS billing…

Best for Billsby: Billsby fits subscription businesses that want a hosted billing product they can set up quickly, with automated dunning and an embeddable checkout, and that are comfortable paying $45/month plus a small percentage of revenue over $15,000/month.
Best for Kill Bill: Kill Bill fits engineering teams that want full control over their billing infrastructure, need to avoid per-transaction or revenue-percentage fees entirely, and have the resources to self-host via Docker or Kubernetes and integrate their own payment gateway and tax engine plugins.

At a Glance

 BillsbyKill Bill
Primary categoryInvoicingInvoicing
RatingNot documentedNot documented
Pricing modelSubscription + usage-basedOpen Source (with paid enterprise tier)
Starting price$45/month (Core plan, plus 0.4% of revenue over $15,000/month)Free
Free planYesYes
Free trialNot documentedNot documented
PlatformsWebNot documented
Team collaborationNot documentedNot documented
AI featuresNot documentedNot documented
Public APIYesYes

Key Differences

Pricing Model

Billsby: Billsby charges $45/month plus 0.4% of revenue over $15,000/month on its Core plan, and $135/month plus 0.5% of revenue over $30,000/month on Pro.

Kill Bill: Kill Bill's core platform is entirely free and open source under Apache 2.0, with no per-transaction or revenue-percentage fees.

Revenue-percentage billing fees scale with a company's success and can become a meaningful cost at high transaction volume, unlike a flat self-hosted infrastructure cost.

Hosting and Operational Responsibility

Billsby: Billsby is a fully hosted SaaS product; users don't manage servers or deployments.

Kill Bill: Kill Bill is self-hosted via Docker or Kubernetes in your own infrastructure, and requires engineering resources to deploy, operate, and maintain.

Self-hosting shifts operational burden (uptime, upgrades, security patching) onto the adopting team in exchange for infrastructure control.

Payment Gateway and Tax Support

Billsby: Billsby supports multiple payment gateways including ACH processing, but only on the Pro plan; tax compliance is also a Pro-plan feature.

Kill Bill: Kill Bill has native plugin support for Stripe, Adyen, PayPal, Braintree, and other gateways, plus tax engine integrations with Avalara and Vertex, available in the free core.

Whether gateway and tax capabilities are gated behind a paid tier or available in the free core affects total cost for businesses needing those features from day one.

API and Customization Access

Billsby: Billsby offers full API access on its Pro plan for custom integrations; the Core plan does not include it.

Kill Bill: Kill Bill provides an extensible plugin architecture for building custom integrations and modifications as part of the free, open-source core.

Gating API access behind a higher-priced plan limits how deeply a lower-tier customer can integrate billing with the rest of their stack.

Track Record and Maturity

Billsby: Billsby is rated 4.8 stars on G2 and marketed as the '#1 Rated Subscription Billing Software,' but its founding year and headquarters are not disclosed.

Kill Bill: Kill Bill was founded in 2010 and has been in production for over 15 years, with a documented Apache 2.0 license history.

A long production track record signals stability for mission-critical billing infrastructure that businesses depend on for revenue.

Feature-by-Feature

Billing Core

FeatureBillsbyKill Bill
Subscription products, plans, cyclesAvailableAvailable
Usage-based / prepaid / postpaid billingNot documentedAvailable
Automated dunningAvailableNot documented
Multi-tenant supportNot documentedAvailable

Payments & Compliance

FeatureBillsbyKill Bill
Multiple payment gatewaysLimitedAvailable
Tax compliance / tax engine integrationLimitedAvailable
Full API accessLimitedAvailable

Pricing & Deployment

FeatureBillsbyKill Bill
Free tierAvailableAvailable
Revenue-percentage feesAvailableUnavailable
Self-hosted deploymentUnavailableAvailable
Admin UI includedNot documentedAvailable

Pricing Compared

Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.

Billsby

Core — $45/month + 0.4% of revenue over $15,000/month Monthly
Pro — $135/month + 0.4% of revenue over $50,000/month Monthly

Kill Bill

Open Source — Free N/A
Aviate (Enterprise) — Custom pricing Custom / consulting packages

Pros & Cons

Billsby

Pros

  • Unlimited products, plans, and customers on every tier
  • Developer-friendly with a documented public API
  • Built-in dunning and cancellation management to reduce churn
  • Multi-currency and tax support suited to international billing

Cons

  • Revenue-share component makes total cost less predictable as a business scales
  • Smaller company with less public documentation/community than larger billing platforms
  • Named integrations beyond the core API are not clearly published
  • Enterprise-specific pricing and SLAs are not publicly listed

Kill Bill

Pros

  • Completely free and open source under Apache 2.0
  • No vendor lock-in and full ownership of billing data
  • Highly customizable via plugin architecture for gateways, tax, and notifications
  • Proven at scale in production since 2010
  • Optional Aviate enterprise layer for teams wanting managed support

Cons

  • Requires engineering effort to deploy, configure, and maintain self-hosted
  • No published pricing for the Aviate enterprise tier
  • Steeper learning curve than hosted SaaS billing competitors like Chargebee or Recurly
  • Smaller ecosystem and community than some commercial alternatives
  • Payment gateway and tax integrations depend on plugin maturity

Use Cases

Choose Billsby: Billsby fits subscription businesses that want a hosted billing product they can set up quickly, with automated dunning and an embeddable checkout, and that are comfortable paying $45/month plus a small percentage of revenue over $15,000/month.
Choose Kill Bill: Kill Bill fits engineering teams that want full control over their billing infrastructure, need to avoid per-transaction or revenue-percentage fees entirely, and have the resources to self-host via Docker or Kubernetes and integrate their own payment gateway and tax engine plugins.
Need both: There is no realistic scenario for running both as the primary billing system, since each is a complete subscription billing engine on its own; a team might evaluate Billsby's free testing tier to model pricing while separately prototyping a self-hosted Kill Bill deployment before committing to one platform long-term.

Billsby

  • SaaS subscription billing — Automate recurring charges, invoicing, and dunning for a software subscription business.
  • Usage-based pricing — Bill customers based on consumption alongside or instead of flat subscription fees.
  • International subscription sales — Bill customers in multiple currencies with automated tax handling.

Kill Bill

  • Custom recurring billing infrastructure — Engineering teams build tailored subscription billing logic without vendor lock-in.
  • Usage-based and metered billing — Companies with consumption-based pricing models implement custom metered billing workflows.
  • Multi-tenant white-label billing — Platforms and marketplaces run billing for many tenants or resellers from a single installation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Kill Bill charge a percentage of revenue like Billsby?

No, Kill Bill's core platform has no per-transaction or revenue-percentage fees since it's free and self-hosted; Billsby charges 0.4% on revenue over $15,000/month on its Core plan and 0.5% over $30,000/month on Pro.

Do I need engineers to run Kill Bill?

Yes, Kill Bill requires engineering resources to deploy, operate, and maintain since it's self-hosted via Docker or Kubernetes, unlike Billsby, which is a fully hosted SaaS product.

Which plan do I need for full API access on Billsby?

Full API access is included on Billsby's Pro plan ($135/month plus 0.5% on revenue over $30,000/month), not the $45/month Core plan; Kill Bill includes API-level extensibility through its plugin architecture in the free core.

Does Kill Bill support Stripe and PayPal?

Yes, Kill Bill has native plugin support for Stripe, Adyen, PayPal, Braintree, and other payment gateways, available without a paid tier.

Can I try Billsby before paying?

Yes, Billsby offers a free plan that allows unlimited testing and setup before going live, with no time limit.

Is there a managed hosting option for Kill Bill if I don't want to self-host?

Kill Bill has no official low-code hosted option from the core project itself, though third-party providers offer managed hosting; Billsby, by contrast, is hosted SaaS by default.

Read the full Billsby review · Read the full Kill Bill review