Best for
Best for French companies that want invoicing, supplier purchases, a business account and their accounting firm working on one shared set of data.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
Accounting & Invoicing Comparison
Pennylane vs. Recurly
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for subscription businesses whose main problem is involuntary churn and failed payments rather than the invoice itself.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Pennylane | Recurly |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free for micro-entrepreneurs, otherwise from €7 / month excluding VAT Per user and month excluding VAT, no commitment: Starter €7, Basique €14, Essentiel €24 and Premium €79. Companies invited by their accounting firm use the free Collaboratif plan, and micro-entrepreneurs have a free plan of their own. All plans cover up to 1,200 invoices a year. | From 249 US dollars / month plus 0.9 percent of billing volume The Starter plan includes the first 40,000 US dollars of monthly billings. All-Access is quoted annually at under 1 percent of billing volume and requires a minimum of 1 million US dollars in billing volume. Engage and RevRec are priced separately from 1,600 and 850 US dollars a month. |
| Free trial | 15 days free, no commitment | 90-day free trial on the Starter plan |
| API | Yes, a public Company API with a sandbox environment, available from the Essentiel plan | Yes, a REST API with webhooks, Recurly.js, hosted pages and mobile SDKs |
| Hosting | Cloud (SaaS) | Cloud (SaaS) |
| Invoicing and quotes | Yes, quotes with e-signature, invoices, part invoices, recurring invoices and subscriptions with automatic reminders, plus electronic invoicing for the French mandate | Yes, automated and manual invoicing with customisable templates, charge and credit adjustments, plan creation with trials, promotions and add-ons, and monthly, annual or prepaid terms |
| Bookkeeping and bank feeds | Yes, bank synchronisation with automatic categorisation, and a full accounting module with rule-based automatic entries in the Premium plan | No general ledger or bank feeds of its own; billing and revenue data sync out through pre-built connectors to accounting and ERP systems |
| Expenses and receipts | Yes, supplier invoices centralised with approval workflows and payment from the platform, plus expense reports and mileage allowances | No expense claims or receipt capture; Recurly covers the revenue side, not spend |
| Tax and compliance | Yes, tax filing management and year-end closing tools in the Premium plan, built around French accounting rules | Yes, global and local tax management built into recurring billing, with ASC 606 and IFRS 15 revenue recognition through the separate RevRec product |
| Payroll | No payroll of its own. Payroll stays in a connected tool, with partner integrations for the French payroll platforms PayFit and Silae | No payroll |
| Reports and exports | Yes, real-time cash flow monitoring and forecasting, with custom dashboards and accounting reports in the Premium plan | Yes, built-in dashboards and customisable metrics with automated exports over the API, real-time revenue forecasting in RevRec, and AI anomaly detection, churn prediction and benchmarking through Compass |
| Integrations and API | Yes, a public Company API with a sandbox environment, from the Essentiel plan | Yes, a REST API with webhooks, Recurly.js, hosted pages and mobile SDKs, more than 20 payment gateways, pre-built connectors for CRM, ERP and tax systems, and a native Shopify app |
| AI features | No | stated Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Chat, Phone, Community forum | Not stated |
| Onboarding | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials, Live online demos and webinars | Documentation and knowledge base |
| Company size | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | more entries Qonto, Stripe, Shopify, PayFit, Silae | Shopify |
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The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Pennylane Free for micro-entrepreneurs, otherwise from €7 / month excluding VAT Recurly From 249 US dollars / month plus 0.9 percent of billing volume
- Free trial Pennylane 15 days free, no commitment Recurly 90-day free trial on the Starter plan
- Company size Pennylane Freelancers, Small and mid-sized Recurly Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
- AI features Pennylane No Recurly Yes
- API Pennylane Yes, a public Company API with a sandbox environment, available from the Essentiel plan Recurly Yes, a REST API with webhooks, Recurly.js, hosted pages and mobile SDKs
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Pennylane
Strengths
- Built to be shared with the accounting firm, which works on the same data
- Free Collaboratif plan for companies invited by their accounting firm
- Electronic invoicing for the French mandate included at no extra cost
- Business account with physical and virtual Mastercards inside the platform
Limitations
- Shaped around French accounting rules and a French business account
- The accounting module and tax filing only arrive in the Premium plan, which is a large step up in price
- The public API starts at the Essentiel plan
- Plans are priced per user, so a larger finance team multiplies the cost
Recurly
Strengths
- Payment recovery, dunning campaigns, cancel-save flows and win-back offers are the core of the product
- More than 20 payment gateways and 140 currencies, with a deliberate multi-gateway strategy
- 90-day free trial on the entry plan, far longer than the usual fortnight
- ASC 606 and IFRS 15 revenue recognition available as a sibling product
Limitations
- The entry plan starts at 249 US dollars a month plus 0.9 percent of billing volume
- All-Access requires a minimum of 1 million US dollars in billing volume
- Engage and RevRec are priced separately, from 1,600 and 850 US dollars a month
- No general ledger of its own, so a separate accounting system is still needed
Plans
Pricing
Pennylane
- Free (micro-entrepreneurs) Free For micro-enterprises, 1 user. Invoice creation and reception, supplier centralisation, mobile app, up to 1,200 invoices a year.
- Starter €7 / month excluding VAT Per user. Business account with virtual and physical cards, invoice management, supplier payment, payment links, bank synchronisation.
- Basique €14 / month excluding VAT Per user. Adds part and advance invoices, delivery notes and purchase orders, supplier management and supplier invoice payment.
- Essentiel €24 / month excluding VAT Per user. Adds automated reminders, quote e-signature, recurring invoices, expense management, automatic categorisation, cash flow forecasting and API access.
- Premium €79 / month excluding VAT Per user. Adds the accounting module, validation workflows, custom dashboards, accounting reports, rule-based automatic entries, tax filing management and year-end closing.
Recurly
- Starter $249 Per month plus 0.9 percent of billing volume, with the first 40,000 US dollars of monthly billings included. 90-day free trial. Automated global subscription billing, flexible plans, static churn-prevention tools, one dunning campaign, 10 or more payment methods and 20 or more payment gateways.
- All-Access Not stated As low as under 1 percent of billing volume, billed annually, with a minimum of 1 million US dollars in billing volume. Everything in Starter plus AI-powered agents and analytics, intelligent churn prevention, multiple dunning campaigns, advanced plans and pricing, payments orchestration, custom reporting, multicurrency support and single sign-on.
- All-Access for Shopify Not stated As low as under 1 percent of billing volume, billed annually. Intelligent churn prevention, customised bundles, subscribe-and-save, prepaid subscriptions, hybrid support, cancel-save flows, a self-serve bulk updater, analytics and a hosted subscriber portal.
- Engage Not stated Add-on, as low as 1,600 US dollars per month billed annually. AI propensity-to-churn model, one-click billing integration, personalised offers, cancel-save capabilities, A/B testing, segmentation, a prompt builder and analytics.
- RevRec Not stated Add-on, as low as 850 US dollars per month billed annually. Automated contract modifications, standalone selling price automation, rules-driven allocations, revenue insights, automated close, multi-GAAP compliance and an audit trail.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Pennylane
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Recurly
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Pennylane https://www.pennylane.com · checked against the official source on 2026-08-27
Recurly https://recurly.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-10
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.