UniBee

A bootstrapped software company expanding internationally often finds that a single proprietary payment gateway limits checkout options and complicates tax reconciliation. UniBee provides a self-hosted billing engine that decouples subscription logic from payment processors on private servers. The platform coordinates recurring tiers, usage meters, and customer invoices across multiple payment gateways.

Why UniBee instead of Stripe Billing

Stripe Billing bundles subscription scheduling directly with its payment rails, handling compliance and banking payouts with zero server maintenance. In return, Stripe enforces gateway lock-in and charges a percentage cut on recurring volume. UniBee decouples subscription lifecycles, dunning schedules, and invoicing from the payment gateway. Operations engineers can connect Stripe alongside PayPal, Payssion, or Alipay in one deployment, retaining database ownership without paying volume-based vendor cuts.

The trade-off centers on infrastructure stewardship. Stripe Billing eliminates server administration. Running UniBee requires supervising a multi-container stack: Nginx, a Go API daemon, Redis 6 for event streaming, MySQL 8, and two TypeScript web portals for admin and user access. Teams using UniBee gain custody over subscriber records and routing rules, but assume responsibility for container health, database migrations, and SMTP delivery.

What it does well

• Multi-gateway routing: Connects processors like Stripe, PayPal, and Payssion within one catalog, allowing ops leads to route charges by currency without custom adapters.
• Metered usage billing: Ingests consumption metrics like API calls or compute minutes, calculating tier thresholds and overages alongside recurring plans.
• Pre-built user and admin portals: Ships ready-made web interfaces for customer self-service and internal plan management, removing the need to build custom billing dashboards.
• Automated invoicing: Generates localized PDF invoices with configurable VAT country rules and automated sequence numbering.
• Promotion engine: Supports time-limited coupon codes, customer promo credits, and trial periods without altering underlying billing cycles.
• Containerized deployment: Packages all services into Docker Compose definitions, enabling ops teams to run the billing environment on standard Linux servers.