Move from Chargebee to yRecurring.
Chargebee exports everything a move needs as CSV, and for most gateways the saved cards already live in your own account. The whole move is an export, a dry run and one parallel billing cycle.
See how Chargebee and yRecurring compare →What is different about leaving Chargebee
Check which product catalog your site runs
Chargebee sites run Product Catalog 1.0, where plans and addons carry their billing period in the plan itself, or 2.0, where items (plans, addons, charges) each have item prices per currency and period. The files look different; the destination does not. Every plan or item becomes a product, and every period and currency becomes one of its prices.
Rehearse on the test site
Chargebee keeps a test site beside the live one. Export it first and run the whole import against it: nothing in yRecurring is written until you commit, and a committed run can be rolled back for seven days, so the rehearsal costs nothing.
Settle what is still pending
Unbilled charges and changes scheduled for the end of a term sit in Chargebee until they run. Bill them, or apply them, before the final export, so the files describe what each customer actually has on the day you switch.
1. Export from Chargebee
Settings, then Import & Export Data, then Export Data for the product catalog; the Export button on the Subscriptions and Customers pages for those, each with a download import-friendly file option; invoices and transactions through the Exports API.
- Subscriptions (import-friendly file)
- Customers (import-friendly file)
- Product catalog: plans and addons
- Invoices, credit notes and transactions through the Exports API
As documented by Chargebee on 24 September 2026: their export guide.
2. Saved cards
Chargebee stores only the card's last four digits, its expiry and a vault token. If your gateway is Stripe or Braintree the cards sit in your own gateway account and come with you: connect the same account to yRecurring and import the saved payment methods as token references. For cards vaulted through Spreedly, check Chargebee's per-gateway data portability table first, and plan a card-update link before the first renewal for anything it does not carry over.
Source: Chargebee documentation, read 24 September 2026. How yRecurring imports them: migrating saved payment methods.
3. What carries over
| In Chargebee | In yRecurring | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Customer: id, email, company, billing address, VAT number | Customer The Chargebee customer id becomes the external id, so running a file again skips what is already there instead of copying it; customers, products and prices can be set to update instead. The VAT number arrives as a tax id and can be checked against VIES. | The Chargebee customer id becomes the external id, so running a file again skips what is already there instead of copying it; customers, products and prices can be set to update instead. The VAT number arrives as a tax id and can be checked against VIES. |
| Plan, or an item of type plan (catalog 2.0) | Product, kind plan One product per plan, whatever the number of periods it is sold in. | One product per plan, whatever the number of periods it is sold in. |
| Addon and charge, or items of those types | Product, kind add-on or one-off Recurring addons become add-ons; charges become one-off products. | Recurring addons become add-ons; charges become one-off products. |
| Plan price or item price | Price One currency and one billing period per price. Flat and per unit prices come from the file; tiered, volume and stairstep prices are rebuilt in the price builder, with its live preview. | One currency and one billing period per price. Flat and per unit prices come from the file; tiered, volume and stairstep prices are rebuilt in the price builder, with its live preview. |
| Subscription: plan, quantity, status, current term start and end, next billing date | Subscription The current term becomes the current period and counts as paid, so the first yRecurring renewal lands on the date Chargebee would have billed. | The current term becomes the current period and counts as paid, so the first yRecurring renewal lands on the date Chargebee would have billed. |
| Invoice | Invoice Historical, one summary line carrying the total, marked as imported. | Historical, one summary line carrying the total, marked as imported. |
| Transaction of type payment | Payment Recorded against the invoice it settled. | Recorded against the invoice it settled. |
| Credit note | Credit note Historical, against its imported invoice. | Historical, against its imported invoice. |
| Payment source | Saved payment method The gateway token plus brand, last four and expiry for display. Never a card number. | The gateway token plus brand, last four and expiry for display. Never a card number. |
Records go in dependency order: customers and catalog, then subscriptions, then invoices and the payments that settle them. Each row keeps your old system's id, so running a file again skips what is already there instead of copying it; customers, products and prices can be set to update instead. What you can import.
What stays in Chargebee, and what to do instead
Recreate them in yRecurring (percentage, fixed amount or free quantity) and apply them to the subscriptions that had one; the subscription file does not carry discounts.
The subscription import brings the plan and its quantity. Attach recurring addons to each subscription in the app after the import and before the parallel cycle, so the test invoices include them.
Each historical invoice arrives as one line with its total. Keep the Chargebee invoice PDFs for the itemised history.
Balances do not travel in the files. Note each customer's remaining credit before the cutover and give it back as a credit note on their first yRecurring invoice.
4. The cutover, in five steps
- 01Export
Download the import-friendly subscription and customer files, the product catalog, then invoices and transactions, on the day you import.
- 02Connect
Start the free trial and connect the same payment account you charge through today.
- 03Dry run
Upload the files. The import maps the columns, cleans the values, and shows every row it would create before it writes one.
- 04Parallel cycle
Run one billing cycle in test mode beside Chargebee and compare the invoices line by line.
- 05Switch
At a renewal, turn charging on here and cancel the Chargebee subscriptions at the end of their current term.
Questions about leaving Chargebee
See how Chargebee and yRecurring compare → What you pay today, next to a flat plan: the fee calculator →
Which Chargebee export should I use?
The import-friendly subscription and customer files: they are the cleanest column set. The product catalog export rebuilds your plans and addons as products and prices.
Does it matter whether we are on Product Catalog 1.0 or 2.0?
Only for the column names. On 1.0, plan ids often carry the period (pro-monthly, pro-yearly): import those as prices under one product, so reports show one plan. On 2.0 the item and its item prices are already separate and map one to one.
How do we stop Chargebee and yRecurring both charging a renewal?
Import with Chargebee's next billing dates intact, run the parallel cycle in test mode, then cancel the Chargebee subscriptions at the end of their current term, the same renewal at which you turn charging on here. The term the customer already paid for ends in Chargebee; the next one bills here.
Will my customers get emails during the import?
No. Imported invoices, payments and subscriptions are historical records; the importer never sends a customer email for them. The first message a customer gets from yRecurring is the first invoice or receipt you choose to send.