Chaser Alternative

Chaser is enterprise-priced. Unpaid is built for the rest of us.

Chaser starts at A$399/month and is genuinely excellent for mid-market finance teams. If you're an Australian small business with one Xero or QuickBooks file, you're paying for capacity you'll never use.

A$29/mo Starter. No credit card required.

The short version

Chaser is one of the most established accounts receivable platforms on the market — UK-built, operating since 2014, with multi-entity consolidation, AI-powered payment predictions, late-fee automation, and integrations across Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage, and CSV. For a mid-market business with a dedicated credit-control team and a sizeable receivables ledger, the product earns its price.

The price is A$399/month for the entry plan and A$1,199/month for the Core plan. For an Australian sole trader, freelancer, or small business invoicing under 200 customers a month, that's structural overspend — you're paying for finance-team infrastructure you don't have or need.

Unpaid was built specifically for that under-served small-business segment. A$29/month, AI-composed reminder emails rather than templates, smart reply handling that pauses sequences when a customer responds, and Australian-specific risk tools (PTRS, ABN, Security of Payment) that Chaser doesn't offer.

Why Australian small businesses look for a Chaser alternative

1. The price gap is structural, not marginal

Chaser's entry-tier A$399/month is roughly 14× Unpaid's A$29/month Starter. Over a year, that's A$4,788 versus A$348 — a A$4,440 difference annually. For a business losing $29,000 a year to late payments (the Airwallex Australian small-business average), Chaser can still pay for itself. But you don't need to spend A$399/month to fix that problem. You need a tool that consistently sends well-written reminders at the right time. The structural overspend is what drives most small businesses to look elsewhere.

2. Templates are still templates, even at Chaser's tier

Chaser's reminder emails are built from configurable templates. The product offers excellent template management — tone variations by stage, customisable variables, multi-language support — but the underlying mechanism is still text-with-variables inserted at send time. Clients who receive a lot of automated follow-ups learn to spot template emails within a sentence or two.

Unpaid uses Claude AI to compose every email at send time. The AI reads the customer's payment history, the invoice context, and the current escalation stage, then writes an email from scratch. No two emails to the same customer look identical, because no two are generated from the same template. The cumulative effect over a 5-stage sequence is that clients keep reading, because what arrives doesn't feel like a system — it feels like you.

3. Chaser is a UK product. The AU-specific stuff isn't there.

Chaser is headquartered in the UK and serves a global customer base. The core product is excellent, but the integrations and workflows that are uniquely Australian aren't native. There's no PTRS lookup to check whether a large prospective client has a poor payment history with other suppliers. No ABN or GST verification. No Security of Payment Act wording for construction payment claims. No detection of Commonwealth government clients who qualify for 5-day payment terms under Supplier Pay On-Time policy.

For an Australian tradie, consultant, or small business owner, those features aren't edge cases — they shape which jobs you accept and how you protect cash flow before work starts.

Where Chaser is the right answer

Honest comparisons cut both ways. There are businesses where Chaser is a better fit than Unpaid, and it's worth being clear about them.

  • Multi-entity consolidation — if you operate three or more trading entities and need consolidated AR reporting across all of them in one dashboard, Chaser handles this natively. Unpaid uses one connection per account.
  • AI payment predictions — Chaser's AI forecasts when each invoice is likely to be paid, which is genuinely useful for finance teams building rolling cash-flow projections. Unpaid's AI is focused on composing each reminder email, not predicting cash-flow timing.
  • Late-fee automation — Chaser includes automated late-fee calculation and application. Unpaid doesn't currently offer this. If penalty enforcement is core to your collection strategy, Chaser fits that workflow better.
  • Dedicated finance team workflows — Chaser's case management, multi-user roles, and approval workflows are built for teams of credit-control specialists. If you have three or more people working AR full-time, those workflows save real coordination time.

Feature-by-feature: Unpaid vs Chaser

FeatureUnpaidChaser
Starting price (AUD)A$29/moA$399/mo
Mid-tier plan (AUD)A$49/moA$1,199/mo
CurrencyAUDAUD
Xero integration
QuickBooks integration
AI-written emails (not templates)
Smart reply handling
5-stage escalationCustom templates
Dispute detection
AI payment predictionsRoadmap
Multi-entity support
Late fee automation
Customer payment portal
PTRS risk checking
ABN / GST verification
Security of Payment (SOPA) tools
Built in AustraliaUK-based

Feature information gathered from public sources and may change. Verify current details on each provider's website. Chaser pricing reflects Australian-published rates as of January 2026.

Switching from Chaser to Unpaid

Both products read invoice data directly from your accounting provider, so there's no data migration, no historical export, and no risk of losing your AR history. The change is essentially a re-pointing of which tool runs the reminder sequences.

  1. Pause automated sequences in Chaser. Keep the account open and active during the transition.
  2. Connect Unpaid to your accounting provider. Sign in at getunpaid.io, authorise Xero or QuickBooks, and your customer list and outstanding invoices sync within a few minutes.
  3. Configure the escalation schedule. Unpaid's default is 5 stages over day 3, 7, 14, 21, and 30. Adjust the cadence if you prefer something less or more frequent.
  4. Approve the first AI-composed email. Unpaid holds the first reminder for your review before sending. Read it, tweak the tone if needed, and approve.
  5. Cancel Chaser after a week of parallel running. Once you've watched a handful of customers move through Unpaid's sequence and are comfortable with the output, cancel the Chaser subscription.

Most operators complete the switch in under a week. The savings are immediate — A$370/month from day one of the cancellation.

Common questions

Why is Chaser so much more expensive than Unpaid?

Chaser is built for mid-market and enterprise finance teams. Its entry plan starts at A$399/month and the Core plan is A$1,199/month. That pricing reflects depth — multi-entity support, advanced AI payment predictions, comprehensive credit-control workflows, and integrations across multiple accounting systems. Unpaid is built for Australian small businesses. The feature set is narrower in deliberate places (no multi-entity consolidation, no late-fee engine), but the cost is roughly 1/14th of Chaser's entry plan. If you don't need Chaser's enterprise depth, you're paying for capacity you'll never use.

Is Unpaid as capable as Chaser?

For a small business with one entity, between 10 and 500 outstanding invoices a month, and no dedicated finance team — yes, Unpaid covers the same essential workflow. Both connect to Xero or QuickBooks, both run automated escalation sequences, both have customer payment portals, and both pause reminders when a customer replies. The differences sit at the edges: Chaser handles multi-entity consolidation and late-fee automation that Unpaid doesn't; Unpaid uses AI to compose each email individually and includes Australian-specific risk and compliance tools that Chaser doesn't.

What does Chaser's AI actually do?

Chaser's AI focuses on payment predictions — analysing customer behaviour to forecast when an invoice is likely to be paid. It's useful for finance teams building cash-flow forecasts. Chaser's reminder emails themselves are template-based, with optional AI rewording on higher plans. Unpaid takes a different approach: Claude AI composes each reminder email from scratch every time, drawing on the customer's history and the escalation stage. The two AI approaches solve different problems — Chaser's predicts cash flow, Unpaid's writes the human conversation.

Can Unpaid handle multiple companies or trading entities?

Unpaid currently supports one accounting connection per user account. If you operate two or three trading entities through separate Xero or QuickBooks files, you'd need separate Unpaid accounts (at A$29/month each that's still under A$100/month total versus A$399 for one Chaser plan). For more complex group structures with consolidated reporting requirements, Chaser's multi-entity functionality is genuinely the better fit.

Does Unpaid have late-fee automation?

Not yet. Chaser includes automated late-fee calculation and application as part of its standard offering. Unpaid's current focus is on getting paid through better communication rather than penalty enforcement — the philosophy being that an AI-written, well-timed reminder gets more invoices paid faster than a late fee that customers often contest. That said, if late-fee enforcement is core to your collection process, Chaser or PaidNice is a closer fit on that one feature.

How long does it take to switch from Chaser to Unpaid?

Setup is under 10 minutes. Both Chaser and Unpaid read invoice data directly from Xero or QuickBooks rather than holding their own copy, so there's no data migration step. Pause Chaser's automated reminders, connect Unpaid to your accounting provider, review the first reminder before it sends, and you're operational. Most operators run both in parallel for a week before cancelling Chaser to confirm the new sequences are sending correctly.

Try Unpaid free for 14 days

A$29/month Starter. AI-written reminders. PTRS and ABN checks built in. Keep Chaser running in parallel while you evaluate — you can switch entirely when you're sure.