Choosing The Right Software For Your Subscription Business

GoRecurring 27 March 2023
Laptop with hands and software

For many businesses, setting up a subscription-based business model for the first time is easier said than done. Behind the consistency and simplicity of regular, recurring payments lies a complex system of integrations which have an impact across your entire enterprise, from finance to IT. 

With recurring revenue at the heart of what you do, you need a reliable software solution that can support your subscription-based offering, from launch right through to optimization, scaling, and leading the market. 

Subscription Factory offers best-in-class consultancy services for implementing the monetization platform Zuora across a range of industries and use cases. Founder Timo Zuidgeest explains why he believes Zuora gives companies the best platform for their subscription business.

What Is Zuora?

Zuora is a unified platform for handling the complexities of a recurring revenue business. The Zuora suite of products gives companies all the functionality they need to set up, optimize, and scale their subscription business. From managing subscriptions and consumption to pricing strategies and revenue recognition, Zuora can take care of the technical details, so you can focus on delivering a great product or service.    

Why Choose Zuora?

There’s no question that the market for subscription management software is growing, with increasing numbers of vendors entering the market. As the number of choices expands, it can become increasingly difficult to determine the right choice for your business.

With over 30 subscription management platforms now available, vendors are increasingly niching down to differentiate themselves in a competitive market. That means some platforms can only handle certain types of recurring revenue having limited compatibility with different payment methods, and functionality.    

Zuora has been a market leader for over a decade, and first came about to meet the needs of subscription businesses who were stuck using financial software designed for traditional transactional billing, and unable to find suitable software to handle recurring revenue. 

The market is maturing, but the advantage of Zuora is that it has a suite of software to support the ever-changing needs of your subscription business. Here are three key features:

  • Zuora Billing: Helps you easily launch new pricing models, and simplifying your billing operations across multiple territories. 
  • Zuora Revenue: Automates revenue recognition and enables companies to close the book quicker, as well as reducing human errors. 
  • Zuora Collect: Connects companies with over 35 global payment gateways, helps them increase recovery rate and minimize passive churn.

Getting It Right

The way you set up business infrastructure for a subscription model depends on the type of product or service you offer. For instance, you might need to handle subscriptions from multiple international currencies, and accept multiple payment types. This then has a direct impact, not only on your finance team, but also every other department in your organization.

For example, for traditional business moving into the subscription economy, there can be a steep learning curve for salespeople used to selling on a single, transactional basis. With recurring revenue, salespeople need to maintain an ongoing customer relationship because if the customer churns, so does their monthly commission. 

A subscription management platform is an important piece of the recurring revenue model, but success is also dependent on the right implementation. That’s something Subscription Factory can help you with –  we’re a Zuora Partner with over a decade of experience.