Maxio

Formerly Chargify + SaaSOptics

Maxio (via information we found on their website and in the initial sales call) seemed like the most comprehensive fit at the time and we liked the interface. We eventually found out that there was a massive gap between what was promised us and what was actually delivered. Below is an excerpt to an email that we sent to the technical solutions consultant and sales rep three months after purchase:

"I am, however, frustrated that a solution promised in the demo call ended up being a solution that was so cumbersome that 1) no one knew how to implement it except [tech consultant], who I was never able to get ahold of 2) it delayed our launch by two months and resulted in real frustration for my team and thousands of dollars in lost revenue and 3) brought more effort and annoyance to our customers than we were anticipating. I'm bringing this to your attention because I strongly feel that there has been a discrepancy between possible solutions and actual solutions. It is frustrating to make a purchase decision based on features discussed during a demo call, develop a plan of action based on what was discussed, and then have to iterate for months on end. It is also frustrating to hear that something is an "easy" solution by one team member and then hear it is "difficult and not recommended" by another."

I inherited SaaSOptics from several predecessors that worked on it before me. I believe they used Chargebee or Chargify before SaaSOptics, but I haven't used them. I pray that the market comes up with a better product for subscription revenue management, SaaS metric reporting, and financial projections. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or the team to be able to successfully complete the transition to new software at this time, so I feel like I'm stuck with SaaSOptics at this point.

QuickBooks is what we originally used for invoicing, but we outgrew that and it was taking up a lot of time to manually create invoices. We also were tracking invoicing on an Excel spreadsheet for 500 customers, so there was a lot of room for error. SaaSOptics eliminated these problems by automating invoice creation so now sending them is just a click of a button, and it keeps track of the subscription renewals. Now the clunky spreadsheets just serve as an audit resource to SO.

SaaSOptics was all that I looked into.

The reporting is better than what I've used in other products. I have been very impressed with the range and availability of the metrics. It's been a few years since I used Recurly regularly, but I have no need to look elsewhere for billing management needs after working with SaaSOptics.

Chargify is easier to use and manage. The Achilles heel is the 3rd-party integrations, where the options are limited. If managing a few products or businesses, this can be the more ideal option. WooCommerce has easy integration with WordPress but it requires the help of developers to maintain.

We did not evaluate other options. We decided to go with Chargify based on the ease of use and the ability to have multiple sites within one account. It accomplished what we needed to and for a price that was within our budget. At the time, Chargify was a great fit and we decided we didn't need to spend any more time looking because we needed to get a system in place. The billing moved from our platform to a third party.

The other products (QuickBooks and Salesforce) are complementary to SaaSOptics. I have not used any products that compete directly with SaaSOptics although I understand there are several out there.

I researched other options for Revenue Recognition, but SaaS integrates with QB Desktop, was reasonably priced and met all of our objectives.

Insight Squared did not integrate with HubSpot which is what we use as our CRM. We chose SaaSOptics because it offered GAAP compliant revenue recognition, great reporting, and the user experience quality was high.

We had no other products at the time of the SaaSOptics selection.

Zuora is a B2C subscription billing system best used for companies like Netflix. For a B2B company, the sales process can be much more complex and Zuora was never able to handle that. For the 2 years we struggled with Zuora (now referred to the dark ages within our company) we had limited access to knowledgeable support reps who understood the system and accounting/finance. Zuora did not integrate with our GL system, so only summary level data was available, which made reconciling a pain. The reporting never matched up and we had to hire a resource to go through all historical transactions to find the errors. Once SaaSOptics was implemented, it has immediately improved our ability to close our financials in a timely manner. In addition to that, their support team is the best that I've worked with across all vendors. After dealing with Zuora, we spent at least 6 months evaluating SaaSOptics to Zuora and other systems. They convinced us that they were what we needed in order to finally have accurate revenue data. Overall, we selected SaaSOptics because their system is designed for B2B, integrates with our CRM and integrates with our GL, syncing important customer level invoice data.

We evaluated Recurly early on but rejected it because at the time it did not support the payment gateway we needed, and lacked some metered billing stuff that we needed. I understand they now have improved, but we did not go back to re-try them.

We evaluated several recurring billing services - but Chargify was the only one we found that supported our current merchant portal. They had the widest selection of merchant portals - and the most competitive service fees.

I haven't used anything other than Chargify.

I was not part of the decision to select Chargify.

We previously used another recurring processor. Although their product worked well and was much cheaper, their customer service became increasingly less responsive. Chargify's API is equally easy to implement as our previous recurring payment processor..

When we were looking we did not find any alternatives that could stack up against Chargify.

Chargify met a list of set requirements and our budget at the time. The main items were:

1. Salesforce integration
2. Payment gateway support
3. Billing portal / self service
4. Strong API
5. Tax invoice support
6. Multi country and multi currency support

Pricing ends up being pretty close across the board with their main competitors. What it came down to for us is having a vendor that went the extra mile and we felt that Chagify met that and they have exceeded that expectation.