Maxio vs. Zuora

SaaSOptics is awesome for growing companies that want to automate their invoicing. I like that it is also aimed at subscription based sales structures rather than sales that occur at a single point in time (but has the ability to support both). SaaSOptics makes it super easy to keep track of subscriptions, renewals, co-terms, etc. The reporting is a great feature, but we are unable to use most of the reports as we are a cash-based accounting firm. SO caters to accrual accounting and GAAP compliant firms which makes sense as it is the most commonly accepted accounting basis here in the US, but many small SaaS start-ups are still operating on cash basis. We are one of those companies, so we are able to get a ton of use out of the invoicing side of things, a lot of the reports are useless for us. We also wish SO had a commission module since we already integrate our CRM and accounting softwares into it, but that is not a make it or break it for us. We love the time SO has saved us.

Incentivized

If your company processes a large volume of transactions, Zuora is well-suited for you. In addition, if you need to make changes to subscriptions to your customers frequently or track usage in order to bill clients, Zuora has the capability to do so. If your company goes through any kind of audits, Zuora's audit log may come in handy. Zuora does cost quite a bit so if your company doesn't process a large volume of transactions or make many changes to subscriptions, it may not be worth the investment.

Incentivized

• Chargify's API is solid and easy to use, including JSON and XML interfaces.
• Chargify's customer service is responsive and thorough; always making sure your needs as a customer are met.
• Chargify listens to its customer base and their suggestions for feature enhancements.

Incentivized

• Flexibility with the product catalog. Once you understand the product catalog and its capabilities, the possibilities are endless. You are able to spin up new products quickly and test new ideas with minimal development time.
• API focus. Zuora API focus allows us to step away from the Zuora UI and build our own platform over the top of Zuora reducing ambiguity for our customers and team
• Constant upgrades - Zuora is continually adding to its product and listening to its customers to build a product that is leading the way in the subscription economy

• We have contracts that are 12 months long but customers pay monthly. When terms change (raise or lower price) mid contract, changes are not easy.
• AR collection was an issue. However, SaaSOptics just released a report to track outstanding invoices and it works great.
• Integration with QuickBooks is OK but it isn't straightforward to issue a credit memo for a particular customer.

Incentivized

• The user interface is a disaster. There are many things that make no sense, such as clicking on a hyperlinked Subscription number that takes you to an invoice instead of the subscription.
• Extremely limited customization capability to improve poor UI
• Searching/reporting is very weak and difficult to use. The format of exported data is at least different than what many other systems tend to use. I find it unintuitive and difficult to manipulate or perform tasks such as vlookups and filtering; perhaps it's really smart and I just don't get it
• The concept of a credit memo does not exist...yet. They keep promising it but have not delivered. Their solution has been Invoice Adjustments and Invoice Item Adjustments, which at least don't make sense for my business.

Incentivized

They are a crucial piece of what we do. We hope to have them as a vendor for a long time to come.

Our business is now, more than ever, focused on our core business rather than homegrown support tools for quoting, contracts, billing, invoicing, payments and the rest of the subscription economy. We evaluated other solutions and found this the best and most viable solution given the strong ties to Salesforce and it's integration. Zuora works, and it works well.

I had 20+ years of accounting experience before taking on the revenue role. I had several things to [learn] but was able to easily master the software in a matter of weeks. Zuora is our preferred billing platform that we currently use - very efficient and much more automated than our other platform/process.

Incentivized

There have only been a few days/instances in the past 2.5 years of using zuora that I, personally have had issues or been notified of issues relating to Zuora.

Incentivized

Zuora does a superb job for all the tasks I use it for. Billing - it is trustworthy and accurate. Customer data- it holds it and keeps past records for even cancelled accounts, and subscription builds - it has the ability to make very difficult subscriptions seem easy.

Incentivized

They are willing to help with most challenges and are pretty easy to get ahold of by phone. They are limited in their reach, when it comes to bulk cancellations, along with some other bulk edits. It is no fault to them, Chargify is just a system that hasn’t been upgraded much over the years.

Incentivized

A support request is emailed to their support team, then an automated response is sent to you in a couple hours saying "Hey, someone will take a look at your support request soon". Then somewhere around 12-18 hours later, an actual support member responds with "Have you checked out our tutorials? Here's one that sounds like it might help you". I don't want a tutorial given to me that I've already read through that only exists because of the terrible user design of Zuora's user interface

Incentivized

The onsite was so helpful and worth the hours spent. All three people that came to represent Zuora had a lot to offer.

Incentivized

It was reliable.

Incentivized

I think Zuora did a great job. However, they could have provided more guidance on how to deal with out Payment Gateway and Processor provider, as well as guidance around providing a Mobile Responsive experience for sites using the Zuora HPM.

Incentivized

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."

Zuora provides way more functionality than Recurly or SaaSOptics as a billing engine. However, it is not a general ledger system like NetSuite ERP, it is still designed to be primarily a billing function that feeds into a general ledger via automated general entries. It has simplified our invoice management and automated billing while connecting with Salesforce for high-powered reporting and cross-departmental collaboration. The automation of revenue recognition has the potential to significantly reduce the time spent on accounting close by a few days.

Incentivized

The product is capable of a lot, small companies and large companies can utilize it with ease

Incentivized

• SaaSOptics has helped decrease the time spent on month-end. Their reporting is always accurate and reconciling deferred revenue is no longer a headache.
• Increased accuracy in billing which has decreased the amount of invoice inquiries by our clients.
• Sped up the quote-to-cash process with Salesforce.com and Stripe integration. Sales orders are processed faster and customers are utilizing "buttons" on invoices to submit payment details.
• Increased our ability to stay on top of past due invoices with new collections module.
• The metrics in SaaSOptics has improved financial presentations by providing more insight into our business.

Incentivized

• Positive impact: we're able to invoice our customers timely and correctly.
• Positive impact: recurring payments are simple and accurate.
• Negative impact: Zuora and the Customer Management System that my organization use are no longer integrated because of some issues in the past with double billing and things of that nature.

Incentivized