Revstream has a new offering for SaaS providers and subscription-based companies that takes into account the dynamics of managing cloud services as compared to traditional software billing.
The new service, Revstream Cloud, is a SaaS that simplifies billing with business logic that’s not possible with traditional billing software. It stands in contrast to the company’s Revstream Revenue Manager software that is on-premise and built for order-centric processing that enterprise software companies use to manage traditional licensing environments.
On the face of it, cloud services look relatively simple to manage. People subscribe and that’s pretty much it. But there are lots of issues to manage, such as chargebacks, upgrades, downgrades, add-ons and cancellations. If a company decides to use traditional software, this becomes a complex and expensive task. Software billing is different. The customer hosts the software and usually pays an annual maintenance fee.
Revstream has traditionally offered on-premise software that a customer loads on its own servers. The new service, Revstream Cloud, is a SaaS service that simplifies billing with business logic that’s not possible with traditional billing software. It stands in contrast to the company’s Revstream Revenue Manager software that is on-premise and built for order-centric processing that enterprise software companies use to manage traditional licensing environments.
Revstream is built on the Force.com platform and based on Revstream’s Revenue Manager technology.
Most small companies tend to use spreadsheets and software tools, such as Quicken that are not designed for subscription services. Revstream bases its service on the amount of revenue a company processes. It integrates with existing billing software.
Here’s a view of the Revstream cloud dashboard:
In the view below, a SaaS customer can see its recurring revenues:
The Revstream cloud has real value for startups, as it automates much of what has been a manual task for SaaS providers. But Revstream’s biggest challenge is its competition: Softrax, Leeyo and Zuora. These are all established players, the most formidable of which being Zuora whose customers include CollabbNet and Box.com.