Comments on: Zuora Aims To Be Salesforce for Online Billing; Benioff Agrees

By: » Blog Archive » Zuora Raises Another $15 Million For Integrated Online Billing And Payment Solution

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:39:24 +0000

[...] Zuora launched its online billing solution last May, we wrote the company aims to alleviate the need for online businesses to develop their own billing systems, [...]

By: Zuora Raises Another $15 Million For Integrated Online Billing And Payment Solution

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:42:10 +0000

[...] Zuora launched its online billing solution last May, we wrote the company aims to alleviate the need for online businesses to develop their own billing systems, [...]

By: Zuora is a HardCore Google Apps User | Startup Wire

Zuora is a HardCore Google Apps User | Startup Wire — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:35:42 +0000

[...] Seattle, Phoenix, and Shanghai. We’re a technology company, TechCrunch calls us "The Salesforce of Online Billing". We run our whole company on Google Apps, and have been since day 1. We’re on the [...]

By: On-Demand Software Integration Startup Boomi Raises $4 Million

On-Demand Software Integration Startup Boomi Raises $4 Million — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:06:28 +0000

[...] the rise of on-demand enterprise software from Salesforce.com (CRM) to Zuora (online billing), businesses using more than one service still have to figure out how to send data from one system [...]

By: Episode #13 - Mega Nostral

Episode #13 - Mega Nostral — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:36:03 +0000

[...] to Yahoo! Mail tagline advertisements MIT’s YouTomb catalogs videos yanked from YouTube Zuora, The Salesforce for Online Billing, Launches Seesmic Goes Hollywood Online Video for the Very Young – ReadWriteWeb Snackr is an RSS [...]

By: thibaud

thibaud — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:16:16 +0000

Jones #27 nails it. I think Mark’s piece would have been helped had he located the origin of the company in SF.com’s need to offer more flexible pricing than their per-seat per-usage model can afford. The founder says he’s trying to get to true utility-style metering. An interview with him (or maybe a bit more research prior to publishing…) would help clarify the confusion.

By: links for 2008-05-21 | .:: a few thoughts on the subject by rob wright ::.

links for 2008-05-21 | .:: a few thoughts on the subject by rob wright ::. — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:30:30 +0000

[...] Zuora Aims To Be Salesforce for Online Billing; Benioff Agrees Coremetrics, and IBM spin off, is one of the first customers of Zuora (tags: salesforce zuora SaaS IBM retail RIF) May 20th 2008 Posted to Links [...]

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:08:49 +0000

This is a great idea and very much needed by a lot of companies that cannot build the infrastructure in-house. However, our company is already providing a complete billing engine with a fully defined API. http://www.intrannuity.com

Our developer documentation is here: http://www.ibillingclient.org

By: Sally

Sally — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:53:32 +0000

Big deal! Another billing company.
So obvious that they’re hoping to sell off to the highest bidder and cash in their chips.
Also, I guess I’m a dip too because I thought the article had a quote as well.

Oh well!

By: Jones

Jones — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:32:37 +0000

I think what most are missing is that Zoura is not about consumer/paypal transaction processing. It is not even e-commerce transaction processing. It is about SaaS product billing & invoicing. So, Salesforce.com can offer more than a simple fixed fee, monthly subscription. WebEx.com offered per-minute pricing, monthly subscription (all you can eat) as well as per event pricing. Salesforce and other SaaS companies would love to do the same to better monetize their customer base. That way a small company that cannot affor SF.com today could use SF.com relatively cheaply and SF.com can fully monetize high value CRM customers who are transacting millions per sale. SaaS business models are unique because they **can** be charged based on usage, which implies metering how much the user is using. Rather than one gargantuan price, you can now pay as you go/use. Actually billin for this is tough stuff.

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:32:19 +0000

How is this application any different then what Freshbooks does or for that matter what Zoho Invoices does? I was hoping that when I first heard about this application a few months ago that this application would be able to integrate with a SAAS web application via an API to suspend accounts if the credit card does not process successfully (with rules defined by the owner) in specified time and or allow the customer to reactivate the account upon successfully updating their credit card. What problem is this application really solving then?

By: Benjamin Curtis

Benjamin Curtis — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:21:53 +0000

If you’d like to have SaaS billing happen on your own server, but don’t want to write the code, check out the recently-released SaaS Rails Kit: http://railskits.com/saas/

Just-add-water recurring billing code for developers building Rails apps.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:19:58 +0000

I am looking forward to this one.

————————————
Put The Message Where It Matters! WideCircles Social Advertising! http://www.widecircles.com

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:56:06 +0000

It looks like their APIs are not 100% ready to integrate with ANY other application.

Right now you are limited to sending your customer data to your SalesForce account and having SalesForce keep your Zuora account up to date. I guess that’s why Benioff is a heavy investor.

But even with that as the only option now it looks like a service worth taking a look at. Then when they get their APIs fully open you can skip the salesforce step if you don’t use salesforce to manage your CRM.

By: J. Jeffryes

J. Jeffryes — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:39:22 +0000

It offers lower fees and supplies a complete order management system? Only the comment threads on TechCrunch could label that as a guaranteed fail.

This looks like a great deal, especially for small businesses.

By: Frank Church

Frank Church — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:25:18 +0000

That’s it. Please excuse me everyone.

Hey dipshit! #20/ “Jim”- He is an investor (per crunchbase). Please try to pay attention, it really isn’t difficult.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:18:12 +0000

“Benioff agrees…”
No where in your article is he quoted.

Is SF using Zoura for the subscription billing??

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:57:40 +0000

@Frank

If that’s the case than this looks like something work taking a look at.

By: Frank Church

Frank Church — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:35:52 +0000

No, Paypal is 4.9% + $.30 (it can go as low as 1.9% if monthly charges go above US$100K, but $.30 remains). This looks like a straight percentage, no fee.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:05:08 +0000

If it’s just the 2% fee that tops Paypal which has % fee which is like 2% and I think another $.30 fee as well per transaction.

By: cedric

cedric — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:59:24 +0000

““with that percentage increasing as payments get bigger””
“Mark – I think you meant to say “decreasing”?”

The article says ‘increasing’, this must be a typo. Decreasing would make more sense.

2% commission would be ok, if it doesn’t come on top of the credit card processing fees.

By: Mark Hendrickson

Mark Hendrickson — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:55:25 +0000

@Peter – Yes I did, sorry – fixed.

By: Aydin Mirzaee

Aydin Mirzaee — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:45:29 +0000

does the 2% fee actually include the credit card fee?

[Note to company reps: please message me on Facebook to contact me]

By: Peter Laird

Peter Laird — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:23:34 +0000

“with that percentage increasing as payments get bigger”

Mark – I think you meant to say “decreasing”?

By: LKern

LKern — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:41:41 +0000

TC should focus on real good startups not on crappy web 1.0 wanna be 2.0ish stuff.