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Scout Young's headshot
Scout Young CFO

Zuora vs TRACT by Transverse - what are the comparative pros and cons of each for subscription or activity-based billing?

Asked on Sept. 6, 2013

Zuora vs TRACTI'm advising a small company ($10m) that offers both a subscription software platform (with a multitude of options) and still more options for various add-on services. The services may be one time or ongoing (e.g. support), which is changeable to different levels of service and functionality.

I'm looking at both TRACT and Zuora as a way to handle the subscription plus activity-based billing aspect of it.

I'm concerned with implementation, training, and of course costs vs benefits.

Would appreciate any thoughts you have on the subject in general and these company/products in particular. I feel like I have it narrowed down to these two. It would be great to get some insight from both users of these products and folks who have confronted similiar challenges.

Thanks!

Answers

Sarah Jackson's headshot
Sarah Jackson Associate Editor • April 26, 2013

Good question, Scout.

I found these two free white papers for you in Proformative's library:

"Generating New Revenues: The Rise of Activity-Based Billing Models"

https://www.proformative.com/whitepapers/generating-new-revenues-rise-activity-based-billing-models-0?pf_source=sj-zuora-vs-tract

and...

"Managing Revenue in the Subscription Economy"

https://www.proformative.com/whitepapers/managing-revenue-subscription-economy-0?pf_source=sj-zuora-vs-tract

That should shed some light on those two products and the bigger picture as well.

Best... Sarah

Anonymous's headshot
Anonymous Manager • April 26, 2013

Thanks!

James Ganley's headshot
James Ganley Chief Accounting Officer • April 26, 2013

Scout,

The hosting company that I joined a few months ago implemented Zuora 3 years ago when it was under $5 mil in subscription billings. There are aspects of the billing software we are very happy with (scaling up, credit card processing - API compliance) and aspects were we are having challenges with (revenue recognition).

You can contact me if you want to discuss in more detail.

Anonymous's headshot
Anonymous CFO • April 26, 2013

My wife's company just purchased recurly. According to its not as mature as zuora, but the pricing is much better, their customer experience better and their direction is what her company wanted. The downside is that it is not all there yet. maybe you should add it to your list

Anonymous's headshot
Anonymous SVP • April 26, 2013

We implemented Zuora and we were not happy with the A/R and revenue recognition functions. The other aspects were fine. The Zuora price tag is high so do makes sure you know you will get the usage to warrant the purchase.

Rick K's headshot
Rick K Owner/ General Partner • April 26, 2013

We are a VOIP based telecommunications company servicing customers throughout the US. We started using TRACT by Transverse about 18 months ago. Over all we've been very pleased with the service and their engineers are very responsive when we need assistance. The engineers at Transverse were very proactive with the initial set up and training as well. If the system couldn't support the function we were trying to bill for they were able to customize their system to accommodate us. I feel Transverse’s biggest asset is their customer service.

Anonymous's headshot
Anonymous Technology Manager • May 21, 2013

When we were shopping around for subscription and activity-based billing services we looked at Zuora and a couple of their competitors. We ended up implementing Chargify about year ago now and have been happy with them. For us Zuora's price tag was too big.

Jason Mills's headshot
Jason Mills Account Executive • June 19, 2013

Scout. what thoughts did you have to share 3 months later? Curious what you found out.

Anonymous's headshot
Anonymous CEO • June 13, 2018

At my last role as VP, Finance for a growth-stage SaaS/tech company, I evaluated Recurly and Zuora side-by-side and ultimately purchased and implemented Zuora. I have not had experience with TRACT. Zuora's billing/invoicing/communication automation was nice, and their integration with Salesforce was buttoned up. However, I found issues with some of their revenue calculations, which I clearly laid out in a spreadsheet and sent to their support team. They never even responded.

I started my own SaaS company and am now using Ordway (www.ordwaylabs.com) because of price and scalability. My pricing is too complex for Stripe, but I'm not ready to pay for a Zuora or Recurly. Started using it when we were about 30 employees and are just over 100 now. They are a younger company but built a platform that offers flexibility for both simple and very complex pricing models. And I've yet to find an issue with the rev rec.

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