Zuora.com - Transforming Subscription Based Business

Zuora, an SaaS company run by veterans of WebEx and SalesForce, is looking to be the next big thing in online billing. While it’s not an exactly revolutionary, Zuora is generating its own little buzz storm. The company aims to transform subscription businesses by eliminating their need to support their own billing system. To do this, they’ve created the ‘Z-Billing Platform’ which handles billing operations, customer subscriptions and product catalogs. Z-Billing can be scaled to fit high growth companies and any number of pricing models. Users can manage their accounts within one single interface. Zuora offers the platform on-demand; customers simply need to integrate their existing billing information into their Zuora accounts. Zuora will take 2% of all invoiced amounts. The amount decreases with larger payments. At the moment, six clients have already signed up.

“Built from the ground up by SaaS industry visionaries and veterans from salesforce.com, WebEx, Accenture, Postini (now Google), and Oracle, Zuora is 100% focused on building the world’s first platform for subscriptions businesses.

A new business model is emerging on the Internet, comparable to PayPal, Amazon, and Google. PayPal automated online payments, Amazon simplified online commerce, and Google democratized online advertisements, but the world still needs a way to run a subscription business online. Zuora’s vision is to make it easy for every company to run their business like salesforce.com.”

Zuora brings ease and flexibility to subscription based businesses. Its Z-Billing platform makes managing customer accounts, disparate pricing levels and payments much simpler. Businesses are better able to manage their finances, gain visibility and market quickly. What’s more, Zuora has a team of experienced industry leaders backing it.

How easy is it to integrate this with your existing inventory, customer, accounting and banking databases? Is this actually a 2.0 startup worth watching or has it been done before?