Estimated learn time: 16 minutes, 20 seconds
Shifting some, all, or just extra of your software program choices from a one-time perpetual license mannequin to a software program as a service (SaaS) subscription mannequin will be daunting, however it’s so highly effective for constructing reliable, recurring income. If your organization is contemplating making a SaaS transition, Brad Sams of Stardock is aware of what you’re going by means of.
Because the VP and Basic Supervisor of the Stardock Software program division, Brad led his staff by means of this course of and has realized some invaluable classes about doing it as strategically and simply as potential.
FastSpring is proud to have been an enormous a part of supporting that course of for Stardock, and Brad had some nice issues to say about how simple we made it for them. We requested him to share his course of suggestions for anybody who is perhaps contemplating or actively planning the identical transition themselves.
Listed below are Brad’s prime suggestions:
Are you on the lookout for a service provider of file that may companion with you to develop your SaaS enterprise? FastSpring supplies an all-in-one fee platform for SaaS, software program, online game, and different digital items companies, together with subscription administration, fee localization, VAT and gross sales tax administration, client assist, and extra. Arrange a demo or attempt it out for your self.
5 Suggestions for Making the SaaS Transition Simpler
1. Select FastSpring for Subscription Infrastructure and Lengthy-Time period Partnership
Stardock Software program first began utilizing FastSpring in 2018 to assist them promote their software program merchandise, they usually’d all the time had a comparatively good expertise with how FastSpring handles gross sales of one-time software program purchases.
Fortunately, FastSpring was capable of make the transition to subscriptions very optimistic, too — about so simple as changing a number of SKUs on their web site (extra on that beneath).
This was a aid, for the reason that expertise behind subscription administration for software program purchases can get very complicated in a short time, with many situations that should be accounted for and a number of technological parts that should be coated.
“Most individuals wouldn’t take into consideration all of the intricacies that need to occur” when switching from a single transaction to a subscription, Brad explains. “For instance, you could have a product that was beforehand bought as soon as, and it labored endlessly. Now you instantly buy a product, and it has a time field on it that’s tied to a subscription — which implies that product now has to cease working if a person stops paying for it. In order that will get complicated. After which, what do you do in the event that they’re offline? What do you do in all these completely different situations? There’s an actual dividing line right here, which is the place FastSpring got here in.”
When Brad and his staff began planning to check the SaaS enterprise mannequin in spring of 2023, figuring out that FastSpring already had the infrastructure to assist subscription gross sales meant that Stardock Software program didn’t must construct their very own, seek for a specialty device or service, or fear about that half in any respect, actually.
“The worst factor that may occur is, you make the swap to subscription, after which your expertise fails to make the swap successfully. And we have been solely ready to do that as a result of we had confidence that FastSpring’s subscription mannequin would assist our endeavors.”
“We have been solely ready to do that as a result of we had confidence that FastSpring’s subscription mannequin would assist our endeavors.”
FastSpring is proud to have been a key a part of Stardock’s enterprise ecosystem as they tackled an initiative that’s driving main development for his or her enterprise.
Select a Associate Making the Similar Investments In Subscription Administration
Brad admits that Stardock will all the time be ready that retains them from being “married to any single vendor,” they usually know FastSpring isn’t the one service provider of file or subscription administration device available on the market.
“However on the similar time,” he explains, “we knew that with transferring to a subscription mannequin, we needed to wager on a companion who was making the identical stage of investments that we have been making. And the conclusion was that FastSpring was on that path of continued funding and wasn’t simply amassing the paycheck each month and doing nothing.”
“We needed to wager on a companion who was making the identical stage of investments that we have been making.”
Brad was capable of see the place FastSpring was making these investments, as product updates rolled out and as future timelines and roadmaps have been shared with Stardock by their Buyer Success Supervisor, Danica. He says that helps, as a result of “it’s like, ‘Okay, if we’re going to go subscription (which once more, ratchets up the stickiness issue for FastSpring), then we’ve received to verify FastSpring goes to be right here for the long term, too.’”
Brad went on to explain Stardock’s relationship with FastSpring as “symbiotic.” “As a result of the higher we do, the higher FastSpring goes to do. We’ve received to guarantee that all people’s profitable, and issues with FastSpring simply felt aligned.”
Let FastSpring Deal with the Subscription Infrastructure
“You will have two technical parts to this,” Brad clarifies. “You will have the subscription aspect (the precise monetary transaction that should happen), and the mechanism that retains that data up to date. And then you definately even have the precise app itself. So that is the place we actually began getting deep into FastSpring, as a result of FastSpring already had the subscription parts.”
As a result of Stardock and FastSpring have been rising collectively by means of this subscription expertise journey, Brad noticed FastSpring’s earlier iterations of the subscription administration instruments. That was already sufficient to make switching on subscriptions a a lot easier course of than it will have been with out FastSpring.
“On the time, it was a bit of extra naked bones, however it had the infrastructure in place to truly permit us to do that. As a result of on the finish of the day, you possibly can’t simply activate a subscription — the entire plumbing pipeline needs to be there,” he reiterates. “And so we related with FastSpring, defined our situation, they helped us with the documentation and helped us work by means of some edge instances, after which we have been capable of wire it up by means of already deployed FastSpring infrastructure on our finish.”
This turned out to be about so simple as establishing a brand new product SKU on their web site that was marked as a subscription, outlining the attributes of the subscription (of their case, annual versus month-to-month), and setting the value on the product. “There are a number of different choices in there,” Brad says, “like, ‘How do you wish to talk to the client that issues are about to resume?,’” however it was general a easy course of.
“Nothing in life at this magnitude is painless, however it was capable of be performed comparatively shortly to pivot our enterprise from a modeling perspective,” he assures us. “And that was the most important worth unlock: that we didn’t need to undergo and reinvent the wheel on subscriptions for our versatile storefront on the finish of the day.”
“That was the most important worth unlock: that we didn’t need to undergo and reinvent the wheel on subscriptions for our versatile storefront on the finish of the day.”
FastSpring’s subscription administration options embody:
- Trial administration (with or with out fee technique, and free or paid trials).
- Recurring fee processing.
- Plan administration instruments for companies or their clients to handle the small print of their subscriptions.
- A subscription overview dashboard with insightful metrics.
- Correspondence automation.
- Churn discount and dunning administration (computerized retrying of failed renewal funds and associated e mail communications).
All of this was along with the usual options and instruments FastSpring already supplies, together with:
- International funds for simply transacting throughout borders.
- Tax compliance, embody calculation, assortment, and remittance of VAT and gross sales taxes.
- Customizable checkouts which are localized to clients and branded together with your firm branding, plus they’re accessible as embedded, popup, or a hosted FastSpring net storefront to accommodate your small business wants.
- Fraud prevention with clever alerts and fewer chargebacks.
- Reporting and analytics, together with subscription, income, and chargeback dashboards that will help you monitor recurring income out of your new subs.
- Developer instruments like a JavaScript library; FastSpring’s REST API; webhooks; and integrations and connections with third-party methods together with advertising and marketing analytics instruments, CRMs, DRMs, BI instruments, and extra.
- And rather more.
Are you on the lookout for a service provider of file that may companion with you to develop your SaaS enterprise? FastSpring supplies an all-in-one fee platform for SaaS, software program, online game, and different digital items companies, together with subscription administration, fee localization, VAT and gross sales tax administration, client assist, and extra. Arrange a demo or attempt it out for your self.
Combine Buyer-Dealing with Subscription Administration on Your Personal Web site
In addition to dealing with subscription gross sales and administration on the again finish, FastSpring additionally supplies account administration instruments for Stardock’s clients to handle their very own subscriptions on the entrance finish.
Brad recommends making the most of an embedded subscription administration portal to offer a very seamless expertise to your customers.
FastSpring’s Embedded Cost Administration Parts are an embedded same-page subscription fee administration expertise (together with including, updating, and deleting fee strategies) that allows your clients to handle their subscription fee strategies with out leaving your account administration portal.
You may create, customise (and model), embed, and take a look at the fee administration element by yourself web site to provide your clients the very best expertise potential whereas managing funds for his or her new subscriptions.
FastSpring can act as an end-to-end subscription resolution by way of our subscription API, starting from getting subscription information, updating account data, and exhibiting proration previews of estimated proposed plan adjustments to clients — all inside your portal.
2. Begin Small With an Incremental Method
FastSpring having the subscription administration expertise dealt with meant that — in addition to having the ability to deal with software program improvement as an alternative of on the tech wanted to promote their software program — Brad and his staff have been capable of deal with different nuanced sides of constructing the swap past the technical specs, similar to which merchandise they needed to change over to the subscription mannequin first.
He recommends that you simply begin small and cascade any learnings to extra merchandise as you add to your subscription choices.
“Our mannequin was ‘Begin small, danger small,’ after which ‘Transfer huge, danger huge.’ And by that point, it was now not ‘Danger huge,’ it was ‘Handle huge.’”
“Our mannequin was ‘Begin small, danger small,’ after which ‘Transfer huge, danger huge.’ And by that point, it was now not ‘Danger huge,’ it was ‘Handle huge.’”
Whereas Stardock had a number of merchandise with a number of assist add-ons already, Brad outlined that they began the subscription experiment with one assist add-on for one product, and for one particular subtype of their buyer base. “What we began with was really assist and upkeep of a particular product. For instance, we promote Fences®. Fences® sells rather a lot to enterprise clients. The place we began trialing it was, Fences® the product remained a single level of transaction, however we launched an possibility that might can help you buy annualized subscription upkeep and assist for a decreased price.”
Basically, you possibly can apply a number of filters to your merchandise, add-ons, and person varieties to get a comparatively small experimental group. “We simply began on one specific product that we knew offered in quantity with one specific situation, which was solely enterprise, after which one specific kind of buyer who’s like, ‘I’ll take the low cost for the renewal.’”
When you begin to see these first subscriptions start to stream in, you possibly can gauge whether or not it’s flowing as anticipated and make changes as wanted, Brad says. “You examine and distinction, like, ‘How many individuals are selecting the subscription?’ And then you definately simply amplify issues up. You go to a different product, and go to a different product. And then you definately attempt a major product. And then you definately attempt the large suite,” which for Stardock is Object Desktop™, containing all of their apps. “That was the large switchover as soon as we had confidence.”
Beginning small helped Stardock keep away from any massive upfront dangers as they started testing the advantages of SaaS.
3. Talk Incessantly and Clearly With Clients
Speaking enterprise mannequin and/or supply mannequin adjustments to your clients could be a actual battle, they usually can vastly have an effect on the person’s expertise and relationship together with your firm and your product. Brad recommends you set numerous technique and care into how and once you announce upcoming adjustments.
“It distills down into lowering danger, not from a expertise perspective, however from a communication points perspective. There’s no technique to mitigate all potential communication points, and advertising and marketing is all the time the very last thing you set out,” he says.
“It distills down into lowering danger, not from a expertise perspective, however from a communication points perspective.”
“There are numerous challenges from the attitude of promoting, communication, educating the top person, unlocking worth, and creating expectations that what you’re doing is healthier for everyone concerned,” Brad outlined. “As a result of it’s very easy for folks to listen to ‘subscriptions’ and suppose, ‘Oh, the enterprise simply needs to suck more cash out of us.’ And that’s not the trail we tried to take, however that’s all the time the narrative that’s going to be pushed, from a shopper perspective, onto you.”
Brad additional explains that “Anytime you progress anyone’s cheese, they get actually upset. Individuals will say, ‘I’ve been a buyer for 20 years, and instantly you’re altering your small business mannequin! Why are you doing that? Is it since you hate cash?,’” he quotes, implying that clients might threaten to cease utilizing the product.
He says challenges like these are evergreen and can proceed to come back up, so being proactive about speaking adjustments is vital to working by means of the change together with your clients, particularly long-term ones.
Stardock’s “Begin small, danger small; transfer huge, handle huge” rollout mannequin actually utilized to buyer communications.
“If you happen to attempt to exit the gate with a very excessive worth, then the advertising and marketing messaging should actually be on level to the greenback worth you’re attempting to cost on your SaaS service or product.”
However since Stardock had began their SaaS transition with a small subset of merchandise, they have been capable of take a look at communications and consider buyer suggestions in a really manageable pipeline earlier than transitioning to their bigger core merchandise. “As a result of as soon as you set your core product on the market in that mannequin, the quantity of inbound communications you get is a lot,” Brad tells us. “And to attempt to handle that, we would have liked to be ready.”
These inbounds from clients can come from anyplace, he says. “From each potential path — you get it out of your boards, you get it by means of e mail, you get it by means of social media, you get it by means of telephone calls, you get it in all places, as a result of individuals are attempting to determine what you’re doing. And also you study actual fast — and I imply actual fast — the place your communication wasn’t clear or efficient.”
However due to the small-to-big transition plan, these learnings get utilized to the subsequent bigger product you roll out on subscription, and the communication bumps you might expertise at first are solely with a comparatively small subset of consumers. For the subsequent spherical, now you recognize the place, when, and the way extra communications should be posted.
4. Put together for Renewals With Worth-Provides to Assist Scale back Churn
As a result of Stardock opted to supply their subscription software program on an annual pricing mannequin as an alternative of month-to-month — and since they launched subscriptions a bit of underneath a 12 months in the past, not simply to new clients but in addition to all current clients on the similar time — Stardock’s first huge renewal interval is but to occur. Nevertheless it’s shortly approaching.
“For us, the large query for 2024 will be summed up in a single phrase: churn,” Brad explains. “We’ve expectations and a few modeling that counsel the place issues ought to land. However this would be the 12 months for us to find out how we method subscriptions going for 12 months two and successfully past.”
Regardless of the chance for churn, he says they really feel they’ve added numerous worth to their SaaS merchandise. In addition to having FastSpring’s retention-supporting options similar to churn lowering dunning administration as a part of their tech stack, Stardock is releasing new apps and providers for his or her subscription merchandise so as to add to the actual and perceived worth of their merchandise to clients. “We’ve tried to extend the worth from our perspective, and we’re going to study actual fast whether or not or not we’ve elevated the worth from the person perspective.”
5. Design the Transition Plan That’s Proper for Your Firm
Again when Stardock had begun planning a SaaS transition for his or her merchandise, Brad says they heard a number of various things throughout the trade concerning the completely finest technique to do it. One notably frequent piece of recommendation was to “go chilly turkey” and launch every part as SaaS suddenly.
“One of the simplest ways I can describe my job is attempting to resolve what recommendation is dangerous recommendation,” he advised us. “And I might say that was dangerous recommendation.”
That tough-won sense of discernment is how Brad and Stardock landed on the small-to-big rollout plan, which actually labored nicely for them.
However he recommends that any software program firm evaluating if and methods to make the swap to SaaS ought to resolve what’s finest for their very own firm, with out simply listening to the loudest chatter within the trade.
“Each firm is exclusive in what their clientele will count on and/or tolerate.”
“There was no firm that we talked to who had gone by means of related issues, that had the identical expertise as us, and no one after us will, both,” Brad assures us. “Each firm is exclusive in what their clientele will count on and/or tolerate.”
Associate With FastSpring
Able to discover how your SaaS or software program enterprise can profit from FastSpring’s continued dedication to subscription administration product improvement?
FastSpring is a service provider of file that gives an all-in-one fee platform for SaaS, software program, online game, and different digital merchandise companies, together with subscription administration, international funds, fraud prevention, VAT and gross sales tax administration, client assist, and a lot extra.
Arrange a demo or enroll to take a look at the platform your self.
Associated Studying
Katie Stephan
Katie Stephan is the Senior Content material Strategist at FastSpring. In addition to her in depth advertising and marketing expertise, she has an MFA in inventive nonfiction writing and has served her native communities as a school writing teacher.
