Case Study: Business Services
Tidelift Streamlines Quote-to-Cash Process for B2B SaaS
Native HubSpot integration creates a seamless order-to-revenue flow and powers SaaS subscription management.
The client
Tidelift, a Netflix for Open Source, is redefining how software developers manage and secure open source
Boston-based software company Tidelift enables customers to accelerate app development with catalogs of proactively maintained open source components, backed by maintainers. A Tidelift subscription includes all of the tools businesses need to efficiently track and manage open source across their organization.
This relationship with open source maintainers is a core piece of the Tidelift offering. Tidelift pays a revenue share to these individuals and small teams based on the dollars that they are able to bill and collect from their customers. The unique revenue share component of the Tidelift business model necessitated a SaaS subscription billing system that could handle complexity and change with ease.
The challenge
Complex contracts and Chargebee caused countless hours of manual billing work and internal friction
Tidelift’s land and expand sales strategy required a billing system that could easily handle contract changes and upgrades throughout the course of the customer lifecycle. Their business dictates bespoke recurring subscriptions with many mid-contract changes. Their legacy billing process rigid was unable to absorb this added layer of complexity without tedious manual intervention for the Tidelift sales and finance teams. This left them in a constant struggle to structure customer contracts and associated billings.
The Tidelift team needed a way align their ability to bill customers with the way customers want to buy.
”“Our customers are large organizations with certain processes or certain ways of buying. And our previous solution [Chargebee] made it difficult. It often felt like we were trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and having to bend the buying process to satisfy the billing system,”
Brian WeisbergHead of Finance and Business Operations at Tidelift
The solution
Seamless CRM (HubSpot Sales) to billing workflow reduces need for additional headcount
- Flexibility to support Tidelift’s unique billing and contract structure requirements
- Ordway team’s comprehensive understanding of B2B enterprise SaaS
- Infrastructure for current and future rev-share with open-source maintainers
- Support throughout implementation and an attitude of “listening over selling”
With Ordway streamlining Tidelift’s sales-to-finance workflow, converting new deals into recurring revenue now only requires a few clicks of a button.
The direct integration between Ordway and HubSpot means customer contract data flows seamlessly between systems via API and webhooks. And the Ordway automated billing software reduces the need for Tidelift to hire additional full-time equivalent (FTE) employees just to run billing operations.
Seamless HubSpot CRM Integration
“Everyone seems to integrate with Salesforce these days, but not everyone integrates with HubSpot,” said Weisberg. “So the fact that Ordway has a HubSpot integration is one, and two, coming back to the fact that Ordway is really the only billing system I’ve found that supports the enterprise or B2B SaaS sales motion. So they’re really the only option.”
Rather than cobbling together an order-to-revenue flow with their HubSpot CRM and an iPaaS system like Zapier or Workato, Tidelift relied on Ordway for automated recurring billing to simplify and unify their process.
Ordway’s implementation team made the process of connecting to HubSpot seamless, avoiding disruption to the Tidelift process. “So my experience setting up and configuring the HubSpot connector app. Gosh, I mean, I honestly don’t remember it was seamless. It was so easy,” said Weisberg.
The results
Lean “deal desk” means a happy sales team, happy customers, and fewer FTEs
Tidelift streamlined their quote-to-cash process, enabling them to easily convert deals from a “closed won” status to a draft contract in Ordway with the click of a button. More importantly, Tidelift avoided adding tens of thousands of dollars in costs by not needing to hire an employee or contract to manage their billing process.
By aligning their internal systems and process with the way their customers want to buy, Tidelift can focus on scaling their business efficiently and transforming the world of open source.
- Sales rep marks deal closed won
- Finance sets billing requirements in HubSpot
- Data syncs with the click of a button in Ordway
- Contract draft prepared automatically for Head of Finance to review
- Prorations and pricing confirmed before setting live
”“It's the first time in my career that I have not had buyer's remorse with a billing and subscription management solution...I recommend Ordway to all of my finance and accounting peers working at B2B SaaS businesses, especially those with the land and expand sales motion.”
Brian WeisbergHead of Finance and Business Operations at Tidelift
