Comparing SaaS Provider Apples and Oranges

Making sense of Apples to Oranges comparisons between competing Software as a Service Vendors sends more clients my way than any other factor in the SaaS selection process.

Between varied pricing tiers and differing feature terminology, it can be a chore figuring out what's what between your finalists. Until you conquer that bit of due diligence, though, you can't easily move forward with the VRA process.

Pricing

For starters, you'll need to determine which of the pricing plans offered matches your budget. SaaS providers typically offer 3-4 tiers designed for smaller users, medium users, larger users, etc.

Pricing for SaaS solutions within an industry will be fairly uniform but you need to pay attention to whether the price refers to Monthly payments or Annual payments.

I created the chart below for a client to more easily compare the Monthly vs. Annual payments per user.

SaaS vendors will display Monthly prices on their websites but that attractive "Monthly" price actually refers to the Annual price broken down monthly, as in $29 per user per Month (paid annually). Your payment would be $348 per user per year.

You can usually toggle to see the actual Monthly price if that's your preferred method. In the case above, the $29 figure would become something like $39 per user per month, or $468 per user per year.

Obviously, the Annual price offers a tempting discount but be careful about investing that amount up front with a new vendor, especially your first year.

Features, Services, Integrations

This comparison doesn't show the features, services and integrations available under each tier, though. We must dig through the websites or product sheets of each finalist to generate meaningful comparisons that will break these Apples and Oranges down to just Apples to Apples (or Oranges to Oranges).

Obviously, the software must offer the features you need to achieve your business objectives, but that becomes difficult to determine because of the providers' differing Feature and Services names, which often don't accurately define the features.

Some will have standardized, traditional names well-known in business circles. Others, in attempts to differentiate from the competition, deviate to clever / cute / even trademarked labels that don't clearly describe the feature.

You can start breaking these Apples and Oranges down with the practice areas or verticals the software has created specific versions or modules for, such as this for a legal client:

If you see your practice areas or industries represented, you can compare the features of those versions.

More likely, though, not all of your finalists will have the same practice or industry versions. In those cases you'll need to dive into the specific features offered in each pricing plan and version to get your Apples to Apples comparisons and your best fit.

The same holds true for the services provided in each tier (backups, document storage, mobile app, payment processing, etc.), or the integrations with other software (Office, Google Docs, etc.) that you might want. 

The samples below offer a glimpse of the variety of feature categories and individual features from one vendor to the next (the orange blocks represent features not included in the tier). 

Vendor 1

Vendor 2

Vendor 3

You can download a copy of my e-Book on performing due diligence on SaaS providers or request an online meeting.