Case Study: Real Estate
ListReports Scales Subscriptions 5X with Billing Automation
Discover how Ordway automated an almost impossible level of billing complexity.
The client
ListReports is the #1 marketing solution for real estate agents in the US
Effective and efficient SaaS billing for its thousands of customers is paramount for ListReports to maintain happy relationships with its customers. ListReports, a Los Angeles, CA based company, provides a SaaS platform that fosters relationships between real-estate agents and lenders in all 50 states.
Lenders use ListReports for lead-gen/conversion and customer relationship management (CRM). They invite agents to receive customized marketing materials for all new listings. They also report on high-potential neighborhoods within their markets. This important SaaS-based relationship keeps lenders top-of-mind when agents help buyers secure financing.
The challenge
Enterprise and individual billing with a seemingly infinite number of permutations
Real estate agents sign up for free on the ListReports website and request materials to market listings, promote sold listings, and support open houses. Lenders choose from several pricing plans that provide tiered levels of service. They have 250,000 agents and 9,000 lenders using ListReports and their systems were simply not designed to support recurring SaaS billing, especially when it came to some of the complex relationships between brokers, national lenders, and agents.
ListReports’ billing is inherently complex, with multiple variations and contract terms: split, channel, and group billing lasting four, six, or twelve months. They experienced tremendous growth within a short period of time, making billing even more complicated and time-consuming.
They were forced to make the tradeoff between shifting focus from supporting their core SaaS platform to build and refactor internal billing systems. The number of permutations was daunting enough and storing the contracts on multiple systems made accurate tracking impossible. Ultimately, ongoing manual billing became a significant drain on the Operations team. They needed to consolidate and simplify their SaaS billing operation within a system that could handle contracts of varying duration, pricing tiers, individuals vs companies. The complexity of their business, and the diversity in the types of their customers, made it impossible for them to grow without finding a solution.
”Billing operations before Ordway was very manual and involved a lot of hacks and workaround processes involving spreadsheets. It also involved multiple people and impacted other processes with the company. It just made life more difficult for the entire team and made our ability to scale and grow probably impossible,”
Omri FriedelDirector of Operations.
The solution
Ordway simplified product hierarchies and automated monthly invoicing
Ordway’s first step was understand the intricacies of the ListReports business. After a session with the Ordway product team, Ordway was able to recommend a more streamlined method to their billing architecture and processes. Ultimately, the team was able to consolidate all contracts into a unified system.
With the billing and revenue automation platform in place, ListReports reduced the number of plans in Stripe from 2,000 to 10 in Ordway. Today contracts, with varying complexities, are billed automatically on different days throughout the month. ListReports can add agents and lenders seamlessly, regardless of billing plan, tier, or contract duration.
With invoicing accurate, controlled, and fully automated, ListReports can focus on delivering unparalleled service and introduce new services and training to their growing customer base.
Highlights include:
- Reimagined the billing process that consolidated number of plans from 2,000 to 10
- Invoices sent automatically when needed
- Order management to add new customers, tiers, terms seamlessly
- Scaled subscription management for their customer base 5x during engagement with Ordway and it’s platform.
”When I think about Ordway and what it has done for our business, I think about it in terms of freedom. By Ordway focusing on being our billing solution we can really focus on the things that drive our business and our customer forward,"
Ajay ShahCEO and Co-Founder ListReports
