How does a startup manage its Cloud/SaaS subscription expenses.

Jacqueline
7 replies
Hello, I have run 2 side projects and one thing I noticed was it is hard to track expenses on SaaS subscription expenses. It would have been nice to track all my subscription costs in one place including AWS billing, Canva subscription, Notion subscription, FreshDesk subscription, Google Ads cost and FB Ads etc. I was hoping to get help from the Product Hunt community to understand if there is any available tool to do this. If not what features would you like to have, to help you simplify expense management for a 1-10 person startup.

Replies

Sergei Fedorov
Our manager just add this to Google Sheet and Calendar (for notifications). But as far as I remember, there are special services for corporations (where there are hundreds of software). You can look in their direction.
Karl Rinderknecht
Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but it might be worth checking out Brex. They are a credit card (and now banking too) company for startups and their reward program is centered around the stuff you're likely to buy (SaaS/Cloud, computer equipment, etc.). It's pretty straightforward to issue and manage virtual cards for your team (you manage limits, can cancel them easily, etc.), and they generally do a great job categorizing your expenses. In the reporting section, you can easily pull up their software/SaaS category to see where you're spending. Last, we haven't been able to us this much, but they have a great partner program (a lot like the Product Hunt Founder Club) that gives you discounts on some of the most common SaaS vendors. We've been using them for a little over a year and I have zero complaints.
Jacqueline
@_karlr Awesome, thanks for sharing this. Do you actively use the SaaS expenses category and how does it classify new SaaS services your startup has enrolled to?
Karl Rinderknecht
@jacqueline_2018 Yup, I look at the report regularly. It automatically classifies expenses. It’s been very accurate for us even with smaller vendors. I think I’ve asked them to make one update since we’ve been using them.
Alex Miller
Hey, thanks for bringing up this topic, facing this issue too..
Benjamin Bertelsen
I moved from a corporate role to a startup for the first time last year. Had the same need and was surprised how much SaaS-subscription costs were taking 📈 I think is one popular tool. Also Recently Seqoia-backed it seems. https://quolum.com/