Introduction
As great as SaaS has been for the tech sector, there’s no doubt that it’s easy to get lost in the different kinds of SaaS pricing. SaaS management platforms (such as Productiv) are available only on a subscription basis. Instead of paying once for the license to use the software, you’ve got to pay a fixed amount every month or year. To make SaaS pricing even more complicated, SaaS management platforms have several pricing options and add-ons.
Because all of these options can be confusing (especially if you’re not 100% sure about what Productiv is), it can be hard to know which pricing you should go for. Worse of all, it can cost you money – a lot of money, actually. If you make the wrong choice, your company may end up not getting the SaaS features it desperately needs or wasting thousands of dollars on unnecessary add-ons.
But don’t worry – our Productiv guide is here to make things easier for you. Read on as we answer the following question – is Productiv worth it if you want to save money?
Key points
- Unlike other SaaS management platforms, Productiv doesn’t have pre-determined tiers that you can subscribe to – instead, it lets you choose between different add-ons and gives you a custom quote.
- There’s no doubt that some of these add-ons are very helpful, but will they save you money in the long run?
- The Elastic License Management add-on allows you to automate time-consuming manual processes, while the AppCenter add-on sends you personalized recommendations.
- The Productiv SaaS Intelligence Platform helps you with SaaS procurement and improves your security posture – but how does it help you to save cash?
Productiv Pricing Guide – what are the different add-ons you can choose from?
We need to talk about Productiv. First things first – unlike other SaaS management platforms, Productiv doesn’t let you choose between a number of pre-determined subscription tiers. Instead, you need to ask for a custom quote in order to get a Productiv license. Once you’ve detailed your budget and SaaS needs, Productiv will come up with a personalized quote for your company.
Is this good news or bad news? Basically, it all depends on your needs. On the one hand, the lack of pre-determined tiers means that using Productiv is sometimes a matter of trial and error. You might find yourself paying for certain features that no one in your company is really using. That means that there is a chance that Productiv won’t help you save money from the get-go. In that respect, it is definitely a few steps below the more cost-effective SaaS options on the market – such as Quolum, where you don’t pay a single dollar unless you’re saving money.
On the other hand, Productiv’s lack of pre-determined tiers means that your plan will be tailor-made for you from the very beginning. Basically, it works like this: you get in touch with Productiv and they offer you a custom plan with certain add-ons. For example, if automation is your number one priority, they’ll be really keen to sell you their Productive SaaS Intelligence add-on.
But what if saving money is your biggest priority? Does Productiv have any add-on to make help you trim down your SaaS bills? Let’s have a look at the different Productiv add-ons and reach a verdict.
Elastic License Management
Without a doubt, the Elastic License Management is one of the most useful features you can add to your Productiv SaaS pricing plan. Although this feature was only launched a few months, it already has dozens of fans. Basically, it helps you save time by manually provisioning SaaS licenses and automating SaaS harvesting and downgrading.
By far, the biggest benefit of Productiv’s Elastic License Management is that it allows you to reclaim underused SaaS licenses. This is a feature that many SaaS management platforms have been offering for a while, but Productiv hadn’t caught up with them yet. Similarly, Elastic License Management can also automate SaaS downgrades using real-time data.
These are some of the things that Productiv’s Elastic License Management can do for your SaaS workflow:
- It allows you to set up no-code license automations without much hassle
- It includes ongoing recommendations to help optimize SaaS workflows and processes
- It allows you to move users to different tiers, downgrading and upgrading them as you see fit without having to sign up for new licenses
- It tracks changes to your SaaS usage – meaning you will get a real-time breakdown of your usage stats to make smarter decisions
- It promises to reduce IT overhead by deprovisioning underused licenses before renewals and moving users to free license tiers
The verdict – will Elastic License Management save you money?
The most attractive benefit that this add-on offers is that it promises to reduce your company’s IT overhead. How? In theory, by deprovisioning underused licenses, reclaiming underutilized SaaS seats and moving users to lower (or even free) tiers based on their SaaS usage.
But is this true? Well, yes and no. Initially, Elastic License Management will help you to trim down your overhead. It will identify the SaaS apps that you’re overpaying for and move low-use employees to lower tiers. But what happens once it has sorted this out?
Not much. And that is the problem at the core of Elastic License Management – it doesn’t really guarantee savings in the long run. This is particularly true when compared to SaaS management solutions like Quolum, which can negotiate SaaS contracts on your behalf using similar utilization data to ensure that you always get the best possible deal.
And there’s more. As you can probably imagine, Elastic License Management doesn’t work on its own. It needs people (meaning time, meaning money) to manage it. So that’s one added cost that you’ve got to take into account.
Additionally, Elastic License Management relies too much on external variables (such as Okta implementation) to be successful. Additionally, a lot of SaaS vendors allow for automatic provisioning and deprovisioning via Okta only on select/ their highest plans.
Take Slack, for instance.
In conclusion, while automating licensing seems amazing, the ROI needs to be judged based on your own organisations (a) usage of IAM tools like Okta; and (b) using SaaS tools (and that too being on the right plans) that support this feature.
AppCenter
The AppCenter add-on is all about delivering an employee-centric experience in SaaS environments. In plain English, it’s used to send employees personalized app and tier subscription recommendations. Perhaps the best thing about AppCenter is that it does all this in real time. There’s no need to go back and study your SaaS usage stats. Instead, AppCenter provides a hassle-free experience that equips employees with the tools they need.
Let’s put an example. Say that one of your employees needs a new SaaS app for a project that they need to finish this week. Usually, they would have to send an approval request to a team of supervisors, who would then have to review whether they can afford the license and whether it’s actually worth it. Well, AppCenter does all of that for you. SaaS approval requests are sent and looked into within seconds, not days.
On top of that, these are some of the things that AppCenter can do for you:
- It lets you set up direct approvals for new licenses through email or Slack to speed up the procurement process.
- It enhances app fulfillment by eliminating unnecessary admin barriers.
- It allows you to set your own policy-based workflows so you can save time on your daily tasks.
- It offers a good range of role-based license approval workflows
- It also offers role-based app recommendations to make business processes more efficient
- It allows you to build custom exception-based routing rules
- It includes on-demand app support
The verdict – will AppCenter save you money?
There’s no question that AppCenter is one of the best add-ons that Productiv offers. But when it comes to saving money, it doesn’t really do much for you. Sure, eliminating manual fulfillment burdens will speed up your SaaS workflows and potentially make you more efficient. But it also opens the door to possible costly errors – such as SaaS licenses being automatically approved by mistake.
Additionally, not all manual-to-automated changes are necessarily cheaper – or even better. For instance, many companies prefer taking care of their staffing manually. Not only do they avoid errors (which are unfortunately still quite common) but they save tons of money. And because it’s a task that can be done in a few minutes, it doesn’t really affect their productivity.
In conclusion, no – AppCenter will make aspects of your business processes more efficiently, but it won’t save you money.
Productiv SaaS Intelligence Platform
Last but not least, we’ve got the Productiv SaaS Intelligence Platform add-on, which promises to ramp up your efficiency by offering an absolute truck-load of app engagement data. Whereas some SaaS management tools provide you with only login activity data, SaaS Intelligence lets you see how every employee uses every SaaS feature in your portfolio. This means you get more accurate data that allows you to make smarter business decisions.
This is everything that Productiv SaaS Intelligence Platform can do for you:
- It allows you to automate app workflows in the app management and app approval cycles
- It aligns IT, finance, procurement and management data
- It includes data-driven app procurement features
- It monitors your SaaS security posture
- It promises to optimize costs by managing renewals and sending you spend recommendations
However, let’s address the elephant in the room. Sure, Productiv SaaS Intelligence Platform brings all your essential SaaS data together into a single dashboard. But does this really translate into efficiency? Not quite, as this dashboard is still too cluttered and messy. And because it throws a bunch of isolated data at you instead of offering context, finance teams are often left in the dark.
For the sake of comparison, notice how the figure above matches up against Quolum’s dashboard – which measures SaaS usage and ROI holistically so that your finance team can have all the necessary context to review your numbers.
The verdict – will Productiv SaaS Intelligence Platform save you money?
Productiv SaaS Intelligence Platform is yet another add-on that promises to save you money. And in all fairness, it does help when it comes to optimizing SaaS costs and reducing SaaS waste. Or at least it does in the short term. If we were to ask ourselves “what is Productiv’s best add-on?”, we’d probably answer SaaS Intelligence Platform.
But what happens when you have optimized your SaaS spend? Does Productiv SaaS Intelligence Platform help you with long-term savings?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Unlike Quolum, it won’t negotiate SaaS contracts for you to ensure that you’re getting a good deal. Nor does it offer a money-saving guarantee that means that you only have to pay if you’re genuinely saving money.
Basically, Productiv SaaS Intelligence Platform can save you money by making your company more efficient. But when it comes to hard savings – to the stuff that really makes a difference once you’ve reached peak optimization –, it doesn’t do much.
How to save money on your SaaS management platform
It’s clear that Productiv is chock-full of handy tools that will make your business more efficient. It can automate your SaaS workflows, send you SaaS app recommendations and even reduce your SaaS overhead in the short term.
But if your key priority is saving money, you want a tool that focuses on that.
So you give Productiv a try. And what does Productiv do? It makes your business more efficient, no doubt about it. And it might even help you reduce costs by identifying redundant apps. It’s no wonder so many IT leaders rate it so highly.
But what does the CFO’s office think? Will Productiv really be a game-changer to your company’s numbers? The honest answer is it depends, and probably not as much as you think.
Whereas Productiv promises to make your business more efficient, other SaaS management platforms make it more efficient and more cost-effective. SaaS management platforms don’t have to be either/or – as it turns out, you can have all of the below in only one tool:
- Data-driven SaaS procurement
- Expert contract negotiation
- Ability to reclaim unused capacity
- Hands-on contract renewals
- Savings guarantee
And that tool is called Quolum. Quolum is an all-in-one SaaS procurement and management tool that takes care of every little aspect of your SaaS usage. Renewal date coming up? Quolum will take care of it. Think you’re overpaying for a SaaS tool? We’ll reclaim your unused seats and get you some of your money back.
Focus on what you do best – Quolum will take care of the rest
Tired of spending hours and hours reviewing the same old numbers to make sure you’re staying within budget? We feel you. At Quolum, we know that the largest impediment to getting things done is worrying about money. We’re as tired of seeing companies waste their funds on overpriced SaaS apps as you are.
And that’s why we came up with a SaaS management platform that also takes care of your procurement needs. Most importantly, it guarantees that you’ll save money. Unlike its competitors, Quolum only costs money if it helps you save money. If it turns out that it doesn’t, we’ll tell you to put your wallet back in your pocket.
On average, Quolum has saved its clients around 30% of their SaaS budget. We know what you’re thinking – that’s not the couple of pennies you get back when optimizing your SaaS usage. It’s real, hard savings that make a difference in the long term.
So, if saving money while being even more productive than before is something that piques your interest, waste no more time and speak with a member of our sales team today.
FAQs
How does Productiv work?
Productiv is a SaaS management platform that works by automating SaaS workflows and analyzing employee app usage to decide which SaaS tools are expendable and which ones are essential. You can access your Productiv account from any browser.
Is Productiv free?
Unfortunately, Productiv isn’t free. In order to sign up for Productive, you need to contact their sales team and ask for a custom quote that includes all the add-ons and extras you need to manage your SaaS portfolio.
Who is Quolum for?
As an all-in-one SaaS management platform and procurement tool that can save you money while ramping up your productivity, Quolum is for every company that is struggling to manage its SaaS portfolio effectively. Companies from all walks of life have trusted Quolum to help with their SaaS management – from unicorns like Cred and Groww to up and coming hypergrowth startups like Wrk and TimebyPing.