Zuora, the SaaS company helping organizations manage payments for subscription businesses, announced today that it had been selected as a Premier Partner in the Amazon Pay Global Partner Program.
The “Premier Partner” distinction means businesses using Zuora’s billing platform can now easily integrate Amazon’s digital payment system as an option during checkout or recurring payment processes.
The strategic rationale for Zuora is clear, as the partnership expands the company’s product offering to prospective and existing customers. The ability to support a wide array of payment methodologies is a key value proposition for subscription businesses that enables them to service a larger customer base and provide a more seamless customer experience.
It also doesn’t hurt to have a deep-pocketed ally like Amazon in a fairly early-stage industry. With omnipotent tech titans waging war over digital payment dominance, Amazon has reportedly doubled down on efforts to spread Amazon Pay usage, cutting into its own margins and offering incentives to retailers.
As adoption of Amazon Pay spreads, subscription businesses will be compelled to offer the service as an available payment option and Zuora should benefit from supporting early billing integration.
For Amazon Pay, teaming up with Zuora provides direct access to Zuora’s customer base, which caters to tens of millions of subscribers.
With Zuora minimizing the complexity of adding additional payment options, which can often disrupt an otherwise unobtrusive subscription purchase experience, the partnership with Zuora should help spur Amazon Pay adoption and reduce potential friction.
“By extending the trust and convenience of the Amazon experience to Zuora, merchants around the world can now streamline the subscription checkout experience for their customers,” said Vice President of Amazon Pay, Patrick Gauthier. “We are excited to be working with Zuora to accelerate the Amazon Pay integration process for their merchants and provide a fast, simple and secure payment solution that helps grow their business.”
The world subscribed
The collaboration with Amazon Pay represents another milestone for Zuora, which completed its IPO in April of this year and is now looking to further differentiate its offering from competing in-house systems or large incumbents in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) space, such as Oracle or SAP.
Going forward, Zuora hopes to play a central role in ushering a broader shift towards a subscription-based economy.
Tien Tzuo, founder and CEO of Zuora, told TechCrunch he wants the company to help businesses first realize they should be in the subscription economy and then provide them with the resources necessary to flourish within it.
“Our vision is the world subscribed.” said Tzuo. “We want to be the leading company that has the right technology platform to get companies to be successful in the subscription economy.”
The partnership will launch with publishers “The Seattle Times” and “The Telegraph”, with both now offering Amazon Pay as a payment method while running on the Zuora platform.