Zylo Pricing Guide - Should you choose it?

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Even in times of economic uncertainty, the adoption of SaaS in organizations continues to surge. According to CloudEagle's SaaS spend trends report, organizations with over 1,000 employees now use approximately 300-400 SaaS applications.

Managing this expansive application portfolio and its relevant spend has become a formidable challenge for IT, finance, and procurement teams.

As a result, we’re seeing a drastic increase in the adoption of SaaS management platforms to help teams easily manage their ever-growing SaaS stack. These platforms provide complete visibility into a company’s SaaS stack, usage insights, spend data, license details, procurement, and more. Among the notable players in this space is Zylo.

You're likely here because you’re aware of the challenges your team is facing. And you are actively looking for the right SaaS management platform to overcome them. If Zylo is among the platforms you're evaluating, then this article will assist you in making an informed purchasing decision.

Is it worth spending on Zylo?

Let’s find out!

Zylo - What is it?

Zylo is a SaaS management platform. It provides 100% application visibility, accurate usage insights, spend data, and valuable assistance in managing renewals and licenses—all aimed at driving cost savings.  

It has all the necessary features to help IT, finance, and procurement teams efficiently manage their SaaS, streamline operations, and optimize spending. Let’s quickly run down its features:

Platform

SaaS discovery and inventory management

Zylo discovers all applications your teams use through AI-matching models. The it centralizes them in one dashboard, including app spend, contract data, and usage details. It automatically detects newly purchased apps and updates the portfolio.

SaaS license management

Identify unused licenses in your SaaS stack, deprovision the users, rightsize, and reharvest the licenses from one place within minutes. You can identify overlapping applications and consolidate them to reduce redundancies and save on SaaS.

SaaS renewal and spend management

Never miss out on renewals again. Proactively manage them and use Zylo’s intelligent usage insights and benchmarks to negotiate the best deals with vendors. Stop overpaying on SaaS using benchmarks.

SaaS security and governance

Zylo provides a one-stop shop (library) of approved applications that align with their needs. This will prevent users from shadow IT or rogue spending. Additionally, Zylo verifies whether each application within your stack adheres to industry regulations and standards and notifies you.

Services

Beyond its platform features, Zylo offers two distinct services: SaaS Manager and SaaS Negotiator. A team of Zylo experts will work as an extended part of your team. They'll fully manage vendor negotiations, help you configure Zylo, and act on optimization opportunities.

Zylo Pricing - A Mystery

Zylo doesn’t disclose its pricing plan on its website; you have to get a customized quote. The problem with hidden pricing is that many CFOs and CIOs consider it a red flag. Here’s why:

• Finance teams usually perform ROI analysis before approving software purchases; hidden pricing makes it harder to analyze returns.
• Hidden pricing gives vendors an opportunity to upsell their products. They might charge you more than what your peers are paying.
• Hidden pricing makes it challenging to compare products from different vendors.
• Vendors with hidden pricing may charge hidden fees after the purchase.

Pricing plan

Zylo’s custom plan includes platform features and add-ons that can be purchased based on your needs. While hidden pricing has its drawbacks, it also shows Zylo's commitment to empowering buyers as decision-makers.

Instead of bundling features into predefined pricing packages, Zylo only has one pricing plan, which is billed based on the features opted by users. Buyers have the flexibility to customize their pricing plans by choosing the features that align with their needs.

Alright, we showed you the red flags of hidden pricing. And on the flip side, we've presented the benefits of Zylo's customized quote approach and the freedom it provides. We trust you to make the choice that aligns with your preferences and requirements.

Note - RevPilots Claim - RevPilots, a popular sales consulting organization, claims that Zylo has a base platform fee of $35,000 - $45,000.

We're unsure if this is Zylo's estimate. However, it is expensive for small and medium-sized businesses. Additionally, it is too costly for the features they offer.

The difference

Unlike other platforms with three pricing tiers, like Starter, Growth, and Enterprise, Zylo doesn’t have any tiers. It's pretty straightforward.

So, how will the pricing change?

Most SaaS management platforms charge customers based on the size of their SaaS stack, annual spend, and number of employees. So, these factors will act as differentiators in the pricing—the higher the annual spend or employee size, the more expensive the product.

Secondly, their add-ons are clear differentiators. Your pricing will increase based on the add-ons you include in your contract.  

Our thoughts

Regardless of RevPilot's claim, we believe Zylo’s offerings and add-on approach are lackluster. There are better choices available in the market with similar features and clear pricing plans that are cost-effective.

Let’s look at their baseline platform features:

• Core Discovery Data Sources
• Security & Compliance Application Integrations
• License & Usage Integrations
• Implementation Services
• Customer Success Managers
• SaaS Consulting

It’s a great stack of features, but only a fraction of what other SaaS management platforms like CloudEagle provide.  

Notably, many of Zylo's impressive features are available as add-ons, requiring additional payments. In contrast, CloudEagle encompasses all these features within its core platform, providing a more comprehensive solution.

Let’s look at their add-ons:

Benchmarks

There is no transparency on how Zylo provides benchmarks. Additionally, Zylo offers a negotiator service with experts with access to benchmarks, rendering this add-on somewhat redundant.

App catalog

From Zylo’s perspective, they have a catalog of approved apps that users can download and utilize; they claim this will prevent shadow IT. But how?

What if the user ignores the app catalog to purchase an unsanctioned application? How can that be prevented? Their system can detect new applications, but will it send proactive alerts when unsanctioned purchases occur? Is there a way to stop shadow IT when it actually occurs?

Preventing shadow IT should be a baseline feature in a SaaS management platform; having it as an add-on is a deal breaker.

Purchase order management with Coupa

Why doesn't Zylo integrate with all internal systems, including SSO, finance, HRIS, contract management, provisioning, etc., to deliver a comprehensive overview of applications, logins, users, spending, contracts, and more?

Why should companies pay extra for this integration when platforms like CloudEagle already include it in their onboarding process?

Okta Actions with Deprovisioning

So, users have to purchase an add-on to deprovision users behind Okta SSO. The frustrating aspect is that most SaaS management platforms offer these features inclusive of the platform with no additional fees.

Managed Services

Lastly, there's one add-on that truly stands out. Earlier, we discussed the services offered by Zylo: negotiator and manager. A team of experts will work as an extension of your team, assisting them in negotiation, cost optimization, application management, etc.

Here are the pros and cons of Zylo and its pricing plans:

Pros

• Trusted by popular enterprises
• Comprehensive license and asset management modules
• Intuitive platform
• Extensive integration capabilities

Cons

• Sends basic renewal alerts
• Hidden pricing plans
• No proactive alerts for the shadow IT
• No vendor research modules
• Underpowered product with irrelevant pricing and add-ons.
• Lack of automated workflows
• No purchase request/procurement module
• Basic features are included as add-ons

Why is CloudEagle a superior option to Zylo?

Two clear differentiators put CloudEagle way ahead:

• Features offered
• Transparent pricing

CloudEagle is an all-in-one SaaS management and procurement platform built to help IT, finance, and procurement teams effectively manage their application portfolio, spend, and SaaS buying.

With “See, Save, Streamline” as the mission statement, CloudEagle’s ultimate objective is to help organizations gain complete visibility, save on SaaS spend from day 1, and streamline SaaS procurement.

Features offered

Procurement workflows

Procurement has been a major challenge for organizations, where employees have to chase stakeholders for approval, resulting in wasted time and productivity. Zylo doesn’t address it, but CloudEagle does.

Use automated workflows to streamline SaaS buying. Let your procurement team focus on their core tasks and stop chasing stakeholders.

You can create intake forms for both SaaS and non-SaaS purchases, and when users submit the form, the respective workflow will be triggered. Notifications will be sent to relevant stakeholders via Slack, email, or in-app messages.

CloudEagle’s procurement slackbot will enable users to raise purchase requests from Slack, and you have the option to create a private channel for those workflows to collaborate and make informed decisions.

Check out this customer story of how Nowports streamlined their procurement process using CloudEagle →

Automated provisioning and user provisioning

Why visit each application to grant or revoke access when you can easily automate it using CloudEagle's automated provisioning workflows?

Users will need prompt access to relevant applications for a seamless onboarding process. Set up auto-provisioning rules in CloudEagle, and it will automatically suggest the right apps based on the user's roles and departments.

CloudEagle’s HRIS integrations will collect all the user data and store it in one location, along with their app access, making it easier to provision and deprovision them with a single click.

When an employee quits, you can revoke their access to applications with a single click. Unlike Zylo’s Okta add-on, there is no add-on or hidden pricing in CloudEagle; the entire module is included in the platform.

Here’s Alice Park from Remediant, recalling how she streamlined onboarding and offboarding using CloudEagle:

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Workflows

CloudEagle is built on customer-centricity. We want our customers to automate repetitive processes and focus on their core tasks for better growth and revenue.

Here are the processes that can be automated using CloudEagle workflows:

• SaaS procurement
• Contract renewals
• Provisioning
• Low usage/License reallocation

CloudEagle will create a renewal calendar based on the contract dates. It will send automatic renewal reminders 30, 60, or 90 days before renewal. So you can renew your contract on time. If a stakeholder doesn’t act on it, it’ll escalate to other members until the contract is renewed.

License management

CloudEagle gains visibility into your entire SaaS stack, including the purchased licenses through integrations. Moreover, it provides precise usage insights into these licenses, allowing you to assess whether they are effectively utilized.

You have the option to establish usage limits for licenses. If a user fails to meet the minimum usage requirement, CloudEagle will automatically deprovision that user. You can harness the license and reallocate it to another user who requires it or eliminate unused licenses during renewal negotiations.  

Assisted buying

Encountering challenges during vendor negotiations? CloudEagle's team of SaaS buyers can readily support you in negotiating. Whether you prefer to take the lead or enlist the expertise of our professionals, the choice is yours.

Whether you want to purchase a new product, renew the contract, or right-size your licenses, our on-demand procurement experts will negotiate on your behalf and secure favorable deals.

With years of negotiation experience under their belts and access to pre-negotiated discounts and benchmarks, we’ll help you select the right vendor and secure the best deals.

Check out this customer success story from Armory on how we helped them negotiate and save on SaaS spend

Let us fast forward through the other functionalities of CloudEagle:

• Shadow IT: Sends proactive alerts when it detects free applications in the system, preventing shadow IT in the early stages.
• Cost optimization: Displays low usage, redundant, and free apps in a dashboard. You can analyze usage and eliminate it to save on spend.
• Contract management: Centralizes all contracts and other sensitive documents in one place, making retrieving data during renewals and audits easier.
• Metadata extraction and renewal management: CloudEagle will automatically extract metadata from contracts to create renewal calendars and for bookkeeping purposes.
• Vendor management: Vendor spend modules display all spending relevant to a particular vendor and their applications. You can manage all vendors on one dashboard.
• Vendor research: AI-powered vendor recommendation engine will make the vendor research process easier. You can find the right vendors, read relevant reviews, and check ratings without leaving the platform.  
• Benchmarks and discounts: We have access to the latest pricing benchmarks and pre-negotiated vendor discounts.

Transparent pricing

Unlike Zylo, CloudEagle’s pricing plans are not gated. It has three transparent pricing plans: Starter, growth, and Enterprise.

CloudEagle has its SaaS buying services as an add-on. Customers can either purchase the platform, just the services, or both based on their business needs.

No implementation fees, hidden pricing, or specific integration charges are included, just the straightforward pricing mentioned on the website.

So, if you’re looking for a SaaS management solution, we believe CloudEagle will serve your purpose well, as it can manage the entire SaaS lifecycle, from app management to spend management to procurement automation.

And let’s not forget that CloudEagle has the fastest onboarding process in the industry.

So, do you want a quick walkthrough to learn how you can save on SaaS using this platform?

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