Scout Analytics aims to predict subscription revenue, renewal chances

Scout Analytics on Wednesday launched a recurring revenue analysis tool that could be a good fit for the subscription economy.

The company, a venture-backed outfit based in Seattle, made available what it calls a closed-loop Renewal Performance Management engine. In a nutshell, Scout Analytics will use its algorithms to predict churn risks, upsell opportunities and satisfied customers you can simply invoice.

Subscription management software as a service tools are becoming increasingly important. Zuora is a major player, but a bevy of companies are integrating with tools from Salesforce to better manage customers.

The latest tools from Scout Analytics combine with its Renewal Performance Calculator and Scout Yield Optimizer to provide a dashboard that uses analytics to figure out the lifetime value of a customer and how to keep them. Scout Analytics Renewal Performance Calculator computes a renewals impact on recurring revenue and classifies a subscription as an upsell, new, cancellation or downsell.

According to Matt Shanahan, co-founder and senior vice president of strategy at Scout Analytics, the company's tools are used by multiple departments such as sales, marketing, finance and support. "We have 100 customers at this point in time and can take usage data and transform it into revenue opportunities," said Shanahan, who estimates that the company can boost subscription revenue by 10 to 15 percent.

Scout Analytics has about $2.2 billion in revenue under management and targets software as a service, information services and media companies.

In practice, Scout Analytics often rides on top of Zuora as an analytics engine. The renewal performance tools are also designed to cut costs since there are expenses involved with keeping customer renewing.

The Renewal Performance Calculator includes a dashboard for C-level executives to track renewals and churn, a calculator for the sales team to see historical data, an export function, and analysis to improve predictions.

Pricing for Scout's renewal management dashboard starts at $2000 a year with its Scout Yield Optimizer starting at $9000 a year. The company doesn't do subscriptions per user and has a blanket fee. The fee is tiered based on subscription revenue.