Meet super line, a new product that handles pricing and billing for software-as-a-service companies. The company offers integrations so you can start billing quickly. It then supports different scenarios such as recurring subscriptions, usage-based billing, custom discounts, and more.
It’s not the first company to focus on pricing and billing — examples include cycle and charging bee. But these are complex revenue management platforms, not necessarily suitable for small SaaS startups just getting started.
Alternatively, some companies choose to develop these pricing and billing functions in-house. But B2B software has changed a lot in terms of sales negotiation processes and usage-based pricing. It may cause errors.
Once Hyperline is configured, the company handles all revenue-related matters. You can import customer data from a database, configure pricing rules, connect the platform with your CRM and leverage popular payment providers such as Stripe or GoCardless.
Afterwards, Hyperline directly generates the invoice. It handles different VAT rates – this is not a paid add-on on some platforms. The product then coordinates the payment request, which means it can automatically debit the card or bank account.
Finally, Hyperline offers a monitoring dashboard so you can see if you have any failed payments. You can also perform billing operations from there.
A few months ago, the startup raised a $4.4 million (€4 million) funding round led by Index Ventures. Kima Ventures and Cocoa also participated in the round. Several business angels have also invested in the company, such as Rodolphe Ardant, Guilhem Bellion, Steve Avani, Thibaud Elziere, Quentin Nickmans, Alexandre Berriche and Nico Rosberg.
Iterate pricing more regularly
By default, technical teams can use the company’s API to interact with Hyperline. But “if a company wants to configure it and use it in a ‘no-code’ fashion, they can do that. If you want to adjust usage-based pricing, you don’t have to go through a technical team,” founder Lucas Bédout told me.
This is the key to understanding the appeal of Hyperline. Many SaaS companies define their pricing strategy and then develop a product roadmap. Pricing and product features don’t necessarily evolve at the same time.
“There’s a difference between pricing and product teams. Pricing is a project that the company does every two years. The company hires consultants and we put everything back in place—it takes six months to a year to implement everything,” Index Ventures partner Julia Andre told me. “But pricing has implications for acquisitions and churn.”
With a product like Hyperline, pricing can become an ongoing project. Meanwhile, Index Ventures is betting on the next generation of pricing and billing startups that could outperform traditional offerings.
Dozens of companies are already using the product, such as Gladia, a startup I covered earlier today that is running usage-based pricing. As Hyperline begins to scale, it will have more data on its SaaS revenue strategy and be able to make recommendations to reduce churn, increase average revenue per customer, and more. It should also increase Hyperline’s bottom line, since the company takes a small cut per deal.
