Amberflo Aims to Transform SaaS Pricing with Usage-Based Model

• Amberflo is a startup focused on redefining pricing for SaaS products and facilitating the shift towards usage-based pricing models.
• The company’s founder and CEO, Puneet Gupta, conceived the idea during his tenure at AWS between 2011 and 2014, recognizing the advantages of a metered usage approach.
• Amberflo’s solution enables businesses to monitor usage in detail, tracking every transaction, API call, or resource utilized.
• The metered pricing model presents several advantages:
  1. It offers accurate data for pricing products, unlike traditional subscription tiers or seat licenses.
  2. It helps retain customers who might otherwise leave by allowing them to reduce usage instead of canceling subscriptions.

Read more about it here.

Key Insights: - A metering service like Amberflo’s is particularly beneficial for companies employing a Product-Led Growth (PLG) strategy (e.g., Dropbox, Slack, Zoom), aligning costs with the value delivered to customers. - With usage-based pricing, customers pay only for what they utilize, increasing their willingness to experiment with and continue using the product. - Successful examples of usage-based pricing implementation include Twilio, Digital Ocean, and Message Bird.

Note: “PLG” refers to a business approach that emphasizes creating a product so valuable that it generates organic promotion and growth, rather than relying on conventional sales or marketing methods.

Klug: The Secret to More Effective Influencer Campaigns

• Klug is a B2B software platform designed to enhance the performance of influencer marketing campaigns by up to 80%.
• The platform has gained traction globally, attracting various Indian D2C brands and international agencies like WPP as clients.
• Previous Experience: The founders previously ran a successful digital marketing agency, Social Catalyzers, which focused on enhancing brand awareness and viral content.
• How It Works: Klug's analytics tools allow marketers to evaluate performance, predict revenue, and oversee campaigns. Its machine learning algorithms achieve over 85% accuracy in forecasting campaign success, primarily through image and audio recognition.
• Klug is currently available on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, with plans to expand to Twitch, Facebook, and Twitter soon.

Read more about it here.

Key Insights: - Investors are increasingly interested in the creator economy, backing startups that provide services for content creators, including monetization and business management tools. - By July 2022, venture-backed startups focused on content creators had attracted $637 million in funding, poised to surpass the 2021 record of $939 million.

Twitter’s Stance on Third-Party Clients

• Twitterrific, a well-known third-party Twitter client, has withdrawn its iOS and Mac applications from the App Store.
• Iconfactory, the developer behind Twitterrific, cited Twitter’s recent actions under Elon Musk's leadership as the cause for their departure from the platform.
• Twitter has been systematically blocking third-party clients without clarification and has updated its developer policies to prevent the creation of alternative products or services using its APIs.
• Other applications, including Tweetbot, are also in the process of removing their apps from various app stores.
• This strategy is perceived as an attempt by Twitter to consolidate control over its users and compel them to utilize its in-house services.

Read more about it here.

Key Insights: - The termination of support for third-party applications like Twitterrific may be disappointing, especially considering the significant role these apps have played in enhancing the platform with features like the iconic bird logo, character count, and threaded conversations. - The withdrawal of third-party Twitter apps could affect user satisfaction and engagement, as many users have come to depend on these apps for their unique functionalities. This may ultimately result in lower user retention.

What’s your opinion? Are you with Elon?

Funding Updates

• Vyalitics | $10m: This company’s software automates the collection and analysis of condition data necessary for the maintenance of roads (link).
• ThriveCart | $35m: ThriveCart offers a robust platform for creating cart pages, sales funnels, and managing sales outcomes (link).
• Beaconstac | $25m: Beaconstac connects physical products and locations to consumers through QR codes (link).

That concludes this week’s newsletter—thank you for reading!

Stay tuned for next week’s update for more insights and news from the software world.

If you have any feedback or suggestions for future topics, please feel free to reach out. Follow me on Twitter to stay connected.