SaaS is all around us.
Two decades ago, who would have imagined that instead of owning Microsoft Word, you would pay for it monthly?
Streaming services and even marketing tools rely on the SaaS business model.
However, while there’s a consumer-level SaaS that we all know about, there’s also enterprise-level SaaS.
Enterprise solutions offer greater functionality and flexibility than even B2B SaaS.
If you’re running large-scale SEO campaigns or handling PPC or social campaigns for large enterprises, you need to understand the difference between SaaS enterprise and B2B.
What Is SaaS Enterprise?
Enterprise-level SaaS is different from the platform that a regular business uses because it’s a more robust solution with a lot of customization options.
For example, Hootsuite is one of the world’s leading social media management platforms.
The platform has an enterprise plan that is a “beefed” up version of Hootsuite and comes with:
- More social accounts.
- Ad profiles.
- Return on investment (ROI) reporting.
- Customized consulting and training.
- Employee advocacy.
Every platform is different, but enterprise solutions will often include:
- Options to better monitor analytics and results.
- Training options for teams.
- Consulting to help the enterprise maximize the platform.
How Enterprises Benefit From SaaS
Enterprises pay more for additional solutions that allow managers to report to their superiors more easily and also offer an enhanced customer service tier.
And enterprises can benefit from SaaS in many ways, including:
- Speedier, more reliable software deployment, and feature updates.
- Dedicated customer support.
- Access to more in-depth reporting tools.
- Reduced expenses on hardware and IT staff.
- Greater productivity.
Enterprise Vs. B2B SaaS
B2B is much different from enterprise SaaS because B2B can be a business with five employees or 500+.
Enterprises are often larger business entities with multiple teams, offices, and employees.
These entities are fast-growing and have a need that traditional B2B SaaS cannot satisfy.
Imagine a business with 1,000 suppliers and one with 20.
Both of these businesses demand SaaS solutions, but the business with 1,000 suppliers may need:
- Easier ways to manage invoices and visualize payments.
- Greater limits on invoices being sent per month.
If you refer back to the Hootsuite example, you’ll see that the enterprise product has team productivity reporting available. The ability to view who in the team is performing best is something that HR or team leaders will want to see in an enterprise.
As a business adds more employees, the enterprise-level solution will offer more analytics and reporting that can be used to monitor performance.
It’s a lot easier for a team leader to manage a five-person team and each member’s performance than it is for a team of hundreds of employees.
A few of the main differences between these two SaaS business models include:
- Pricing: Enterprise solutions will cost more, and require you to reach out to the company for a demo and a quote. You may need to commit to a contract with the SaaS company, and this is a downside compared to the month-to-month options.
- Customer service: Enterprises may have account managers and a greater level of support. Higher-valued accounts will often have access to training and consulting, which isn’t available with lower pricing tiers.
- Customization: You may have access to customization that allows you to add branding or additional features not available to non-enterprise users.
- Analytics and reporting: There will certainly be reporting and analytic options available that aren’t accessible elsewhere. These reporting options will be geared towards HR teams and managers who need to have a better understanding of user performance.
Visualizing the difference between B2B and enterprise SaaS is best if you examine the main platforms offering enterprise options.
Enterprise SaaS Examples
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a common tool used in SEO for everything from analyzing competitors to keyword research and site audits.
When you sign up for the enterprise addition, you receive all of the tools offered in lower tools, but you can also access:
- Unlimited history: Analyze all backlink data in the database back to 2013 and keyword rankings since 2015.
- Access management: Refined access control for team members to allow members to view certain data and not others.
- Pay by invoice: Option to make payments manually via invoices.
- Directory listing: Promote your business by being listed in the company’s exclusive directory.
- Audit log: Track all user activity for your workspace(s).
- API: Gain access to the company’s API to develop your own solutions and refine the way that your enterprise sees data.
- SSO: Ability to use single sign-on.
Ahrefs allows its enterprise users to have a larger swath of data to understand a site’s history and provides team leaders with better insight into user activities.
Semrush
Semrush is a major competitor of Ahrefs, and considers its business plan an enterprise plan.
However, it does offer a custom plan that allows enterprises to leverage more of the platform.
The main differences between the business tier and lower tiers are:
- Historical data
- 3 to 10 times greater keyword tracking.
- API access.
- Sound of voice metric.
- Product listing ad analytics.
- Greater number of reports.
- Much more.
However, the custom plan will allow for greater limits on things, such as keywords to track, users, and more. Enterprises can work with the team to create a plan that best meets their needs.
Google Analytics 360
Google Analytics is free, but for an enterprise that wants even more data, the 360 product is available. The main advantages of an enterprise plan are:
- Advanced tools, such as Unsampled reports, data-driven attribution, and BigQuery export.
- Service level agreements that outline data freshness, larger processing limits, and data collection.
- Access to a team of dedicated support specialists.
- 20 billion hits per month data volume.
- Real-time data.
- 3 million row exports.
- Tracking API.
- More.
Integration of data into other platforms, such as Salesforce, is also offered.
Conclusion
SaaS tiers make sense for all parties, from developing companies to users.
Users who utilize greater data and need higher limits, greater reporting, and better customer service will consume more resources.
Enterprise SaaS fills the gap by providing these additional services at a higher cost.
The key to higher pricing is to provide the support and customization an enterprise needs without impacting service for other users.
When larger businesses need greater data control and access, enterprise SaaS allows for lower initial costs and support to leverage the solution to its fullest extent.
More resources:
- How Do Enterprise & SaaS Marketing Software Solutions Differ?
- How 3 Different Enterprise SaaS Content Strategies Work (With Examples)
- SaaS Content Marketing: A Complete Guide
Featured Image: chainarong06/Shutterstock
