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Welcome to the latest in our series where we delve into the world of integration strategies with some of the industry's most forward-thinking individuals and teams. Our aim is to highlight the growing significance of integrations in today's digital realm, examine their contribution to overall business objectives, and provide actionable insights for your integration endeavors.
In this edition, we have the pleasure of talking to Matt, co-founder of PriceWell - a SaaS platform that simplifies the integration of Stripe subscriptions to your website.
Throughout this interview, Matt shares invaluable insights about PriceWell's integration strategy, their approach to building new integrations, and how they support their customers through the implementation and use of these new integrations. So with that said, let’s get into it!
Hi Matt! Tell us more about you and PriceWell. How do integrations contribute to your overall business strategy and goals?
I’m Matt, co-founder of pricewell.com. We take the pain out of adding Stripe subscriptions to your website. I’m a software engineer who has built and sold multiple SaaS businesses. One thing I found frustrating while building previous businesses was spending weeks setting up billing when I wanted to be focused on the business itself.
Integrations are a huge part of our customer acquisition strategy. There are hundreds of website builders out there. Most of them lack a solid Stripe integration. Integrating with other tools helps get the word out about PriceWell through cross-promotion and discovery via listings on plugin marketplaces.
When it comes to integrating new services with PriceWell, how do you prioritize which integrations to build?
We listen to our customers first and foremost. They tell us which tools they are using and those become our priorities for an integration. We’re a small team so we can act fast when we hear a need for a new integration. When choosing to develop a new deep integration (like a plugin) we first take a look at the Total Addressable Market of that plugin (e.g. a niche tool with a small market might not be worth it). Then we look at the developer documentation for building such an integration. Ideally we’d like to be able to build a plugin without ever contacting support for the tool (these types of contact can really elongate the process).
How does your team go about building integrations?
There are two types of integration possible with PriceWell. Most website builders have an “html snippet” option which means customers can simply copy a snippet we provide them and paste it into their website verbatim. For these types of integration we try to provide detailed instructions including screenshots from the tool they are using. We also make YouTube tutorials on integrating with various tools. This involves signing up for an account on the tool and building a test website to make sure everything works as expected.
The other type of integration is a plugin. Some website/app builders have a plugin ecosystem that we can leverage. Examples of plugins we have built are Bubble and WordPress. Both have large plugin marketplaces and great documentation for creating your own plugin. Creating a plugin is more development work (sometimes several days) but the exposure provided by the marketplace is usually worth the effort. Plugins also have a go through a review process with the tool in question and often have strict guidelines on what you can and can’t do.
When introducing a new integration, how do you go about informing and supporting your customers?
Our onboarding process involves asking our customers what tool they are using to build their website. We use this information to keep potential users of new integrations up to date. We also publish a changelog of every change we make that’s available live in the application (we use the wonderful headwayapp.co for this). Every integration also gets its own page on our help documentation (help.pricewell.com/integrations) and a YouTube tutorial.
In your opinion, what factors make an integration project successful?
A successful integration project has input from both sides. An example is our integration with bubble.io. We reached out to them (I actually sent the founder a cold email and he replied!) and set up a partnership. They were great and helped us, especially with marketing the plugin. A counter example to this is our WordPress plugin, it’s very difficult to get access to anyone at WordPress or help building or marketing your plugin and as such our plugin is not as successful on their platform.
If you could share one piece of advice with other SaaS owners regarding integrations, what would that be?
Integrations can be a great customer acquisition tool. Don’t think of them as just adding features to your product. Also, put the work in to reach out to potential integration partners and explain the benefits to them of a potential partnership.
For those who are interested in your journey and want to learn more about PriceWell, where can they find more information?
You can find more about PriceWell at https://pricewell.com
You can view our Stripe tutorials on YouTube at https://youtube.com/@pricewell
I also regularly tweet about growing a SaaS business at https://twitter.com/Matthew_Reid
That concludes our conversation with Matt from PriceWell. His insights on integrations, the challenges they face, and the strategies they adopt in choosing, constructing, and refining their integrations offer an abundance of knowledge. This dialogue emphasizes the significance of listening to your customers' needs, recognizing the potential of partnerships in integrations, and the profound impact of aligning integrations to customer acquisition.
We extend our gratitude to Matt for sharing his valuable insights, and we encourage you to learn more about PriceWell's journey on their website, YouTube channel, and Twitter.
Want to be the first to know when we publish a new profile? Subscribe to our newsletter to receive regular insights straight to your inbox. If you have any questions, or would like to share your own integration journey, we encourage you to reach out to us. Until our next deep dive!
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