I'm building a trustpilot for SaaS
Hey there,
I'm currently building a customer reviews software (like Trustpilot) but specially designed for SaaS. It's directly plugged to Stripe API and I can verify if a review is legit through Stripe.
You can build email scenarios for asking reviews to your customers once they subscribed to your SaaS.
You can set up it and send your first review requests in under 3min. Totally without code, you just have to connect your stripe account.
Reviews can be shown publicly on your website, but also on a platform like G2 or Capterra, but only for SaaS using my customer reviews software.
Would you pay for it ?
Unfortunately asking "would you pay for it" never works, because even if 100 people comment with "sure I'll pay" - usually it converts into 0 sales. Like your idea, but getting critical mass will be tough. You need enough hype around it to make people pay attention to it.
I don't see how you can check if a review is legit via Stripe API. It wouldn't allow you to dig into some SaaS's account to verify the email unless the founder allows you which I doubt they would.
Fair enough, but I can't you safely assume that somebody paying for a SaaS has an account there, even if you can't verify the email address?
I'm not sure that I follow you. When someone signs up for a SaaS, the service always requires email confirmation. This is verification. I would leave it to the SaaS - to check if the reviewer's email is in their database. Moreover, I'd say there is no other way to do it.
Well, somebody paying for a SaaS subscribtion is a pretty good proxy for somebody able to review that SaaS.
And I would have thought (but am not sure) that also G2/capterra do not verify on the basis of the email if the reviewer is legit. I read they ask proof of account, in question of doubt, by screenshots from the dashboard.
So the stripe approach seems to me more reliable than the alternative with neither stripe nor email verified.
This said, I now realise that if the company pays for access, the reviewer would have to give read access to the company's stripe account to an unknown startup. Another obstacle @pvhk ?
I fear this limits the pool of reviewers substantially:
Having a SaaS subscription
Willing to review
Paying with stripe
Willing to give access to stripe account to Paul's startup
Being able to give access too stripe for company accounts.
Just to put this into perspective
Zapier say they had 3m users last year, and they have 2000 reviews on capterra.
Well, probably. But I don't know if the SaaS founders would like to share the Stripe's keys with you - I wouldn't, just because of the security concerns.
Stripe provide oAuth right ?
https://stripe.com/docs/connect/oauth-reference
I think it has nothing to do with the problem. This is what you would use as a store owner for your users, not a third-party company that would like to access the store owner's data. (If I understand your idea).
I'll go against the grain here and say go for it. The market exists: G2, Capterra , GetApp etc. They are mainly serving bigger, more established companies. You could carve your own niche with small to medium sized businesses. You could do what Tally.so is doing with forms but this time for reviews. You are not the first one to draw inspiration from the e-commerce space. For instance: useproof.com which publishes a suite of social proof marketing tools did for SaaS for what many apps already did for online stores. Good luck!
hi Paul , i have quite some experience with paying for trustpilot. Do i like paying for trustpilot ? no , why do i do it ? sometimes because i have to do it ... in some situations you need to be able to actively request your customers for reviews to complement the organic reviews because organic reviews tend to be more negative ... if you want to do that you have to pay with trustpilot , thats the only reason. and why is trustpilot important ? because they show up high in the SERP , if they would be low , nobody would care ... its like you pay protection money , do you wish it ? no
I don't have a SaaS so it is hard for me to tell. What I always advise the WBE Members to do, is to identify their target customers and ask them if this is a problem they need fixed...
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We get our reviews through Capterra, at zero cost to us, with Capterra providing a $20 incentive to our customers. Why would we use you over Capterra?
Capterra don't automatically send review requests to your customer and you can't build personalized mail sequences for asking reviews (except if you use another tool).
Then perhaps that is how you pitch your product? Not that you're TrustPilot for SaaS.
I see the value proposition that these are not fake reviews as payment via stripe is verified.
Still, it's not super credible as the SaaS will likely only ask their own happy clients, and offer a reward for an honest review (which the SaaS will verify.
But that problem applies to G2 and capterra as well.
So I would say that SaaS pay (as some of them pay G2 and capterra), provided that you can convince them to get a critical number of viewers/leads.
(I don't run a SaaS, so those is just my 5 cents.)
You didn't describe what value you are providing to SaaS companies. People/companies pay for software that they think will make them more money (whether by saving time, attracting more users, etc) It is not clear how paying you would increase my company's value.
Hey,
Customer reviews give social proof and it's also useful for the company to know what their customers like and what they dislike (in order to improve the products)
Also, customer reviews are really important in B2C (e-commerce for example), and I think it will be the same for B2B because there are more and more SaaS and people need to compare them before buying them.
I see a lot of SaaS on Trustpilot but it's not designed and built for SaaS, I think there's a market for a Trustpilot but in the SaaS niche.
But aren't capterra and G2 already the Trustpilot for SaaS? Where do you see the difference between them?