The Complete Guide to the Best Revenue Management Software

You can't afford to leave a penny on the table when it comes to revenue.

According to the State of Sales Report, 79% of sales leaders say revenue increased over the past year. That's why sales pros invest in the latest revenue management software to keep track of the entire quote-to-cash process.

Revenue management software comes in many formats and prices. Let's go over some top performers so you can find the platform that works best for your team.

Revenue management software unites sales, finance, product, marketing, and legal teams on one platform. The software simplifies the quote-to-cash process through advanced sales automation and offers centralized product and pricing data. Powered by AI, it can automate revenue operations and manage complex orders at scale.

There are more reasons to explore an investment in revenue management software. Let's get into some of the benefits the software offers you and your business.

Revenue management software can provide a path to profitability. It helps you develop a stronger sales strategy to grow and scale operations.

Revenue management software has transformed from on-premise to software as a service (SaaS) and now incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) and real-time data and analytics in its design. These new features optimize efficiency and productivity across multiple teams, which can reduce the costs of office systems.

Businesses are searching for ways to scale complex order processes. Revenue management software can provide support for new business models, drive profits, and create a unified customer experience across all channels.

The task of picking the best software for your business needs can be daunting. It helps to know the platform's capabilities, like CPQ, contract lifecycle management, and omnichannel selling potential.

The following list is curated from G2 and Capterra , both of which score sales software based on user feedback, features available, and overall satisfaction. G2 uses a five-star system focused on usability, customer satisfaction, and market presence, while Capterra (which also uses a five-star system) incorporates user ratings across categories like ease of use, customer support, and value for money. Each of the tools listed here has a minimum rating of four stars, ensuring they are top contenders for streamlining your sales process, improving collaboration, and helping your team work smarter.

Salesforce Revenue Cloud is a suite of solutions designed to automate the entire revenue lifecycle, from quote to cash. Salesforce Revenue Cloud is an effective solution for businesses aiming to streamline their revenue processes. It features robust CPQ and contract management tools, making it ideal for companies with complex sales cycles.

How it helps revenue teams:

• Product catalog: Salesforce Revenue Cloud offers comprehensive product catalog management features that enable businesses to centralize and manage their product and service offerings. This helps ensure consistency and accuracy across all sales channels, improving overall sales efficiency.
• CPQ: Revenue Cloud is a CPQ solution that allows sales teams to swiftly and precisely create quotes, set up intricate product bundles, and implement pricing rules and discounts. With an AI sales agent, you can instantly generate or update a quote. This keeps all activities happening in one ecosystem, enhancing efficiency and collaboration.
• Contract lifecycle management: Salesforce offers a suite of tools designed to manage contracts throughout their entire lifecycle, covering contract creation, negotiation, approval, and renewal.
• Order management and orchestration: Revenue Cloud enhances order management through decomposing and orchestrating intricate order processes. DRO breaks down products and order lines, so you can apply custom fulfillment plans for each product, ensuring a tailored experience for customers regardless of complexity.. By integrating seamlessly with billing and payment systems, it ensures that order fulfillment is both accurate and timely.
• Asset lifecycle management: The platform offers ALM capabilities to maximize the cross-sell, up-sell, and renewal of assets throughout the lifecycle and to give your users an easy view of all entitlements a customer owns at any time.
• Omnichannel selling: Salesforce Revenue Cloud delivers a cohesive platform that makes it easy to manage revenue across multiple channels. Dependable integration with other Salesforce tools, like Sales Cloud and Commerce Cloud, ensures seamless transactions wherever they take place.

NetSuite by Oracle is a cloud-based business management suite. It includes a unified enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and e-commerce functionalities.

How it helps revenue teams:

• Product catalog: The NetSuite ERP system uses product information for sales transactions and revenue recognition.
• CPQ: The integration of CRM and ERP functionalities enhances CPQ processes, enabling product configuration, pricing management, and quote generation. These features work in sync with order management and revenue recognition features.
• Contract lifecycle management: NetSuite's Advanced Revenue Management (ARM) manages contract data for revenue recognition purposes. It helps users oversee aspects such as contract terms, performance obligations, and revenue schedules.
• Order management and orchestration: The ERP system offers order management features that bring together the process from order entry to fulfillment and invoicing. The revenue management module integrates with the order management system, automating revenue recognition in alignment with various order events.
• Asset lifecycle management: NetSuite provides asset management features in its ERP system to track and manage assets. It mainly focuses on revenue management related to recognizing revenue from sales and services.
• Omnichannel selling: NetSuite's e-commerce and CRM modules support omnichannel selling by offering a comprehensive view of customer interactions across multiple formats. This helps capture revenue recognition wherever sales happen.

Zenskar is a simplified revenue management system that offers a code-free platform for automating billing, collections, and financial reporting. Zenskar's developer-free software helps businesses that use complex subscriptions and usage-based models.

How it helps revenue teams:

• Product catalog: Zenskar helps manage the information, pricing, and invoicing of products and services, particularly those with intricate, usage-dependent structures.
• CPQ: Zenskar is designed to manage complex pricing models and generate contracts.
• Contract lifecycle management: Contract data mixes with Zenskar's revenue recognition and billing for a straightforward intake process.
• Order management and orchestration: The quote-to-cash process is simplified with Zenskar's automated billing and collections feature. It also integrates with payment gateways for secure processing and a smooth customer experience.
• Omnichannel selling: The system's ability to integrate many data sources allows businesses to diversify selling strategies with unified billing and revenue data.

Sage Intacct is a cloud-based revenue management and accounting software known for handling complex financial processes. It can integrate with CRM and e-commerce platforms.

How it helps revenue teams:

• Product catalog: The software manages revenue data on products and services to help with financial reporting and compliance for sales activities.
• CPQ: Sage Intacct can integrate with CRM systems, which can manage CPQ processes. The software can use the financial data generated from those CPQ processes for revenue recognition.
• Contract lifecycle management: Contract revenue management features help users manage contract terms, revenue schedules, and compliance requirements. It's designed to integrate with contract data, particularly for revenue recognition.
• Order management and orchestration: The order management module can automate the quote-to-cash process. The software can integrate with billing and revenue recognition systems to further automate the financial aspect of order fulfillment to improve efficiency and accuracy.
• Omnichannel selling: Sage Intacct integrations support revenue from multiple sales channels. By connecting with CRM and e-commerce platforms, it can consolidate revenue data for easier financial reporting.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a cloud-based ERP that provides a unified platform for managing core business processes, with an emphasis on real-time data and automation. SAP S/4HANA Cloud's integration capabilities enhance its functionality with other SAP and third-party solutions.

How it helps revenue teams:

• Product catalog: SAP S/4HANA Cloud's data management features include handling product and service details as a fundamental element of sales and distribution workflows.
• CPQ: SAP S/4HANA Cloud offers pricing and configuration features in its sales and distribution module. However, for organizations seeking dedicated CPQ functionality, it may be necessary to integrate with other SAP solutions or third-party applications.
• Contract lifecycle management: SAP S/4HANA Cloud assists with handling the terms and conditions of contracts. Additional SAP integrations are necessary for more robust contract lifecycle management.
• Order management and orchestration: The software's order management features encompass the quote-to-cash workflow, including order placement, fulfillment, invoicing, and revenue recognition.
• Asset lifecycle management: SAP/4HANA Cloud integrates with financial accounting systems to facilitate revenue reporting and decision-making.
• Omnichannel selling: It can combine with SAP Commerce Cloud and other e-commerce platforms for uniform order processing and revenue recognition across multiple sales channels.

Chargebee is a specialized platform for managing subscriptions and recurring revenue. It streamlines the billing process with customization and auto-invoicing. It can also automate workflows and use data from customer behavior and payment history to identify patterns.

How it helps revenue teams:

• Product catalog: Chargebee helps manage pricing and invoicing, especially for products and services that use subscription models. Its financial frameworks assist in setting up product plans and pricing configurations.
• CPQ: The software has resources for handling intricate pricing structures. It enables various pricing models, such as usage-based pricing, tiered pricing, and additional strategies related to subscriptions.
• Contract lifecycle management: Chargebee can integrate with contract management systems, focusing on the billing and revenue recognition components of contracts. It's not a complete contract lifecycle management solution, but it is designed to manage contract information, particularly in the context of recurring billing.
• Order management and orchestration: It can fast-track the quote-to-cash workflow for subscription-based companies by managing recurring billing, invoicing, payment processing, and revenue recognition.
• Omnichannel selling: Chargebee supports omnichannel selling through integrations with e-commerce platforms, helping to manage subscription revenue from multiple sales channels.

Campfire offers automation with accounting and reporting, consolidating revenue and customer data. It's geared toward companies moving away from basic software or spreadsheets.

How it helps revenue teams:

• Product catalog: Campfire helps with invoicing and accurate billing by using detailed product information. It's important to note that it is not designed to be a comprehensive product catalog system, but it uses existing product information for invoicing purposes.
• CPQ: Campfire's strength is managing post-sales revenue, allowing users to efficiently handle invoicing and payment processes after a sale.
• Contract lifecycle management: Campfire uses contract data to streamline and automate revenue accounting processes.
• Order management and orchestration: The order management automation can help unify and centralize invoicing, payment processing, and customer data. The software can create and send invoices, update invoice status, and match up invoices marked as "paid" with bank account records.
• Omnichannel selling: Through integrations, Campfire can help with omnichannel selling strategies by unifying and providing access to revenue data across various sales channels. This can help track and analyze financial performance, but the platform is not exclusively built for omnichannel management.

Subskribe focuses on streamlining the quote-to-cash process, particularly for SaaS companies dealing with complex subscription and usage-based billing. It aims to unify CPQ, billing, and revenue recognition into one solution.

How it helps revenue teams:

• Product catalog: Subskribe uses a comprehensive product catalog and pricing engine to simplify administration, allowing users to focus on managing sales and pricing structures.
• CPQ: The software offers tools to generate intricate quotes, manage diverse pricing strategies, and navigate deal configurations.
• Contract lifecycle management: Subskribe can track existing contract-related data necessary for billing and revenue recognition.
• Order management and orchestration: Particularly for subscription-based companies, it streamlines the quote-to-cash cycle by automating processes such as recurring billing, invoice generation, and payments.
• Asset lifecycle management: The platform concentrates on the quote-to-cash journey, focusing on revenue generation processes.
• Omnichannel selling: Subskribe integrates with CRMs, which can indirectly aid omnichannel sales strategies by providing cohesive revenue data across platforms.

The revenue management systems available today range broadly in their strengths and capabilities. It is up to you to decide which best suits your business needs. One way to help you make a selection is to decide what type is the right one to empower your teams.

The different types of revenue management systems can be categorized depending on their functionalities and target industries. To begin, decide whether you want a stand-alone system or an integrated one.

A stand-alone, all-in-one revenue management solution offers unified features like sales forecasting, pricing, and reporting in one software package. Large enterprises can often gain more from a stand-alone system. It can handle the complexities of dynamic pricing and large inventory management, as well as help sales teams and leadership understand how price changes affect customer demand for different packages.

An integrated revenue management system embeds itself into existing software to provide additional features. Smaller businesses typically gravitate toward integrated revenue management options. It can be a more cost-effective approach that doesn't involve maintenance and licensing fees that a stand-alone system may have.

Once you decide between the two systems, next consider your industry. Revenue management systems can be designed for the specific product or service you provide. These are some of the most common.

• Hospitality: Designed for hotels, resorts, and vacation rentals. They factor in seasonality, occupancy rates, and competitor pricing in tourist destinations to optimize room rates.
• Airline: Helps airlines manage ticket pricing based on factors such as flight routes, demand fluctuations, and competitor offerings.
• Event management: Caters to event organizers, optimizing pricing for tickets, concessions, and other revenue streams based on event type, historical attendance, and competitor pricing.
• SaaS and B2B: These systems focus on dynamic pricing and sales strategies for companies offering software or other B2B services. They analyze customer behavior data and competitor pricing to suggest optimal pricing models and target high-value clients.

As you consider which revenue management system to select, it's important to think about what features will best serve your team.

Revenue management software is how successful companies gain a competitive edge. The software takes the guesswork out of selling the products and services at the right price and helps your sales team hit their sales key performance indicators (KPIs) through the following capabilities.

By using sales data to predict demand and optimize pricing, the software helps close more deals at the right price points. This maximizes revenue while considering costs and margins.

• How it's done: Revenue management software can provide insights into competitor pricing and customer buying behavior. This information helps salespeople develop and propose pricing strategies for their products or services.

Salespeople gain insights from customer behavior, competitor strategies, and historical trends. This data empowers them to make informed decisions about targeting, pricing, and overall sales strategy, leading to better outcomes.

• How it's done: By understanding customer needs and purchase history, the software can boost your sales forecasting capabilities by suggesting upselling or cross-selling opportunities. This allows salespeople to maximize the value of each customer interaction.

The software fosters better communication and collaboration among sales reps and other teams, such as finance, who can then align their strategies for a unified customer experience.

• How it's done: You get a one-stop hub on a centralized platform for all your sales analytics and insights, providing complete visibility across teams.

You might be thinking, "More revenue, better communication, higher productivity — sign me up." However, revenue management software is not a one-size-fits-all system. You'll also need to consider aspects of your business and marketplace before you make a selection.

A few key functionalities and features should top your must-have list when evaluating a revenue management system. You want software that manages your entire revenue lifecycle and seamlessly integrates with your CRM. Regardless of whether you choose a stand-alone or integrated system, I recommend making sure the following options are available.

Allow businesses to experiment with different pricing strategies, such as subscriptions, tiered pricing, or pay-per-use models.

Example: A fitness studio uses this to offer a discounted monthly membership or a higher-priced option with access to premium classes.

This provides immediate insights into sales performance, allowing businesses to make data-driven decisions on the fly.

Example: An online retailer uses this to see which products are selling well during a sale and can adjust promotions or restock inventory in real time.

A revenue management system should integrate well with other applications, such as your front-end website and channel management, to maximize revenue while keeping costs down. Integrations with your CRM and/or ERP system will also simplify data entry and maintain consistency across information databases. When choosing a revenue management system, look for seamless, two-way integrations with touching solutions so data sharing is automatic and seamless, with minimal additional work.

Example: A software company uses it instead of disparate data in multiple systems to provide the most accurate data downstream when a customer subscribes to their service. Because of this consistency, it becomes easier to make subsequent updates or amendments.

Revenue management software enables product-to-cash automation on a single platform used across your business. The software supports end-to-end revenue generation with functionalities like sales forecasting, flexible pricing models, revenue analytics, and automation. No matter your industry, a revenue management system will help you make data-informed decisions that can grow your business.