How does Outreach make money?

  • Outreach is an American software-as-a-service (SaaS) company founded by Andrew Kinzer, Wes Hather, Gordon Hempton, and Manuel Medina in 2014. The idea for Outreach came from the demise of the recruitment software company GroupTalent.
  • Outreach makes money via the sale of three sales engagement products: Outreach Kaia, Outreach Commit, and Outreach Success Plans. Outreach charges $100 per user per month as a minimum, with the total cost billed annually.
  • Unlike competitors such as FunnelFLARE, Outreach does not offer a free trial. Major clients include Zoom, Okta, Snowflake, and Adobe.
AspectDescription
Software LicensingOutreach primarily generates revenue through software licensing. It offers subscription-based pricing models for its sales engagement platform. Customers, typically sales teams and organizations, pay a recurring fee to access and use Outreach’s software. These licenses grant users access to a range of features and tools that help them manage and optimize their sales outreach efforts. Pricing may vary based on the number of users and the level of functionality required.
Tiered PlansOutreach typically offers tiered subscription plans to cater to the needs of various customers. These plans may include different levels of functionality and support, with higher-tier plans offering more advanced features and capabilities. Customers can choose the plan that aligns with their organization’s size and sales objectives, allowing for scalability and flexibility in pricing.
Professional ServicesIn addition to its software, Outreach may provide professional services to customers. These services can include implementation assistance, training, onboarding, and ongoing support. Customers who require additional guidance and expertise in effectively utilizing Outreach’s platform may opt for these services, which generate extra revenue for the company.
Data Insights and AnalyticsOutreach may offer data insights and analytics features as part of its platform. These tools provide customers with valuable information and insights related to their sales outreach efforts. Organizations may pay extra for advanced analytics and reporting features that help them refine their sales strategies and optimize their outreach campaigns.
IntegrationsOutreach often integrates with other sales and marketing tools and platforms, such as customer relationship management (CRM) software, email providers, and marketing automation solutions. While these integrations can enhance the functionality and value of Outreach’s platform, they may also be offered as add-on features for an additional fee, generating supplementary revenue.
Challenges and CompetitionOutreach faces challenges related to competition in the sales engagement and automation space, as there are other software providers offering similar solutions. Staying ahead in terms of innovation, ensuring seamless integrations, and providing excellent customer support are ongoing challenges. Maintaining pricing competitiveness and adapting to evolving sales needs are essential for growth.
Future Growth StrategiesOutreach’s future growth strategies may involve: – Product Innovation: Continuously developing and enhancing its platform with new features and capabilities. – Market Expansion: Expanding its customer base to target new industries and regions. – Integration Partnerships: Forging strategic partnerships with CRM and marketing platforms. – Advanced Analytics: Offering more sophisticated data analytics and AI-driven insights.

Origin story

Outreach is an American software-as-a-service (SaaS) company founded by Andrew Kinzer, Wes Hather, Gordon Hempton, and Manuel Medina in 2014.

The platform provides clients with revenue management technologies that are powered by artificial intelligence to assist in sales engagement and productivity.

The Outreach story begins three years before the company was founded. In 2011, the co-founders created GroupTalent – a recruitment start-up selling software to help tech firms source and hire talent.

The endeavor was successful initially, but GroupTalent found itself with two months of remaining cash after a short time with little hope of raising more.

Medina believed that if the company generated more meetings it could gain more opportunities to sell its recruitment software.

So we built the engine to do that, and we saw that we were getting 40% reply rates to our own outreaching emails. It was so successful we had a 10x increase in productivity. But we ran out of sales capacity, so we started selling the meetings we had managed to secure with potential talent directly to the tech companies themselves

He later explained in an interview.

With companies contacting GroupTalent for its sales engine and not for its recruitment software, the co-founders changed its name to Outreach and never looked back.

In June 2021, Outreach raised $200 million in Series G funding to be worth $4.4 billion.

The company has enjoyed rapid growth in the last two years thanks to the shift toward remote working and digital selling.

To date, 19 of the top 25 fastest-growing public software businesses are using the Outreach platform to achieve their revenue goals.

Outreach revenue generation

Outreach makes money by selling its sales engagement platform to interested parties.

The company does so via three core products:

  1. Outreach Kaia – to help sellers become successful with real-time intelligence. Sales representatives can spend more time selling and less time searching with artificial intelligence-triggered content cards. They can also drive deal momentum with real-time answers to difficult prospect questions. Kaia also allows teams to view actionable meeting summaries in their inbox with promised follow-up items after the meeting has occurred.
  2. Outreach Commit – an artificial intelligence-driven sales assistant that infuses science into the art of sales forecasting. Commit allows teams to build forecasts everyone can understand with summarised forecasts and pipeline visibility. On the subject of pipelines, Commit has an early-warning system that identifies issues with intelligent deal signals and ensures the team will never fall short on pipeline coverage.
  3. Outreach Success Plans – the company promotes Success Plans as a product that manages deal health through a single pane of glass. Sellers and buyers can collaborate to create dynamic action plans with agreed-upon success criteria, objectives, and timelines with access to shared project resources. This option also coordinates and aligns buy-side and sell-side teams involved in a deal cycle, with captured data from these interactions used to help senior staff course-correct deals and make more accurate forecasts.

Outreach does not list pricing on its website and will only provide specific figures if an interested party books a demo. 

With that said, prices for the above products start at $100 per user per month, billed annually. Unlike competitors such as FunnelFLARE, there is no option to take a free trial. 

Major Outreach clients include Zoom, Okta, Snowflake, and Adobe.

Key Takeaways

  • Outreach Kaia: Provides real-time intelligence to help sales representatives spend more time selling and less time searching with AI-triggered content cards and real-time answers to prospect questions.
  • Outreach Commit: An AI-driven sales assistant that infuses science into sales forecasting, helping teams build understandable forecasts with summarised forecasts and pipeline visibility.
  • Outreach Success Plans: Manages deal health through a single pane of glass, allowing sellers and buyers to collaborate on dynamic action plans with agreed-upon success criteria, objectives, and timelines.
  • Revenue Generation: Outreach makes money by selling its sales engagement platform, offering three core products: Outreach Kaia, Outreach Commit, and Outreach Success Plans.
  • Pricing: Prices start at $100 per user per month, billed annually. Unlike competitors, Outreach does not offer a free trial.
  • Rapid Growth: Outreach has experienced rapid growth, attracting significant funding and working with 19 of the top 25 fastest-growing public software businesses.
  • Major Clients: Major clients of Outreach include Zoom, Okta, Snowflake, and Adobe.

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