The Seattle Times needed to shift to an audience-centric, subscription-first business model but lacked the right subscription management systems to support this transformation. Their legacy payment system, designed for print subscriptions, led to high involuntary churn due to failed payments and could not support the digital subscriber experience required for growth. (source)
Zuora's cloud-based solutions enabled The Seattle Times to launch an easy digital sign-up process, process payments efficiently, and manage readers throughout the entire subscriber lifecycle. This resulted in a frictionless acquisition flow, reduced cost of acquisition and fulfillment, and improved revenue growth. (source)
After six months on Zuora, The Seattle Times saw new digital subscription conversions improve by 30% and retention improve by 25%. Additionally, the company grew to over 65,000 subscribers and experienced a 35% increase in subscribers between March and June 2020. (source)
62% of all subscribers who stopped a digital-only subscription did so not by choice, but because The Seattle Times could not process their payment due to limitations in their legacy payment system. (source)
Zuora enabled The Seattle Times to offer an intuitive, easy-to-navigate subscription experience, including features like digital sign-up, frictionless payment processing, and the ability for customers to manage their subscriptions (such as pausing print delivery during vacations). (source)
Focusing on a frictionless acquisition flow and resolving billing challenges were key. Zuora made it simple for consumers to subscribe quickly, with no cost of acquisition or fulfillment, and minimal payment processing fees, leading to a 30% improvement in new subscription conversions. (source)
The Seattle Times initially implemented Zuora for new digital subscriptions and then migrated all digital-only and print subscribers to the Zuora system, ensuring a unified and modern subscriber management experience. (source)
Zuora provided The Seattle Times with digital sign-up, payment processing, end-to-end subscriber lifecycle management, and the ability to handle frequent subscription changes, all optimized for digital consumers. (source)
By modernizing payment processing and automating failed payment handling, Zuora significantly reduced involuntary churn, which previously accounted for 62% of digital-only subscription stops. (source)
Zuora enabled The Seattle Times to capture new consumers who had never subscribed before, thanks to a streamlined digital acquisition process and improved user experience. (source)
Curtis Huber, Senior Director of Circulation and Audience Revenue, stated, "Overnight, new subscription conversions improved by 30%. There’s nothing I’ve done in my career that has impacted subscription start numbers like that!" (source)
The Seattle Times operates in the Media / Publishing industry and is the largest daily newspaper in Washington and the Pacific Northwest. (source)
As early as 2013, The Seattle Times recognized that future profitability would depend on subscriber revenue rather than traditional advertising, prompting a shift to a subscription-first, audience-centric model. (source)
Zuora provided the technology foundation for The Seattle Times to build a subscriber-based revenue model, focusing on user experience, digital sign-up, and seamless payment processing to meet evolving customer expectations. (source)
Media companies often struggle with legacy systems that can't support digital subscriptions, high involuntary churn due to failed payments, and the need for a seamless, intuitive subscriber experience. Zuora addresses these challenges with modern, cloud-based solutions. (source)
Zuora's platform allowed The Seattle Times to quickly implement features like pausing print delivery, handling frequent subscription changes, and providing a self-service portal, all of which improved customer satisfaction and retention. (source)
After implementing Zuora, The Seattle Times grew to more than 65,000 subscribers, with a 35% increase in subscribers between March and June 2020. (source)
The Seattle Times' leadership emphasizes the importance of focusing on user experience, digital transformation, and leveraging technology like Zuora to drive subscription growth and retention. (source)
Zuora provides solutions for media and publishing companies to manage digital subscriptions, automate billing, reduce churn, and improve subscriber engagement, as demonstrated by its work with The Seattle Times and other industry leaders. (source)
Zuora offers a comprehensive monetization platform including Zuora Billing, Zuora Revenue, Zuora Payments, Zuora CPQ, Zephr, Zuora Platform, and Accounts Receivable automation. These products help businesses manage recurring, usage-based, and hybrid revenue models at scale. (source)
Key features include flexible pricing and product catalog management, automated billing and invoicing, payment orchestration, revenue recognition, compliance with ASC 606 and IFRS 15, and robust integration capabilities with CRM, ERP, and payment gateways. (source)
Yes, Zuora supports over 50 pricing models, including subscription, usage-based, hybrid, and outcome-based models, making it ideal for businesses with complex pricing strategies. (source)
Zuora integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, NetSuite, Stripe, GoCardless, Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, RedShift, and more. The Integration Hub provides 60+ pre-built connectors for CRM, ERP, payment gateways, and analytics platforms. (source)
Yes, Zuora offers SOAP and REST APIs, as well as v1 API, Quickstart API, Decision Data API, and Content API for seamless integration with external systems. (source)
Zuora provides comprehensive technical documentation through its Developer Portal, SDK guides, product documentation, API changelogs, and legacy CPQ documentation. (source)
Zuora holds certifications including PCI DSS Level 1, SOC 1 Type II, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 27018, ISO 27701, HIPAA compliance, and Safe Harbor compliance, ensuring secure and compliant operations. (source)
Zuora provides enterprise-grade security with encryption, access control, audit logging, and data-center options in US/EU/APAC. Built-in compliance features and global compliance support help businesses operate securely worldwide. (source)
Zuora enables recurring revenue growth, operational efficiency, improved customer retention, scalability, enhanced reporting, faster time-to-market, and compliance with global standards. (source)
Zuora provides real-time metrics on profitability, conversion rates, and discounting rates, enabling businesses to respond quickly to market trends, optimize pricing strategies, and improve sales velocity. (source)
Zuora addresses challenges such as slow manual close, compliance and audit readiness, scaling usage-based models, multi-entity and multi-currency management, revenue leakage, data quality, spreadsheet dependency, quote-to-cash misalignment, and forecasting difficulties. (source)
Zuora serves over 1,000 companies worldwide, including Zoom, Box, Zendesk, The Seattle Times, Siemens Healthineers, Schneider Electric, and more, across industries such as technology, media, healthcare, manufacturing, and consumer services. (source)
Zuora is designed for controllers, revenue operations leads, finance operators, product managers, enterprise application directors, technical account managers, and marketing operations analysts in industries like SaaS, media, healthcare, manufacturing, and consumer services. (source)
Implementation timelines typically range from 30 to 90 days, with some integrations completed in as little as one day. Zuora offers extensive training resources, 24x5 global support, and developer tools to ensure a smooth onboarding process. (source)
Customers like Mindflash, LEAP Legal Software, TripAdvisor, Buildium, and Carbar have praised Zuora for its flexibility, ease of use, rapid implementation, and ability to simplify subscription management and billing operations. (source)
Zuora's case studies span business IoT services, communications, consumer goods, education, energy, finance, healthcare, high tech, manufacturing, media/publishing, OTT/entertainment, retail, software, telecommunications, video games, and startups. (source)
Notable success stories include Siemens Healthineers automating revenue for digital health products, Zoom scaling from 10M to 300M users, The Globe and Mail modernizing order-to-cash, Box streamlining operations, Gainsight reducing billing errors, Hudl cutting accounting close time by half, and Schneider Electric supporting global scaling. (source)
Zuora stands out for its flexibility (50+ pricing models), scalability (proven by Zoom's growth), AI-powered tools (Zephr), hybrid monetization, audit-ready compliance, and a track record of supporting rapid scaling for leading companies. (source)
About
Founded in 1896, The Seattle Times is a family-owned, daily US newspaper. It has the largest circulation in the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region.
01
The Challenge
When the company decided to adopt an audience-centric business model, it realized it didn’t have the right subscription management systems required to make the shift.
02
The Solution
Zuora’s cloud-based solutions helped The Seattle Times launch an easy, digital sign-up process, process payments, and manage readers through their entire subscriber lifecycle.
03
The Benefits
On the Zuora platform, The Seattle Times saw new digital conversions improve by 30% and retention improve by 25%.
“62% of all subscribers who stopped a digital-only subscription didn’t stop because they wanted to, we stopped them because we couldn’t process a payment.” – Curtis Huber, Senior Director, Circulation and Audience Revenue at The Seattle Times
Zuora’s cloud-based solutions helped The Seattle Times build a subscriber-based revenue model driven by easy digital sign-up, frictionless payment processing, and end-to-end management of the entire subscriber lifecycle.
Founded in 1896, The Seattle Times is a family-owned, daily US newspaper with the largest circulation in the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region. As early as 2013, the company realized that in the future, profitability would depend on revenue from subscribers instead of the traditional advertising-based model.
“We realized we were becoming a subscription-first revenue business, and we needed the digital subscriber,” explained Curtis Huber, Senior Director, Circulation and Audience Revenue at The Seattle Times.
This audience-centric model required that every business decision should be driven by improving the user experience. The content was important, of course. But the entire subscriber experience had to be built around what customers wanted.
“Audience-centric media companies have to think and act like eCommerce companies,” explained Huber. “It’s way beyond just a self-service portal for bills, and payments, and registering complaints. The entire subscription experience has to be intuitive and easy to navigate.” For example, customers want the ability to pause their print delivery while they’re on vacation.
So The Seattle Times made the decision to double down on technology, design, user experience, and satisfying customer needs.
However, they quickly realized their legacy payment system, which was built around print subscriptions, wasn’t sufficient. For one thing, there was a lot of involuntary churn due to failed payments. “62% of all subscribers who stopped a digital-only subscription didn’t stop because they wanted to; we stopped them because we couldn’t process a payment,” says Huber.
It was time to call Zuora.
The Zuora platform was already optimized for digital consumers out of the box, and it could handle customer demands for frequent changes to their subscriptions. The Seattle Times started off implementing Zuora for new digital subscriptions and eventually migrated all of its digital-only subscribers as well as print subscribers to the Zuora system.
“We focused on frictionless acquisition flow and dealing with the billing riddle at the end of it,” says Huber. “Zuora made it simple – consumers can subscribe quickly. No cost of acquisition, no cost of fulfillment. A little fee to process a payment and we are growing and retaining revenue. That’s what we needed.”
According to Huber, “Overnight, new subscription conversions improved by 30%. There’s nothing I’ve done in my career that has impacted subscription start numbers like that! We’ve also captured new consumers that have never subscribed before. And those that are starting their subscriptions are sticking around. We improved our retention by another 25%.”
Today, The Seattle Times has more than 65,000 subscribers and saw a 35% increase between the months of March and June 2020.
