Apptivo is a collection of several applications to help run your business for free. But any viable business needs to generate revenue to sustain itself – this is especially true when businesses like yours are entrusting your data and depend on a single platform for all of your operations. So, lets answer that question – how does Apptivo make money?

As a thriving startup, Apptivo has several ways to make money. While we have not reached all the milestones to implement all revenue sources possible, the immediate plan for Apptivo is to make money by selling several business services that a business would need. All these services are optional and you can choose to use them if your business needs them. It is these services which make up for our main revenue stream. The various services currently being provided through Apptivo are listed in this link.

Some examples of paid services are online faxing, document storage, email campaigns, hosting, and domain registration. In general, when Apptivo integrates with 3rd party companies to provide a certain service, Apptivo charges for those services. These services are available either as separate apps and/or as integrated with many apps. For example, if you purchase the fax service, you will find the option to fax in all the places where you have documents.

Now, the next logical question might popup – why should I buy these services from Apptivo? Why not go to those vendors or their competitors and get a better deal?

There are three reasons:

1. Price: Apptivo’s prices will not be higher than the original service provider. The price will be either the same or lesser than the suggested retail price. We are able to negotiate volume pricing with these providers and would like to pass on some of the benefits to you.
2. Quality of Service: While evaluating a service to be offered as part of the Apptivo platform, we evaluate the prices from different vendors. But this is not the only criterion. We look for the quality of service, ease of integration with Apptivo, their ability to support when technical problems arise, their business model, business performance over the years and many other factors before deciding to integrate. So, in general, you can trust the service that comes through Apptivo. In cases where we see there is a significant need, we will integrate with more than one service provider.
3. Seamless Integration: The third reason is even more significant. All the paid services are seamlessly integrated with our apps such that you do not have to jump back and forth between applications or services. Lets take an example – you want to fax a contract to a customer. The following illustration shows how it is done in Apptivo and how it would be done outside.
   1. In Apptivo: You will navigate to the Customers App and find the document that should be faxed. You will click on the fax link and fax the document right away.
   2. As a Standalone Service: You will navigate to the Customer in your CRM, download the document, upload it into your electronic fax system and send the fax. You will have to come back and record that activity in your CRM.

Clearly, the usability through Apptivo is far better than using the standalone service. On top of that your activities are automatically tracked and provides complete visibility to everyone who is dealing with that customer.

After reading this, if you have any follow up questions, please reach out to us at support@apptivo.com