Zoho Founder Takes A Dig At DocuSign’s ‘Overpriced’ Model

Zoho cofounder Sridhar Vembu has taken a dig at San Francisco-based electronic signature and agreement management software company DocuSign, saying that it is selling “overpriced” enterprise software.

He claimed that his company’s version of the software, Zoho Sign, addresses the same problem without requiring close to 7,000 employees working on it.

“DocuSign is a supremely bloated company that sells super overpriced enterprise software. We solve that problem with Zoho Sign, and we don’t need 6,705 employees to produce digital signature software,” Vembu wrote in a post on X.

His remarks came in response to a post by Tiny cofounder Andrew Wilkinson, who also owns popular platforms like Dribbble, Letterboxd and AeroPress.

Wilkinson had posted on X, saying, “I just found out how much we pay for DocuSign and my jaw dropped. What’s the best alternative? Is there something free or stupid cheap?”

Tagging Wilkinson’s post, Vembu wrote, “So much ‘enterprise SaaS’ fits the ‘supremely bloated company that sells super over-priced enterprise software.’ As the SaaS bubble deflates, customers of over-priced enterprise SaaS will have the same reaction as Andrew.”

He also advised Wilkinson to consider public SaaS companies. 

Offering a heuristic for identifying cost-effective alternatives, Vembu said, “Look at the sales and marketing expense versus R&D expense of your SaaS vendors. If they’re spending significantly more on selling the software than on building it, that’s a strong signal that you can save a ton of money by replacing them.” 

Vembu’s comments come a month after he stepped down from his role as Zoho group CEO. Back then, he informed in a post on X that he would be taking up the role of a chief scientist to look after the company’s R&D initiatives.

Founded in 1996 by Vembu and Tony Thomas, Zoho was initially known as AdventNet INC. It has offices in the US, Singapore, UAE and Japan. In 2009, the company was renamed Zoho Corporation. 

The company offers more than 50 integrated online applications that support multiple business operations spanning sales and marketing, finance, email and collaboration, app creation and analytics, among others. 

It earns its revenue by selling its software and charging subscription fees to its customers across six continents.

On the financial front, the company’s sales crossed the $1 Bn mark in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. 

The bootstrapped unicorn reported an operating revenue of INR 8,703.6 Cr ($1 Bn) in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23), a jump of 30% from INR 6,710.7 Cr in FY22. North America continued to be the biggest contributor to Zoho’s revenue.