From Homegrown to Strategic Partnership: LegalZoom's Billing Evolution

After 20 years as an online legal services provider, LegalZoom faced the classic challenge of maintaining legacy systems built before specialized solutions existed. Its homegrown billing system consumed valuable engineering resources that could be better directed toward its core business – helping customers navigate the legal system.

The complexity of LegalZoom's operation added additional layers of difficulty. With diverse SKUs containing varied data attributes depending on the type of form or filing, its billing needs extended beyond simple transactions. As Ana Garcia, Vice President of Data and Platform Engineering at LegalZoom explains, "Solutions like Chargebee just didn't exist, and we built our own as we grew."

This approach created an ongoing resource allocation problem. "Our core is not billing and payment and recurring billing engines," notes Garcia. Engineering talent was being diverted from its primary mission to maintain systems outside its strategic focus.

LegalZoom selected Chargebee to modernize its billing operations, freeing up engineering talent for core business initiatives. Instead of a complete system overhaul, the company adopted a careful, phased approach.

"We debated a lot going for the heart of the beast and the core products," Garcia explains. "But on the other hand, we really wanted to be careful and be cognizant of potential risks and set up both us and Chargebee for success."

Its approach began with simpler, transaction-based products without electronic fulfillment components. This methodical strategy allowed it to:

• Build organizational confidence in the new solution

• Compare performance between migrated and non-migrated products

• Minimize risk during the transition

• Create a foundation for migrating higher-value subscriptions

The implementation featured close collaboration between LegalZoom and Chargebee. "When we were in the thick of our implementation, we had Chargebee onsite with our engineers coding this and building together," Garcia shares.

Chargebee's flexible product catalog capabilities provided a consistent layer for its complex SKU structure. "What the Chargebee product catalog allows us to do is create this very consistent layer between the SKU, a definition of a SKU, and what attributes all SKUs have," explains Garcia. "The integration is pretty seamless. It has given us flexibility while also easing the burden of just doing everything ourselves."

Even in the early stages of implementation, LegalZoom has experienced measurable improvements. "We have seen right away a substantial increase in payment approval rates just using the Chargebee ecosystem," Garcia reports. "In the first batch of renewals, we already saw improvement in payment approval rates."

Chargebee's flexibility continues to benefit LegalZoom as it progresses through implementation. Garcia notes, "I didn't feel that I would have to commit to a particular [integration] or commit to a specific way of routing. I felt that the tech stack that Chargebee provides allows me to make these decisions as I learn and go."

With these early wins, LegalZoom is now planning to migrate its higher-value subscription products. "We started with our smaller subscriptions, and we have a lot more subscribers to go. So I'm excited to onboard those, especially the higher-value subscriptions, the higher price points, where we can see that percentage improvement means a lot for the bottom line."

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