The platform, originally made by an Australian company, has been made fully ready for the North American market, including being compliant with U.S. and Canadian tax laws.
Datto has announced the commercial availability in North America of Datto Commerce, the real-time sales platform they acquired with Gluh in 2020. Datto Commerce simplifies day-to-day quoting, selling and procurement, improving MSP profitability, and also presenting their customers with a storefront with their own branding.
“Gluh focused on a very interesting problem,” said Radhesh Menon, Chief Product Officer at Datto, who joined the company in the middle of last year. “If you look at the flow of commerce in an MSP business, there’s a lot of paperwork, especially around less attractive hardware and servers and printers that don’t even provide them with a monthly recurring revenue. The solution from the Gluh team in Australia did three things very well. One was help MSPs create a quote in less than 30 seconds, in a professional format. The simplicity and efficiency this brings to the MSP will help improve their profitability. Second, they enabled them to set up a digital storefront, so they can transact online with customers, so that the whole quote process can be bypassed entirely. And third, since all these products need to come from somewhere, they set up the ability to integrate with upstream providers.”
Datto was one of these providers, being one of multiple PSA vendors that Gluh supported.
Several enhancements have been made between the time the product was acquired and this launch.
“We had fully enabled North American commerce flow with support for local jurisdictional tax capabilities in the U.S. and Canada,” Menon said. “In addition, before we acquired them, they had more of an involved onboarding process for partners, which required that someone from the Gluh team spent a lot of time with each MSP. We’ve automated that to make it scalable since we anticipate tremendous demand.” Finally, the PSA integration within Autotask has also been deepened.
Menon thinks Datto Commerce will bring tremendous differentiation to the market.
“I see this as a bit of a brown fields opportunity, but trending more green,” he said. “In terms just of the quote to cash process, there are other offerings out there, although I think we are differentiated in terms of how efficient the process is. Those with competitive tools aren’t excited by the UX and level of experience they receive. The really exciting aspect though, is that every MSP is now able to set up a digital storefront and change the way they engage with SMBs. That’s where the long-term excitement is, in my opinion. As more MSPs become more comfortable with having digital storefronts, this will be the way they can service their SMBs.”
Gluh itself continues to operate as a distinct unit in Australia.
“It is still a separate unit, because it has a very strategic objective for us,” Menon indicated.
The plan is to continue to sell Datto Commerce to any MSP, beyond the Datto ecosystem.
“We are 100% committed to the idea of an open ecosystem,” Menon said. “Datto Commerce can help democratize the process for anyone, including those who are not Datto partners.”
Datto Commerce is now available to MSPs in North America for an introductory promotional price of $USD 199/month per MSP.
“We think the flat per MSP pricing, which is simpler than some of our competitors, will be very attractive,” Menon noted. “It is aimed at driving adoption. Datto says that MSPs who lock in the promotional pricing with a long term agreement will benefit from cost savings, versus signing up with what will most likely be a month to month tier-based pricing structure.
