Case study Ling

Founded in 2016, Ling is a rapidly expanding tech company based in Thailand. Ling is the leading app for learning Thai and several other Asian and Eastern European languages. The app uses gamification to make learning fun and rewarding. It is available for iPhone and Android users on App Store and Google Play.

Jarir Mallah, Human Resources Manager at Ling, has built a diverse but tight-knit team with members from 10 different countries. As the company entered its growth stage, the portfolio of tools the team was using also started growing. To manage this efficiently, Jarir decided to implement proper SaaS vendor management.

“We had to find a solution to prevent us from overpaying for software or paying for things we didn’t truly need or use,” Jarir said

Vendor management is a specialized skill. Without daily negotiations, staying on top of all cost optimisation opportunities is challenging. Strong expertise in this field is hard to build for a person working in a single company.

“We didn’t have team members with experience in dealing with vendors. We needed an expert to review our apps and optimize costs for us,” said Jarir.

Finding external vendor management experts proved unexpectedly difficult. Most companies offering these services prioritize enterprise-grade clients and charge significant upfront fees. Spendbase, however, stood out for its friendliness towards growing businesses.

“A lot of services wouldn’t work with us because we were too small. I couldn’t get more than an automated email response from some of them,” Jarir shared.

Jarir was unsure what to expect from the partnership with Spendbase, as he had never used a service like this before. The preliminary savings calculations were promising, so he decided to subscribe to Spendbase’s services and app bundle for a year.

“It was set up in a way that was as close to risk-free from our end as possible, which made it very appealing,” said Jarir.

The partnership proved successful. In the first three months, Spendbase’s vendor negotiation experts secured 45–50% discounts on four services: Amplitude, Post Affiliate Pro, Cloudways, and Personio.

Discounted subscriptions ranged from two months to two years, resulting in total savings of $4,704 so far, with more opportunities for savings as renewals approach.

Beyond the financial savings, the partnership with Spendbase allowed the Ling team to focus on their core responsibilities rather than the administrative burden of negotiating with vendors.

“Aside from the money we’ve saved, we’re really happy to free up our team’s time to focus on their other work,” Jarir highlighted.

The Spendbase team achieves desired results much faster because they know the benchmarks and the best approaches for each vendor. On top of that, their business ethics benefit both the vendor and the client.

“Spendbase was great in working with us from the start and being very supportive. They’ve always responded the same day to all my questions,” said Jarir.