SOFTWARE

How Popl automated collections at scale and unlocked 30x+ ROI in 3 months

30,000+

Invoices managed through customized workflows

Zero

Changes to core billing stack

About

Popl is the leading GTM platform for in-person lead capture, helping companies turn events, conferences, and field marketing into measurable and scalable growth channels. From badge scanning to data enrichment and CRM sync, Popl enables teams to capture and activate high-quality leads in real time, powered by AI and its proprietary data engine.

Industry

SOFTWARE

Company size

120+ Employees

Founded

2020

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About Popl

Popl is the leading GTM platform for in-person lead capture, used by professionals across 90% of the Fortune 500 to turn in-person interactions into measurable revenue.

With the return of in-person events, Popl experienced rapid growth over the past three years, scaling across thousands of customers through a combination of product-led and sales-led motions.

As its customer base expanded, so did the complexity of its billing and payments — spanning diverse payment behaviors, contract structures, and levels of engagement.

With a strong billing foundation already in place through Stripe, Popl’s focus shifted to ensuring that its collections processes could scale alongside that growth.

The Challenge: Scaling collections alongside growth

As volume increased, collections workflows became increasingly difficult to coordinate across different payment types, customer segments, and lifecycle stages.

Popl managed both invoicing and payments through Stripe, but effective collections outreach required handling multiple scenarios — including overdue invoices, failed card payments and a nuance of diverse customers — each requiring different follow-up strategies. Stripe’s native reminders provided only basic coverage. They were generic, inconsistent, and unable to adapt outreach based on customer context or unify collections across these scenarios.

What had worked effectively at an earlier stage quickly became time-intensive as the number of accounts grew. Collections turned into an ongoing operational effort, with increasing coordination required to ensure nothing slipped through the cracks.

Popl needed a way to maintain a high standard of collections while operating at significantly greater scale — without introducing additional overhead or disrupting existing systems.

“Before Exante, collections felt like a constant game of catch-up. Now we have full visibility into what’s happening across every account, and confidence that nothing is falling through the cracks. It’s completely changed how we manage AR at scale.”

Nicole Azzaro

AR Manager

Why Exante

Popl evaluated several solutions, but most introduced trade-offs they couldn’t accept.

Some required replacing existing billing infrastructure, creating unnecessary disruption. Others addressed only part of the problem — handling either invoicing or failed payments, but not both. Many required significant engineering support, while others lacked the flexibility to tailor outreach across Popl’s diverse customer base.

Exante stood apart by solving the problem without compromise.

Rather than replacing Stripe, Exante integrated directly with Popl’s existing setup, allowing the team to layer intelligent automation on top of their current billing and payments infrastructure. Implementation was completed in under a week, with minimal engineering involvement.

Exante also enabled the team to define collections workflows in simple, human language and automatically execute them. This made it possible to tailor outreach based on factors like customer segment, invoice size, lifecycle stage, and level of delinquency — ensuring every interaction was timely, relevant, and personalized.

For the first time, Popl could coordinate collections across both overdue invoices and failed payments within a single system—ensuring consistent, context-aware outreach across the entire receivables lifecycle.

Results

The impact was immediate. Popl went live in under a week, and automated collections began running consistently across the entire customer base from day one.

What had previously been an active, ongoing effort became a structured system operating reliably in the background. Collections shifted from manual coordination to an automated process, with the team stepping in only when needed.

Within the first 90 days, Popl cleared 100% of invoices that were more than 90 days overdue — eliminating a backlog that had previously felt difficult to fully resolve. The system also recovered substantial amounts of revenue that had been outstanding for extended periods, including failed credit card payments that were over a year old.

At the same time, Popl was able to scale collections across thousands of accounts without adding headcount. By introducing consistency and coordination across every touchpoint, Exante ensured that no revenue slipped through the cracks.

The financial impact was clear: collections became a meaningful driver of cash flow, delivering more than 30x return on investment based on recovered payments relative to the cost of Exante.

“Exante turned collections into a meaningful driver of cash flow for us. We’re recovering revenue at a level that simply wasn’t possible before, while operating far more efficiently. The ROI has been immediate and significant, without requiring us to invest in additional headcount or overhaul our existing systems.”

Natalie Miller

VP Operations

Looking Ahead

For Popl, Exante has become more than a collections tool — it’s a key part of its growth infrastructure.

By automating collections without disrupting existing systems, the company has turned what was once an operational burden into a scalable, high-impact function. As Popl continues to grow, Exante ensures that revenue collection keeps pace—efficiently, intelligently, and without added complexity.

What began as a way to recover overdue invoices has evolved into a strategic advantage, giving Popl the confidence that its systems — and its cash flow — can scale alongside its ambition.

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