Comments on: SaaS Pricing: Lessons from 4 pricing changes

By: Julian

Julian — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 22:19:13 +0000

While your approach is interesting and instructive, as a potential user of your product (note: I’m with a startup), it makes me apprehensive on three counts.

1. Pricing based on end-users is unfortunate, as it puts at odds two important goals: saving money and getting feedback.

2. From a technical perspective, I can see that it’s an arbitrary choice, as it doesn’t actually cost Canny servers more to provide for 1,000 users with 1 item of feedback than 1 user with 1,000 items of feedback. Knowing this makes me feel like its a money grab, and not directly tied to the value I’m getting from Canny. The value comes from the feedback, not the number of users.

3. I see the “Do you qualify for special pricing?” callout, but I’m hesitant to reach out because I’m asking myself “what happens after I no longer qualify?” This is compounded by the fact that the pricing has already changed 3 times, and it appears to be changing a 4th. The “5% of users” slider also appears to be an arbitrary number… what happens if 10% of users use it? More? Just how much might I end up paying for this product? The actual number of people using it is beyond my control.

It may be that I’m not your target client, but Canny is my target product, so I find myself seeking alternatives with the same simple interface with pricing models that I’m more comfortable with. Perhaps once I graduate from startup pricing, I will be able to pay whatever the fee is for Canny, but perhaps not…

Anyway, the whole reason I’m writing this is because I like the product, but I’m stuck on the pricing, and I thought you should know, since you’re thinking about it 🙂

Freemium would be amazing, but I’m just saying that as a startup founder.

By: Darlan Ricardo

Darlan Ricardo — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 20:41:09 +0000

Awesome read! Gives a lot of insights into defining the right pricing, and also that it’s ok to change pricing on a short period of time depending on your situation. Our company have changed price in January after a long period with an old price. We’re still evaluating our wins on that, and might have another conversation on updating price again…

By: TriAce

TriAce — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 03:05:42 +0000

Interesting article! Noticed you sing. I might invite you to some interesting Discord events if you use that app. 🙂

By: wrapson

wrapson — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 10:05:57 +0000

This is complete bollocks – pricing isn’t a finger in the air process – you have to ensure your selling price covers all your costs. When you know these figures then and only then can you start looking at a selling price on a cost plus basis. You might well find then that the scheme is unviable because your production costs are too high.

By: Juan Pablo

Juan Pablo — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 07:58:24 +0000

Hi Sarah.

I was wondering, what made you guys choose a “trial” period over a 30 / 60 days money-back guarantee?

Cheers!

By: David P Himes

David P Himes — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 16:18:54 +0000

I really appreciate you sharing such a complete story and results. thanks

By: Per Sjofors

Per Sjofors — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 15:02:26 +0000

You have a great story. One more thing to remember, when you change pricing the way you done, you confuse many of your potential customers. And confused customers don’t buy. Thus, the journey you been on has been very costly for you in terms of lost sales. Therefore, it is crucial for any startup company to have pricing right from start.

By: Scott D. Witt

Scott D. Witt — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 06:38:49 +0000

Smart Pricing is essential to the survival and success of your startup!

Here are few more ideas to refine your pricing strategy:
– Be very clear about who is, and isn’t, your target customer. Use tools like ‘Jobs to Be Done’ to better identify your target customers and understand what they really value.

– Quantify the cost of the target customer’s problem, and the value of your solution. Most customers are pretty clueless about this; you must be an expert.

– Be clear about your ‘position’ in the market relative to competitors: premium, low-cost, etc. Use your price to signal your position/quality to the market.

– Remember that each segment of customer will have a different level of price sensitivity.

– Start with a high list price, and then use targeted discounting for the more price sensitive customers

– Price for Profit, not marketshare

– Remember that the market is a moving target: plan to review and adjust your pricing at a

Best of Luck with your Company!