Ask HN: How did you set your pricing scheme?
It seems to me that pricing is a neglected topic on SaaS websites: most seem to have a fairly set pricing scheme and focus on optimizing everything but price.
I have been experimenting a lot with pricing in my current SaaS. Has anyone experience with A/B testing, discounts, etc? Would you care to tell me more about thoughts and experiences?
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Some general points/comments.
1. Most new developers/entrepreneurs always under price their product/service. If you are new to this and the price feels a little uncomfortable you are probably getting closer to its real value.
2. Discounting screams you don't know the value of your product/service. Try not to "discount" your product/service, instead A/B testing is smarter to set some parameters. Also, I'd second what taprun says on discounts too in his comment.
3. Set your pricing not based on what the service costs you to operate, develop, maintain etc. Set your pricing based on the value you provide to the client.
4. Don't immediately reach change the price when you are starting out. Evaluate everything equally to price, it may be who you are marketing to, product/market fit etc. And much of that is far more impactful than just price alone.
5. Try to keep you pricing scheme simple. The easier it is to understand the better. Ideally I like to see at most 3-4 "levels" of pricing, more than that and users start getting confused what to select and are more likely to bail and not try any of them.
6. Experiment with free trials to see if it may help your conversion rate. I can't say it is ideal in all situations nor does it work in all, but it is worth evaluating.
My first piece of advice is to think about your goals. What do you want to optimize for (# of users, short-term liquidity, long term profits, customer churn, etc).
My next piece is to be wary of discounts. Consumers will become accustomed to them and eventually come to demand their continued use (see J. C. Penney is a great example of a company that got burned by this).
One more tip is to think in terms of value. Don't just think about the functionality you provide - think about intangibles too. Do you reduce risk? You can charge for that!
I could probably write a book about this topic. Oh wait, I did! http://taprun.com/pricing
https://unicornfree.com/category/pricing