9
10 Comments

About SaaS Pricing Plans... ( long question :)

What do you think about how many plan options should be for a SaaS project?

We using 5 different plans for Screpy.
The reason for this is to be able to make more flexible choices by the customers.

Maybe more confusing. Maybe it's good that it's confusing. I don't know.

Number of Plans for any Saas Project
  1. 1
  2. 1-3
  3. 3-5
  4. 5+
  5. It depends on the project. ( If yes, why? )
Vote
  1. 7

    The correct response is almost always: 3 options.

    Small, medium, large?
    Basic, advanced, pro?
    Startup, business, enterprise?
    Tall, Grande, Venti?
    RTX 3070, 3080, 3090?
    Audi A5, Audi S5, Audi RS5?
    Economy, business, first class?
    The list goes on endlessly...

    This isn't just my gut instinct, this is backed by scientific research applied to behavioral economics.

    You can find additional information on the topic by reading up on the following authors, to name but a few:

    • Dan Ariely
    • Ed Kless
    • Ronald Baker
    • Jonathan Stark
    • Blair Enns
    • David Baker
    • Daniel Kahneman
    • Amos Tversky
      ... And many more.

    You'll want to focus on a few pricing concepts to sandbox your research and focus on the meat of your question. Here are some concepts you can start with:

    • Extremeness aversion
    • Center-stage effect
    • Price anchoring
    • Charm pricing
    • Decision fatigue
    • Analysis paralysis

    Ron Baker & Ed Kless host an insanely good podcast called The Soul of Entreprise and they have an episode on Starbucks' menu options I think you'd enjoy :)

    https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/tsoe/pricing-at-starbucks

    3 options - that's the answer (almost always).

    Hope this helps! ;)

    EDIT: Established companies can get away much more easily with offering 4 or more options. The classic example is the Credit Card market. Everyday, rewards, travel & Platinum. The banks get away with additional options easily because the cognitive load is small. Everyone "gets it" when you add an option called Platinum - it's for the really rich people, obviously (so customers think).

    Consequently, startups should avoid 4+ options at all costs as their customers will have to learn what those options entail. Startups stand to lose potential customers to decision fatigue.

    1. 1

      I'm speechless. Very, very important a comment. all IH must see. I will need to archive this comment :)

      1. 1

        I'm delighted I could be of service :)

        Good luck out there, all the best!

  2. 2

    I like the idea of showing a "free" tier, just to contrast the value they will be getting by paying.

    Here's a simple pricing page from SplitWit: https://www.splitwit.com/pricing

  3. 2

    Hi Yunus, usually people get confused when too many options are provided to them and instead of going with the best fit they decide not to buy anything. Keeping it simple is the best. Just consider your main service you provide and create plans on top of it. Then you can provide the custom features with custom plan option to create the best experience for your customers on their needs. Not everyone will use all extra features you offer in premium plans eventough they need the core feature in that plan.

  4. 2

    From what I can see, in you particular case you’re not really adding features from the Pro plan up, but rather change various limits of your service. I’d simplify you pricing so that your plans differ mainly when it comes to features and then would sell add-ons that allow for higher limits of projects, pages, etc.

  5. 1

    In addition to the really good feedback from others, here are some pricing page examples which should hopefully give you concrete ideas on how you could simplify your pricing:

    1. 1

      Yes thanks, I love the first option. We will definitely switch to this in the future :)

  6. 1

    Hmm, I do think your pricing is a bit confusing, too many options to choose from and I don't know which option is suitable for me. A summary for each one would be great (eg. "for indie hackers", "for companies", "for enterprise").

    My pricing for userTrack is even weirder, I actually have 9 different options, but they are pretty well structured:

    For indie hackers and small companies:

    • Monthly (Standalone)
    • Monthly (WordPress)
    • Lifetime (Standalone)
    • Lifetime (WordPress)
      Same options (but different pricing) for larger companies.
      And a custom pricing plan for agencies willing to resell access to the product in some way.

    So far customers seem to understand the differences between the plans and are not really confused. I do think it's a bit of an uncommon pricing structure as not many software products have both a monthly AND lifetime option.

    Conclusion: The number of plans doesn't really matter, just make sure that the difference between them is clear and that each plan is suited for a different type of client.

    1. 1

      You are right. And whatever you do, some customers still don't understand somethings. I think it is necessary to accept that too.

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 49 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 28 comments My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker 14 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments