Article · long-form guide

Pricing Your SaaS Product

Patrick Campbell (ProfitWell), via Lenny's Newsletter · lennysnewsletter.com Free Intermediate

Patrick Campbell built ProfitWell on pricing data from thousands of companies, and this is the single best free deep-dive on SaaS pricing strategy. It's the canonical starting point for value metrics, segments, and packaging.

  • Get your value metric right and you can afford to get other things wrong
  • Pricing is built on quantified buyer personas and willingness to pay
  • Optimize pricing quarterly, it's an ongoing process, not a one-time decision
Open on lennysnewsletter.com ↗

It answers 12 questions

  1. How do I decide how much to charge for my product?
  2. What is a value metric and why does it matter for pricing?
  3. How do I make money from a free product or freemium model?
  4. How many pricing tiers should I have and how should I package them?
  5. Should I charge my very first customers or give it away free to get traction?
  6. Am I charging too little for my product?
  7. How do I raise prices without losing my existing customers?
  8. How should I price for the Indian market versus global customers?
  9. How do I price my product when I am selling it myself and have no comparable competitors?
  10. How do I sell in India where buyers negotiate hard on price and payments come in late?
  11. Should I offer a free trial, a paid pilot, or a discount to close my first customers?
  12. My ideal customer can't afford my product. Did I define them wrong?

Read with it

  1. The most concrete guide to actually measuring what customers will pay, including survey methods and tier design. It turns... lennysnewsletter.com Article · long-form guide The Ultimate Guide to Willingness to Pay Lenny Rachitsky & Patrick Campbell
  2. Video Startup Pricing 101 Kevin Hale
  3. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  4. Tom Blomfield's practical framework for pricing when you sell to businesses, including why to charge from the start and how to... Y Combinator Startup Library Video How to Price for B2B (Tom Blomfield, Y Combinator) Tom Blomfield
  5. The best book on positioning against competitors by understanding the alternatives customers actually consider. Directly turns... aprildunford.com Book · ~200 pages Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It April Dunford
  6. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →