
Ask HN: What are your average per-customer cost for your SaaS product? - salehenrahman
This includes hosting, and labor.<p>I&#x27;m trying to figure out what is the least amount I can charge my customers, so that my product does not fall below a threshold that leaves it cashflow negative, requiring us to shutter our services.
======
troydavis
Unless you’re deliberately operating a not-for-profit (trying to cover
expenses and nothing else), value-based pricing generally makes more sense
than cost-based - particularly for SaaS where the marginal cost of a new
customer is low. Lots more: [https://www.google.com/search?q=value-
based+pricing+saas](https://www.google.com/search?q=value-based+pricing+saas)

Regarding your exact question, since there’s no average number of customers
(denominator) or average total expense (numerator), there’s also no use in an
average cost-based price. About as close as one can get is to look at the
average gross and net (ie, overall) margin of existing SaaS companies. That’s
interesting but not a great way to set prices, since prospective customers
don’t know or care. They care what your thing is doing for them and how much
that benefit (time savings, pleasure, etc) is worth to them.

------
paktek123
I've seen many use $5 per user per month used very commonly across
monitoring/alerting solutions as an entry point.

