

What is the problem with Pricing anyway? - rbravoz

I am sick and tired of all these new SaaS sites that either omit to put their pricing on their website, or hide it as much as they can. Is it that they want you to try the product without giving you any information on how much will it cost?<p>I never try anything unless I have first checked it is in my budget range. Otherwise is just wasting my time. Am I the only one like this?<p>Come on entrepreneurs and start-ups, don&#x27;t be ashamed of your prices! It is frustrating to navigate all pages of a site looking for the pricing. You start to hate the site even before getting to know the product. Example: mint.com<p>I am not aware of any statistic that proves that this technique makes business sense. Is there any?
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jasonkester
Why let it upset you? Those products are priced like that for a reason, namely
that it makes them more money.

Missing pricing is a signal that the product is going to cost well north of
$10,000 and involve a sales person flying out to your site to buy your CEO and
CTO dinner. If you don't have a CEO and CTO for them to fly out and buy dinner
for, you're not in their target market.

This is not something you should concern yourself with. Honestly, if the site
had a page saying that it cost $164,128 for a yearly site license, how many
people would you expect to hit "add to cart" and hand over their credit card
details? Unless that number is ever conceivably going to be greater than zero,
there is no upside to the company to put that price on the website.

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pricenator
I run one of those nasty SaaS sites and I can confirm that it makes a lot of
sense. Maybe you should start one by yourself and start asking yourself how
much you should charge for your services. Here is a hint:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination)

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jtfairbank
Can you elaborate on your experience? How does it make sense for your company?
Did you A/B test this, and if so what was the increase in conversion or
average price per customer?

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1123581321
The two reasons are that it signals 'enterprise' level costs and that
marketing thinks that you're more likely to sign up if you're prompted to
create an account without seeing the price table.

I agree it can be annoying. However, if I am honest with myself, I know what
the service probably costs and most of the time, the variations in cost don't
cross the threshold of my budget. The real reason I am irritated to not see
the prices is because I am hoping to see that it is free or extremely cheap.
There is no reason for a business to accommodate my desire to get an
unsustainable deal.

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AznHisoka
Having been on both sides, one of the reasons is because your product is
complicated, and you need to give a webinar/demo to them in order for them to
utilize the product to its full potential.

Otherwise, if you just sign up and use it, you'll quickly stop using it after
a few days because you don't know how to use it.

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rbravoz
I run a SaaS as well and find that customers prefer prices upfront and
complain if the pricing is hard to understand (which in turn consumes
resources of the sales staff and creates friction on the customer acquisition
process). However if @pricenator you state that it makes sense financially,
can you tell us more about it? (Not just hints)

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MalcolmDiggs
I don't care until they ask for my credit card. At that point the pricing is a
need-to-know, lol. But before then, like with the mint.com example you
mentioned, I just assume it's free or freemium until they tell me otherwise.

