
You're paying too much for business software - ryanb
https://www.capiche.com
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teekert
Although I like the initiative and encourage it, the use of "getting fair
prices" grinds my gears a bit.

A fair price is whatever a seller and a buyer agree upon, not the rock bottom
value that you get when applying sustained pressure to a price point,
collectively. You may get a product cheaper and cheaper but probably at the
cost of the stability of the seller, which is also of value to a buyer. You
may find that if you pay more you are more valued and a seller will do more
for you in the future. Or you may be the last to close an important target of
a sales person and get a below market price, at least for a while. What's
fair? IDK. Just keep thinking and occasionally reopen negotiations in a
respectful way if you think you can get more for less. Or switch to another
product.

~~~
danpalmer
Negotiation over pricing for SaaS products often comes down to who can put in
enough time, or who is willing to ask for lower prices.

There are cultures where asking for lower prices is not culturally acceptable,
and many people feel uncomfortable doing so. This does not mean the product is
worth more to them.

Having more information here is a good thing.

~~~
teekert
OK but it may lead to such a conversation:

Hey, company X pays less! I want to pay the same!

But Company X files very constructive bug reports and has called support only
2 times this year whereas you only whine and call support every other day, so,
sorry.

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awwstn
Hi all! Founder of Capiche here. Excited to share what we've been working on
here.

Given SaaS is an industry born on the internet, you'd think there'd be more
transparency/less information asymmetry, but that's simply not the case.

In talking with tons of software buyers the past few months, I've heard so
many stories of huge discrepancies in what people are paying, even for the
tools we all think have transparent pricing.

This project is hugely inspired by Glassdoor. As this information starts to
become more freely available, it will push the industry toward better pricing
tactics, more transparency, and less special treatment. We hope to play a role
in making that happen.

Happy to answer any questions!

~~~
blantonl
The new breed of SaaS providers seem to be providing pretty good transparency
in pricing. Most, if not all, provide pricing directly on their pricing pages.
The only difference might be in bulk or large users pricing, but mostly
pricing in those SaaS spaces seems transparent.

I think there is MUCH better opportunity in the Enterprise Software space,
where margins are ridiculously high, and shady sales tactics are super
prevalent. Read: Oracle, IBM, etc. There might also be opportunity to have
anonymous users share sales and execution related dirt on Enterprise Software
- such as non-performance, technical and security problems, and of course
pricing. For instance, try going to IBM or Oracle's Web sites to purchase a
"license" for any of their software products. Almost always you'll be directed
to contact a sales representative.

One wrinkle in your process is going to be navigating non-disclosure
agreements.

~~~
maguay
Capiche team member here. Agreed—but there is a trend towards increasingly
obscured pricing as apps go upmarket, at least with adding “enterprise” plans
with undisclosed pricing as the top tier, even with Slack and other newer,
better apps. Even apps with clear pricing can be confusing when they have
metered components, as new users have no way to reasonably estimate their
usage. We’re hoping both to push for clearer pricing and help users set
expectations.

~~~
blantonl
Are you worried about the size of your market then? Because organizations that
would qualify for enterprise pricing plans for a lot of these SaaS providers
are probably pretty limited - Capiche?

In all seriousness, a LOT of Enterprise Software Pricing negotiation (Oracle
etc) literally comes down to "what can you afford to pay?" type activities
from sales reps. Couple that with super shady maintenance contracts and
renewal processes and it really begs for transparency. SMBs get killed every
day by sales reps who literally live and die by the lack of transparency in
the Enterprise Software Space.

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davewritescode
You’re basically inviting people to break non disclosure contracts that are
often a part of pricing negotiations.

IANAL but I really hope you’re not storing confidential pricing information
along with the email address alongside because I have a feeling you could open
yourself up to legal issues in the future.

~~~
cameronbrown
It's not really Bob's fault/liability of Alice gives him confidential
information is it? (The exception to the rule being government data)

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
When Bob tells Alice she should do it, and compensates her for doing it,
there's potential liability under a principle called "tortious interference".
It's not a definite thing, but I think it's fair to say it's a risky idea to
build a business on.

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maybeiambatman
I don't know if this is intentional, but the testimonials keep changing before
I've had a chance to finish reading them. Bad UX imo. Why put em there if I
can't read them properly?

~~~
awwstn
we're pushing a fix for this ASAP!

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arethuza
I think people in the software business tend to assume that the main cost in
large projects to do things like implement a new ERP system are licensing
costs - which hasn't been my experience. Licensing costs are significant, but
they are often pretty small compared to the cost of paying a partner help you
_implement_ a new system, as well as internal costs to backfill staff etc.

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plehoux
It's crazy the number of people expecting our SASS pricing to be negotiable.
We offer one fair pricing to everyone and have no time to make special case
pricing for every single user.

I guess more prominent startups/companies embrace this as a tool to close or
retain customers.

~~~
joekrill
In my experience, most SaaS startups are all about "gettin' them logos!" The
more "logos" (other well-known companies that use their product) they can pile
up and tout on their website, the better. And so they'll make significant
deals to get a well-known name signed.

And I'm not saying this is wrong or a bad approach, by the way. It certainly
lends credibility if, say, Google is using my SaaS product.

~~~
cubecul
Logos would be one way to measure success for a sales team but rarely the only
one. Most times, there is a quota the salesperson has to hit, and there is a
standardized discount schedule they are pre-approved to offer against in order
to hit that quota.

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benologist
If companies aren't charging a transparent rate it's because they know they
can defraud a segment of their users and charge 6 - 50 times more than the
next person pays for the same thing. It belongs on darkpatterns.org but
perhaps is covered already with price comparison prevention:

[https://www.darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern/price-
com...](https://www.darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern/price-comparison-
prevention)

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omarhaneef
Okay, what if the SaaS companies start posting anonymously as customers, and
claim to be paying exorbitant prices?

Would that just make people feel better about the prices they are paying?

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thorwasdfasdf
I do like the concept: it's quite interesting to see what decision maker's
opinion on pricing is.

For regular off the shelf SaaS like dropbox, gmail, slack, surveymonky and
just about any other tools that SMBs use the pricing seems very clear: it's
always clearly listed on the site.

The unclear pricing is just enterprise software, right?

Are companies that use enterprise SaaS actually sensitive to price? I was
under the impression that they're almost never too price sensitive and hence
it doesn't make sense to build equivalent products that are cheaper -
otherwise we'd see low cost alternative products all over the place.

~~~
cosmie
> For regular off the shelf SaaS like dropbox, gmail, slack, surveymonky and
> just about any other tools that SMBs use the pricing seems very clear: it's
> always clearly listed on the site.

All of the providers you listed have clearly listed rates, but each of those
listed will also willingly negotiate those rates.

At a previous job, the owner of the company required you to request a
discount/custom pricing before purchasing _anything_. It took me a while to
get used to it, but more often than not we got price breaks with little
friction simply for asking. Even if there were clearly listed prices with
self-service checkout and even if there wasn't a "Contact us" price option
listed. And this was at a ~30-person company, where most software purchases
were only for 3-5 licenses at most.

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d--b
Wow, what's that font in your logo?! That brings back a lot of memories!!

~~~
benrapscallion
Could be Plantain by CastleType or Vulpa by Schizotype Fonts

