LIMITED TIME OFFER! Start 2011 off with a Powerful Pricing Page! Now you can purchase the November SaaS Pricing Page Workshop + Q&A videos (nearly 2.5 hours!) & get the updated 150-slide December presentation deck (PDF) for ONLY $50. You don't want to miss this awesome deal!
It is time for SaaS & Web App startups to sit up and pay attention. Pricing is very important to your venture but not just to ensure you make a profit or cover expenses. It is so much more than that and you should seek to get it as right as possible out of the gate. Too many SaaS and Web App companies, startups or not, think that they'll just throw some numbers together, put it on a pricing page and that is the end of it. If they are leaving too much on the table, they'll just raise prices until people stop buying and then lower it a notch. Simple. They would be wrong.
Pricing is marketing. We say it all of the time, but what does it really mean? Well, look at Zendesk, a growing startup with $6.5M in funding and, until this morning, very well-liked. They decided to raise their prices and did so in a way that has caused an enormous amount of negative backlash. In some cases, customers are reporting a 300% increase in what they'll pay to use Zendesk. From the outside, this seems to be indicative of no real pricing strategy (as a part of marketing) and certainly no or at least very poor tactical planning around the price increase. Some simple polling on Twitter shows that Zendesk did not actively engage their customers in the process prior to raising prices.
My immediate reaction on Twitter to the backlash:
When you need to raise prices, there are two options: engage your user/customer base or alienate them. Its your choice. #zendesk
Lincoln Murphy
lincolnmurphy
Did the price increase correlate to an increase in perceived value by the end customer? How is their market position now? How have they helped the competition? Look at this random tweet I grabbed when searching for #zendesk... this is why pricing is marketing!
Anyone got any recommendations for someone considering dumping #zendesk after their crazy stupid level price increase
Adam Bartlett
abartlett
We will do a post-mortem on the Zendesk Pricing Fiasco of 2010 later, after more details emerge and the dust settles, but It is very obvious the planning around their price increase was either poor or was executed poorly. Just to be clear, Zendesk did not reach out to Sixteen Ventures for help with their pricing nor with the execution of the price increase, but they should have. This is something we help companies with all the time. Whether its a price increase, moving from beta to production, or from Free to a Paid or Freemium offering, Sixteen Ventures can help you. Please don't wait until its too late, though we have been known to clean up some messes...
We have always preached the message that Pricing and Revenue Modeling are vitally important for SaaS & Web App companies, startups or not. Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens a lot, and when the company is lower-profile than Zendesk, it doesn't get this kind of coverage. But it happens more than it should and that is because the message that Pricing is Marketing and vitally important to your business just isn't being absorbed.
Want help with your Pricing Page and Pricing Strategy? Now you can purchase the 2 hour video of the November SaaS Pricing Page workshop - PLUS the 20 minute Q&A video I shot afterward - AND I'll throw in the huge 150 slide PDF of the presentation that was updated for the December workshop - for ONLY $50. Yes, ONLY $50? This should be a no-brainer, right? Go get it right now!
Learn more about what all is included here.
The only caveat to take advantage of this offer is that you have to be able to read PDFs and watch mp4 videos on whatever device you intend to consume this content. If you meet that criteria, then this is for you. ONLY $50 and you get nearly 2.5 hours of SaaS Pricing Page Workshop goodness. What are you waiting for, go buy it now.