The common SaaS per-user, per-month subscription revenue model is rapidly evolving. From time to time I feel I must remind everyone – buyers, sellers, pundits, commentators, & analysts – that SaaS is not a pricing model or pricing strategy. From the vendor side, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a unique Software Business Architecture where service is the […]
5 SaaS Pricing Mistakes to Avoid
June 11, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
For SaaS & Web App companies, Subscription Revenue is a no-brainer, but doing it right is not! There are many pitfalls Web App & SaaS companies need to look out for when it comes to pricing. If you keep the “Pricing is Marketing” mantra running through your head and “What’s In It For Them?” (them being your […]
SaaS Pricing: Please Learn From the Zendesk Fiasco
May 18, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
It is time for SaaS & Web App startups to sit up and pay attention. SaaS 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 […]
Cloud Acquisitions Create New Opportunities
May 12, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
So you’ve built a killer SaaS product and [Google or Oracle or Microsoft or…] just bought your big competitor; is this good or bad for you? NOTE: This post is originally from May 2010, but the last two years have been full of Legacy Software vendors snapping up SaaS and Cloud providers. From SAP buying […]
SaaS Distribution: Time to Change the Channel
May 12, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Do SaaS products require, or can they benefit from, distribution through a 3rd party? I’ve written in the past about SaaS channels and how most people are doing it wrong, and there seems to be renewed interest in this topic. Unfortunately, things haven’t changed much. Since this is “software” as-a-service, people cannot get away from […]
SaaS, Web Apps, or Just ‘Apps’?
April 20, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
On my last trip to San Francisco I sat down with Matt Childs of DreamSimplicity to talk about the state of SaaS. We shot some video as we talked about how Google & Apple have changed the distribution landscape for SaaS & Mobile making App Stores & Marketplaces a new reality for SaaS vendors and […]
SaaS Pricing: Commodity Metrics and the $240 GB
March 31, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
SaaS pricing strategies that use low-value commodity metrics – like storage – to differentiate tiers force customers to make price comparisons that shouldn’t be made. Updated for 2014 This topic came up with a client who wanted to pass on the storage costs associated with the use of the system to their end-customer. We quickly […]
SaaS Pricing: Versioning for Market Segments
March 5, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Rags Srinivasan posted a great article titled “The Science of Optimal Versioning in SaaS” to his blog that talks about SaaS pricing. In the article, Rags talks about taking apply SaaS pricing to through different bundles of features at different prices for various market segments. The whole article is great, so I encourage you to […]
SaaS Network Effect: Companies Should Exploit Aggregate Data
September 21, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
SaaS providers must understand the difference between consumers of their apps, producers of SaaS network effect data and how to monetize both. ADP: A Case Study in Network Effects A quick update for 2013: ADP now processes payroll payments for 1 in 6 American workers. Because of this massive “network effect” they’ve created, ADP has […]
SaaS Business Model – You Break It, You Buy It
September 17, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Web Apps don’t get forked without a massive payday as motivation! When you draw the line in the sand and adopt the SaaS business model, you might be tempted by people asking you to break that model. These requests could include: A competitor wants to license your application A client wants a copy of your […]
SaaS Business Model is About Rules, Not Exceptions
September 16, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
SaaS Apps should be flexible, but never customized. For the vendor, the SaaS business model is about rules, not exceptions. Exceptions aren’t scalable. For business scalability, you must shift focus to automated, repeatable processes. For pure-play SaaS startups, this isn’t as big of deal since they are likely starting with a clean slate. For those […]
SaaS Success Requires Dropping the Legacy Baggage
August 26, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Don’t try to force an on-premises, packaged software product to the cloud. Legacy software is a square peg and SaaS is a round hole. No matter how hard you try, forcing legacy, on-premises software to fit into the “SaaS model” is at worst not going to work and at best, requires cutting corners. It is […]
SaaS Companies Should Learn from Netflix
May 19, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Web Apps with Proactive Customer Service will win more – and keep more – customers than their competitors and Netflix should be the model. I often extol the virtues of the SaaS Business Architecture for vendors beyond just the typical “cost savings” and “operational efficiency” that most pundits and analysts like to talk about. I […]
ASP vs SaaS – What’s the difference?
May 12, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Not all Web Apps are created equal and many people don’t understand the difference between ASP vs SaaS or Software-as-a-Service. ASP vs SaaS – What’s the difference and why is ASP a failed business model? This post was originally written in 2009 and – while still very relevant – I suggest you also read this post for […]
The SaaS Single-Tenancy vs. Multi-Tenancy Debate
April 14, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Web Apps built from scratch rarely aren’t Multi-Tenant; the debate only comes up with legacy software vendors migrating to SaaS and trying to justify their cutting corners. This post was originally written in 2009 and – while still very relevant – I suggest you also read this post for a more up-to-date take on the Business Architecture […]
Actionable Business Intelligence at your fingertips
October 18, 2007 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Originally published on October 18, 2007 You probably capture a lot of data in your web or SaaS app, but how often do you mine that data for Actionable Business Intelligence; information you can use to solve business problems, such as slumping revenue, high client turnover, etc? It might be time to stop everything else […]
Fallout from Enterprise SaaS Series
March 10, 2007 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Originally published on March 10, 2007 I have received an amazing amount of feedback on the Enterprise SaaS series; just about everyone who read it has contacted me with mostly positive comments, but usually someone has at least one concern. I am going to try to address all of their concerns at one time. Hybrid […]
Pureplay Enterprise SaaS and Vendor Sustainability – Overview and Part 4
March 9, 2007 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Originally published on March 9, 2007 This series is to help Enterprise SaaS vendors with two potentially business-stopping problems; scalability and sustainability. I am attempting to address both the real-life objections seen in Fortune 1000 enterprises when selling a SaaS solution and some ways to work around them. This series is also meant to get […]
Pureplay Enterprise SaaS and Vendor Sustainability – Part 3
March 9, 2007 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Originally published on March 9, 2007 After overcoming all of the objections in your control: existence, reliability, support, and scalability, you must now overcome the objections that are not in your control. These are the real show stoppers and come from not understanding your target market. The SaaS industry obviously agrees that SaaS is the […]
Pureplay Enterprise SaaS and Vendor Sustainability – Part 2
March 7, 2007 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Originally published on March 7, 2007 Starting a software company from scratch, on-premises or SaaS, is no small task. The barriers to entry into the Enterprise software market are significant to say the least. To top it off, there are a number of things that can hinder adoption of your solution in large corporations, putting […]
Pureplay Enterprise SaaS and Vendor Sustainability – Part 1
March 6, 2007 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Originally published on March 6, 2007 The definition of Pureplay SaaS is where the SaaS vendor offers a completely hosted system with the customer needing nothing more than a standard PC with normal input devices to take full advantage of the offering. If you live in the blogosphere, you might think that SaaS is ubiquitous […]
