Do any SaaS companies use "Request Demo" or "Contact Sales" to offer different prices to different customers for the exact same product?
e.g. "If customer is a startup I sell ONE license at $50 but if it's enterprise I'll sell ONE at $5,000 just because I know they can afford it..."
Ask HN: Can I offer different prices to different users for the same product?
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: Ask HN: Can I offer different prices to different users for the same product?
#2In my experience most companies that hide their prices behind "request a quote" start out way higher and pretty much expect you to negotiate down.
Re: Ask HN: Can I offer different prices to different users for the same product?
#3Yep, plenty of companies take a bunch of inputs (your budget, expected usage, potential revenue, how hard you negotiate..) and come up with a number based on that.
Re: Ask HN: Can I offer different prices to different users for the same product?
#4IANAL, but this is exactly how B2B sales works... you offer an absurdly high MSRP then offer discounts with various incentives based on completely arbitrary things, with the average purchase landing nowhere near MSRP.
I'd be careful about pricing this way to consumers since states are now started to see pricing differences as discrimination. See: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/02/tinder-prices-discrim...
Re: Ask HN: Can I offer different prices to different users for the same product?
#5Absolutely. It's called price discrimination, and there's a whole treasure trove of literature about it. Usually it's not the exact same product, though, but rather something like "features that enterprise users need are extraordinarily expensive, everything else is relatively cheap". IIRC, single sign-on is an extremely common feature to use for this price discrimination.
Lots of non-SaaS companies use price discrimination as well. The biggest example is airlines, who will sell the same round-trip for different prices depending on whether or not the stay includes a Saturday night. Airlines assume that price-insensitive business travelers are generally unwilling to spend a Saturday away from home, and charge higher prices accordingly.
Re: Ask HN: Can I offer different prices to different users for the same product?
#6The fact that you're asking this question indicates that you haven't yet figured out what your market will bear in terms of price. In ANY business the ideal price is one that customers will question but still pay. If they don't question, the price is too low. Keeping your pricing dark is the best way to figure out your numbers at this stage. This is a long winded explanation but the answer to your question is YES! You can set your price at whatever you think the customer will bear. Be confident. If you've got a great product, don't feel bad asking a lot of money for it.
Re: Ask HN: Can I offer different prices to different users for the same product?
#7Yes, totally. This is common practice. A tip though. If you are attempting to connect directly with end users many folks are turned off by a "Contact Sales" only option. You should have something that is totally self serve, like try for $50/month for a single instance, but if you need more seats please "Contact Sales". This gets people in the door. Almost every large company that does any type of enterprise sales will use this model of "Contact Sales" and gets a steep discount off some list price posted publicly.
Re: Ask HN: Can I offer different prices to different users for the same product?
#8Publisher paywalls are also starting to experiment with this -- the price will raise or lower based on the user's income or propensity to subscribe.
Re: Ask HN: Can I offer different prices to different users for the same product?
#9Joel Spolsky wrote a pretty in-depth article about pricing which also covers the "How Much Money Do You Have? Pricing." case which he feels is a bad strategy: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-...
Re: Ask HN: Can I offer different prices to different users for the same product?
#10Tim Harford's Undercover Economist has examples of how to get people to self select:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/70420.The_Undercover_Eco...