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Do not talk about pricing

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Re: Do not talk about pricing

#151

Post by bpchaps »

geon wrote: post #98
bpchaps wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other smaller companies act like this, too. Was invited to a steak lunch for automic's UC4 (job scheduling) at a fancy dinner far away from anything relevant and at no point, during a two hour talk, was anything of substance actually said. They were trying to sell us UC4 (we already owned it, ffs) yet they didn't even show us the damn interface! Everything was fluff upon fluff upon fluff. And the execs - wearing some…

They use a large, expensive platform for automation, and they don't know how to automate?

Yep. In complete fairness to the guy, it sounded like he knew the work was unfairly shoveled onto him. That fairness can't be extended towards his management, though.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#152

Post by softawre »

ryanSrich wrote: post #127
wesd wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the good reason? Is it because the pricing strategy is charge as much as the customer is willing to pay?

I can only speak to what we do at Catalyze. http://content.catalyze.io/blog/why-there-is-no-up-front-pri...

That was interesting, thank you.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#153

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

beat wrote: post #135

So those of you who make purchase decisions for software used in-house... what are your turn-ons and turn-offs? If I'm trying to sell you a product that you find technically useful and exciting, how does pricing play into it? What would drive you away from a buy decision on an otherwise great product?

It can vary quite a bit by company size.

At my last job at a multi-$Bn corporation, we were pretty price-insensitive. I was charged with finding a vendor for a specific type of software and there was a set budget. I found someone I liked that cost $x, my colleague working with me found someone else that cost $0.3x, but we had some concerns about them delivering on time because it didn't seem like they quite understood the scope. We went with the $x bid because they seemed like a safer bet. In the words of my manager "we already have that amount budgeted, and I don't get anything extra if I save money."

OTOH, I'm now at a much smaller company and a 3:1 cost difference between vendors would have us doing a detailed analysis to be sure that the 3x guys are worth it, and in the end, my gut tells me that we'd go with the cheaper ones anyway.

So... after all that, what would drive me away from a buy decision on an otherwise great product? I'd be leery of buying your product if it's beyond my budget (if I have to fight for budget and the software turns out to be crap, I look like an idiot) or I think you won't be around to support it if it's SaaS or something else that needs ongoing support. I have no problem picking up the phone and asking you to quote me a price if it's not shown. IME, that short phone call can save me $$$.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#154

Post by matrix »

curun1r wrote: post #34
LoSboccacc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything peolpe are afraid to explore the curve to find maximum profit. Starting high and giving out discoubts at various level trough the year can help building a model and set the best price if it's not overdone (as in, customer expecting continual discounts)

You have to be very careful with discounts in some situations. The case that we ran into involved a product that required a fairly large amount of time investment on the part of the user to be valuable. Our customers that were willing to devote a fair amount of up-front time and 30-60 min per day to our tool were getting a pretty massive ROI, both on the time they spent and the monthly subscription cost. Those that w…

I'm tackling a very similar issue right now and it's a maddeningly difficult problem to solve. It would be incredibly helpful to bounce some ideas off someone who has been there if its no imposition? My email address in in my profile.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#155

Post by restalis »

brookside wrote: post #138
stronglikedan wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had people come out to my house and quote me on a project. I've then called them back and told them that it was out of my budget, to which they've then quoted me a cheaper price, hoping that it's within my budget. I've then told them that they should have given me their best price from the start, and I can no longer trust them, because they've already lied to me once. This happens more often than not, and I usua…

Somebody revising a quote doesn't mean they were lying the first time around. You may not care for negotiation, but that doesn't mean it is dishonest. Items and services don't have a "real" price, they are only worth what people will pay for them.

"Somebody revising a quote doesn't mean they were lying the first time around. You may not care for negotiation, but that doesn't mean it is dishonest."

There is a divergence in moral values in here, and even if you think someone should accept a certain view on negotiation, it is, however, especially when there is no visible benefit at all for them, their choice to refuse to do so. The commerce has on its core the idea of mutual benefit and this haggling-justling violates the sense of mutual benefit. It is only natural to expect less trust from your "customers" when you've treated them this way.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#156

Post by marcosdumay »

skylark wrote: post #97
Nimitz14 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're also getting something for it in perpetuity. People, I find, are simply irrational when it comes to monthly subscriptions. I'm a student with <1000E income and a monthly cost <20E doesn't even register; as long as I get something from it I want. If it's not big enough to induce a lifestyle change, what's the problem? So often I see people use Spotify and complain about the commercials, and I'm just like 'W…

Let's turn it around. If you invest 120 dollars into your retirement fund every year for the next 40 years, you'll end up with 33.5k. Instead, you spent 4.8k. The person who listened to a few commercials is up 40k on you at retirement. This is an extreme example (after all, you're not going to spend 10 dollars on Spotify for the rest of your life), but the principle of the matter stands: Money saved now will be worth…

How does that play at the negative interest rates times?

Anyway, all that is true, and I did know that when younger. What nobody tells you is that there are a few times when your income grows faster than an exponential. Everything you save up before of one of those few times is basically worthless.

Anybody's main goal should be to have as many of those income growing events as possible. Not giving-up everything when young because of compounded interest.

Yet, this thing is not predictable, thus it's always good to save a bit. It's a balancing act, not a clear-cut good vs. bad situation.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#157

Post by drdeadringer »

zodPod wrote: post #123
nitwit005 wrote: post #27

If you try to buy things, it's sometimes desperately frustrating that no one will just quote you a simple price. They have different pricing tiers, and want a salesperson to talk to you so they can pretend to give you a "special" discount, and all sorts of BS. I'm sure these things work, but they also alienate customers sometimes. People have founded entire businesses on offering clearer pricing schemes.

THIS. When I go to a website that doesn't have prices listed and you have to "Call for a Quote" I move on. I know the prices are going to be garbage and it's not worth my time to deal with the idiots on the other end trying to scheme me into spending money with their company.

I have spent countless time on the phone just trying to get a number.

"I'm interested in XYZ. How much is it?"

"Well, with Option A or Option W?"

"... How much is either?"

"Oh, well that depends on if we make it with pixie dust or faerie magik."

"Ok. How much?"

"Well, which would you like? XYZ with A from Pixie Dust or XYZ with W made from Faerie Magik?"

"How much for either?"

"Well, that depends on ..."

No. No it does not depend. You have a chart in your hand, I guarantee it. It has pricing on it. Stop the dance.

One time, I asked a guy "Can you make this and how much would it cost?".

He responded: "We can do whatever you want." Really? I want a number, but you seem to have trouble giving it to me.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#158

Post by dsr_ »

beat wrote: post #147
dsr_ wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part, you need to represent value far in excess of the total lifetime cost, which includes half of the transition cost to the replacement. Say your software is licensed at $10 per person using it per year. In addition to the $10, I need to consider the costs of installation, configuration, first level support, entitlement/license management, and what it will cost me to extract the data and munge it into…

It's software that automates a lot of costly auditing and troubleshooting in complex systems, so the core value proposition is hours that humans don't spend (and reduced downtime). If it can reduce the workload of senior/lead engineers by 5-10%, what's that worth? This sort of thing is really hard to quantify, although I'm sure we'll get more data as it grows. Does per-seat licensing work best, or something modeling…

Everybody prefers predictability. That shows up in the comments on this page about people who hate to see "Call for pricing" on the site: it means that the cost is extremely complex.

Here's a question: will people want to use the software because it makes their lives easier, or will people want to have the software running because it makes their lives easier? That's the difference between a good per-seat plan (where customers want more seats because employees want to use it) or a good per-[quantity] plan, where nobody cares who is running it but the company does better as a result.

Feel free to email me at the address in my profile if you want a deeper discussion.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#159

Post by Nimitz14 »

skylark wrote: post #97
Nimitz14 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're also getting something for it in perpetuity. People, I find, are simply irrational when it comes to monthly subscriptions. I'm a student with <1000E income and a monthly cost <20E doesn't even register; as long as I get something from it I want. If it's not big enough to induce a lifestyle change, what's the problem? So often I see people use Spotify and complain about the commercials, and I'm just like 'W…

Let's turn it around. If you invest 120 dollars into your retirement fund every year for the next 40 years, you'll end up with 33.5k. Instead, you spent 4.8k. The person who listened to a few commercials is up 40k on you at retirement. This is an extreme example (after all, you're not going to spend 10 dollars on Spotify for the rest of your life), but the principle of the matter stands: Money saved now will be worth…

People don't invest every single dollar they have into a fund. You're always going to have a bit of money laying around, why not put it to use?

And even if one went with it: I'll be up by a multiple of 33.5k because I spent money on things that put me in a better mood to work on myself and lead me to better jobs etc. etc.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#160

Post by jameshart »

GigabyteCoin wrote: post #132

>When The Times introduced a paywall, the number of people looking at their digital service dropped by 98.7% (from 22m to around 300,000), yet the switch was a huge financial success. But for how long? I'm fairly certain that once those 300,000 loyal readers kick the bucket that The Times' digital subscription service will too. How is 22 million regular readers (who will keep coming back and telling their friends abo…

"How is 22 million regular readers worth less than 300,000 paying subscribers"

Monetarily. The ad market has only got worse since the Times made the move away from pure ad-funded pageviews, so the ability to turn those 22 million people's eyeballs into a revenue stream has become even less viable than it was when they replaced them with 300,000 paying customers.

"Not to mention the types of journalists you will attract.."

... with an engaged and interested audience who are directly paying to read what you have to say, who aren't merely being driven to your site by clickbait headlines and paid placement? I dunno, would think you'd be able to attract pretty good journalists on that basis...

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