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Ask HN: “Contact Us” Pricing

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Re: Ask HN: “Contact Us” Pricing

#71

Post by j0hnyl »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #10

As you already know, this is typical for "enterprise" software due to the idea that potential customers will immediately click away if the price seems too high, so you need to let your customer know what value is in your software before they immediately walk away. One take-away from this is the old "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", and another is that they're automatically filtering out lower-value or price-…

Where is this general rule of $50k-$750k established? I think there are tons of saas products that target enterprises that are as low as ~$2k/month and up and require "contact us".

Re: Ask HN: “Contact Us” Pricing

#72

Post by Spivak »

Jayab wrote: post #48
mozman wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vendor list pricing is absurd. Real story but using made up numbers below: I spoke with a vendor last week who came in at 500k. I told them my budget was 250k, price came back at 255k.

Because the service costs them $40k. I've seen this in the physical world with markups like this in captured industrial markets.

No it doesn’t this makes zero sense. $40k is way too much for operational costs and way too little for human costs.

If you only count operational costs and a hypothetical skeleton crew to maintain it it probably costs damn near nothing to add another customer.

But once you include the salaries of 20 to 2000 engineers and the rest of the business to support them it’s a whole different ballgame. A major feature that takes one team 6 weeks to build costs a little less than half a mil in engineer salaries.

Software by its nature is weighted heavily in upfront costs and so pricing is “how little can we afford to charge to be in the black with ARR, how much do our competitors charge, and how much would it cost you to build it yourself.”

Re: Ask HN: “Contact Us” Pricing

#73

Post by twawaaay »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #10

As you already know, this is typical for "enterprise" software due to the idea that potential customers will immediately click away if the price seems too high, so you need to let your customer know what value is in your software before they immediately walk away. One take-away from this is the old "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", and another is that they're automatically filtering out lower-value or price-…

There are also companies that do not really have a price list, they will just think up the price depending on what they think you are willing to pay.

Re: Ask HN: “Contact Us” Pricing

#74

Post by to11mtm »

duncan-donuts wrote: post #46
mozman wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vendor list pricing is absurd. Real story but using made up numbers below: I spoke with a vendor last week who came in at 500k. I told them my budget was 250k, price came back at 255k.

Then your renewal comes up and you’ve already spent another million in salaries and bespoke shit to make it work for you and the sales guy hits you with 500k again because you’re in too deep.

Bingo

Re: Ask HN: “Contact Us” Pricing

#75

Post by TeMPOraL »

Spivak wrote: post #67
TeMPOraL wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, if you're dealing with a startup, there's a chance the product doesn't actually exist and they'll want to lock you in a deal that gives them more concrete requirements and funds the MVP. This is based on a bet that programmers can crank out code faster than the enterprise customer can finalize the deal. In the past, I've dealt with a startup that not only did just that, but also used the non-final deal with one v…

It has never ever been a bad strategy to get paid to build a product rather than building something and hoping there’s a market. This is the way to do enterprise sales.

Right. My point is more about misleading presentation. The landing page will try to convince you the company is offering an amazing product that will solve your problems, when the reality is, the product doesn't exist and the company is trying to get you to fund it.

Re: Ask HN: “Contact Us” Pricing

#76

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

I tried to get SuSE to tell me how much Rancher was so I could just buy it. I was completely ready to just lay down my credit card. They refused without a sales call. And in fact, it was impossible for me to even schedule a sales call without joining their Slack channel to tell them their website's Contact Us form was broken. The call got bumped like 3 times over 2 months, they didn't schedule a new one. Now I've found out that Rancher's support sucks and SuSE is botching their communication, so I'm going with a competitor.

SaaS people: Don't make it hard for me to give you money. At the very least, give me a 30 day trial (of Enterprise features) while we go through your stupid sales dance.

Re: Ask HN: “Contact Us” Pricing

#77

Post by gorkish »

smithcoin wrote: post #54

Seems like a good side project. A database where people could submit their SAAS pricing in a Glassdoor like fashion.

I find incredible irony in that the companies like Gartner that perform this exact service are all basically "call for bespoke/maximal pricing" as well.

Re: Ask HN: “Contact Us” Pricing

#78

Post by reaperducer »

imagine99 wrote: post #66
gunapologist99 wrote: post #10

As you already know, this is typical for "enterprise" software due to the idea that potential customers will immediately click away if the price seems too high, so you need to let your customer know what value is in your software before they immediately walk away. One take-away from this is the old "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", and another is that they're automatically filtering out lower-value or price-…

> As a general rule, any software which requires "contact us" is going to be somewhere between $50k and $750k I really wish that were the case. Alas, more and more sellers think it makes them look cool and enterprise-y if they go the "contact us" route. Possibly the most ridiculous I encountered was a browser plugin startup offering that ended up costing something like $2/month/user with a 20 user minimum but even du…

it's just annoying to the extreme

I once had to find software options for a company I worked for. I had a deadline to meet for that, plus my regular duties.

That meant that any company that had "Call for pricing" didn't make the cut. I don't have time for that.

We ended up spending $120,000 on the solution I chose. I don't know if we could have gotten a better deal from another vendor, because they wanted to play games. I don't have time for games.

The company that was honest and up-front about the pricing got the contract, which I know has renewed several times since then.

Re: Ask HN: “Contact Us” Pricing

#79

Post by autoexec »

rco8786 wrote: post #45
gunapologist99 wrote: post #10

As you already know, this is typical for "enterprise" software due to the idea that potential customers will immediately click away if the price seems too high, so you need to let your customer know what value is in your software before they immediately walk away. One take-away from this is the old "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", and another is that they're automatically filtering out lower-value or price-…

> due to the idea that potential customers will immediately click away if the price seems too high That's not how I read these at all. "Contact Us" means the company doesn't have set pricing but rather will have a sales person/department that will structure a specific deal and negotiate a contract for your business's specific needs.

I read it as: the company doesn't have set pricing but rather has a sales person/department that will charge you more than the next person for the exact same product/service if they have any reason to suspect they can get away with it after learning as much as they can about your finances and only after wasting your time on a high pressure sales pitch.

If someone refuses to openly list prices they're either:

  - Embarrassed by the amount of money they're charging  

  - Aware they charge more than others and don't want to let you comparison shop easily 

  - Planning on setting as high a price as possible depending on how much you can be fleeced into paying

Re: Ask HN: “Contact Us” Pricing

#80

Post by kube-system »

RajT88 wrote: post #60
gunapologist99 wrote: post #10

As you already know, this is typical for "enterprise" software due to the idea that potential customers will immediately click away if the price seems too high, so you need to let your customer know what value is in your software before they immediately walk away. One take-away from this is the old "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", and another is that they're automatically filtering out lower-value or price-…

Having worked for an "enterprise" software biz, this is often because different customers can pay wildly different prices for the same software licenses. Often tailored less based on volume discounts or license type, and more around a customer's ability to pay.

And also based upon how much of a PITA the customer is. Sales cycles, compliance documentation, configuration, training, support, etc, can really vary between customers.
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