Is your pricing model leaking revenue?
Setting the right price can feel like a tightrope walk. You want to capture true value without scaring away potential or existing users.
This gets tougher when product features outpace your pricing tiers, leaving money on the table and creating unnecessary customer confusion.
Compounding this challenge, Invespcro reports an 8.7% year-over-year price inflation for SaaS products due to economic pressures. This means your strategy needs to be more dynamic.
To balance revenue with user satisfaction, you need a clear framework. This is exactly where strategic pricing models come into play.
In this article, I’ll walk you through six powerful SaaS go to market pricing models. We will explore how each helps you scale effectively and align your price with value.
You’ll leave with a clear understanding of which model best fits your product, customers, and unique growth stage.
Let’s dive in.
Quick Takeaways:
- ✅ Adopt tiered pricing to segment users, aligning price with value received and creating clear upgrade paths.
- ✅ Link pricing directly to customer outcomes and ROI by quantifying your product’s measurable impact.
- ✅ Utilize per-user models to tie costs directly to user count, simplifying revenue forecasting and scaling predictably.
- ✅ Apply cost-plus pricing with a strategic markup to cover all expenses and ensure predictable profit margins.
- ✅ Leverage competitor analysis to understand market value, intelligently position your product, and set defensible rates.
1. Tiered Pricing for Scalable GTM Execution
Your pricing model feels limiting.
A single price point often alienates both small startups and enterprise clients, effectively capping your market potential.
This mismatch forces you to either undercharge high-value users or overcharge early-stage customers. This creates significant revenue leakage and drives preventable churn among your user base.
Maxio reports hybrid models can deliver 21% median growth rates for SaaS companies. Sticking to a rigid model means you are leaving this potential growth on the table.
This failure to segment offerings properly stifles scalability and frustrates your team. A tiered approach offers a clear path.
Enter the tiered pricing model.
This strategy lets you package features into distinct plans designed for specific customer personas, from solo users to large teams.
You can align price points with the value each customer segment receives, creating clear upgrade paths as their business needs evolve.
For instance, a “Basic” tier serves freelancers, while “Pro” and “Enterprise” tiers add features for growing teams. These structured SaaS go to market pricing models simplify your sales cycle significantly.
This structure offers clarity for everyone involved.
It empowers customers to self-select the best plan for their needs, supporting scalable growth and maximizing revenue without alienating users.
Ready to achieve scalable growth and maximize revenue with a pricing model that works for you? Book a discovery call with our team today.
2. Value-Based Pricing to Capture True Value
You are likely leaving revenue on the table.
Pricing based on features, not impact, means you undermonetize your most successful customers who see immense value from your tool.
When your best clients get 10x ROI but pay a standard fee, your pricing is completely disconnected from the actual value you provide their business.
A Monetizely report found 78% of SaaS companies now prioritize this model over cost-plus strategies.
This is a critical disconnect, but you can directly link your price to the customer’s tangible business outcomes.
Anchor your pricing to customer outcomes.
Value-based pricing links your fee directly to the perceived value or ROI a customer receives, moving beyond simple cost-plus or competitor-based models.
This requires you to deeply understand your customer’s pain points and how your product measurably solves them for different segments. This aligns price with results.
For example, if your software saves a team 20 hours per week, you quantify that value. This is one of the most effective SaaS go to market pricing models.
You are now selling a solution, not software.
It allows you to charge premium prices for high-value segments without alienating smaller users, maximizing your revenue potential across the board.
3. Per-User Models for Predictable Revenue
Predictable revenue streams are a common goal.
Without them, you’re just guessing your monthly recurring revenue, complicating your growth planning.
This uncertainty creates budgeting headaches. Forecasting becomes a guessing game, which hinders your ability to scale confidently and allocate resources effectively.
A report from Invesp shows 50% of SaaS vendors still use this model for its reliability. This widespread adoption underscores its foundational appeal.
This volatility directly impacts your ability to invest in the marketing and sales efforts needed for expansion.
This is where per-user pricing helps.
The per-user model simplifies revenue forecasting by tying costs directly to the number of individual users or ‘seats’ on a client’s account.
This linear relationship makes it incredibly easy to predict revenue. You simply multiply users by price, creating a clear and stable financial outlook.
As your clients’ teams grow and add more seats, your revenue scales directly with them. It is one of the most straightforward SaaS go to market pricing models to implement for predictable cash flow.
Its simplicity is its greatest strength.
This model provides the financial clarity you need to confidently budget for customer acquisition and product development, fueling your company’s sustainable long-term growth.
4. Cost-Plus Pricing with Strategic Markup
Are rising costs eroding your profit margins?
Pricing without a clear baseline for your expenses makes it impossible to guarantee profitability as your team and product scale.
If your pricing fails to cover total costs, you’re funding your customers’ usage instead of building a sustainable business model that leadership expects from you.
According to McKinsey, 50% of software companies plan price hikes to offset operational costs. This shows a clear industry trend toward protecting your margins.
This provides a solid foundation, but you need a strategic approach to avoid simply passing on costs without adding perceived value.
Enter cost-plus pricing with a strategic markup.
This model ensures you cover all your costs—from development to marketing—and then adds a specific percentage markup to guarantee a profit margin.
The key is the “strategic” part. You don’t just add a random percentage; you align the markup with your financial goals and market position.
For instance, your markup could be higher for enterprise tiers that use more support resources. This is one of the most straightforward SaaS go to market pricing models.
This brings clarity and predictable profitability.
While not as customer-centric as the value-based pricing we discussed earlier, it creates a stable floor that protects your business from undermonetizing its services.
5. Competitor Analysis to Avoid Undervaluing
Pricing in a vacuum is dangerous.
Without market context, you risk undervaluing your product or pricing yourself out of deals before they even begin.
This guesswork leads to leaving significant revenue on the table or creating a price perception issue that is incredibly difficult to reverse later on.
Invesp found that 55% of sellers report budget as the top deal-breaker. This proves how sensitive your market is to price.
This vulnerability is completely avoidable by turning competitor data into your own strategic advantage for winning more deals.
This is where competitor analysis comes in.
This isn’t about blindly copying prices. It’s about deeply understanding the value landscape to intelligently position your own product for success.
You must analyze their pricing tiers, core feature sets, and target customer segments. This reveals crucial market positioning opportunities you’d miss.
Map what features competitors offer at each price. This intelligence lets you build compelling SaaS go to market pricing models that highlight your unique value proposition and justify your price point.
This approach builds a defensible strategy.
By understanding market price tolerance, you can confidently set rates that maximize revenue and align perfectly with what your ideal customers expect.
Ready to confidently set rates that maximize revenue and align with your customers? Book a discovery call with Boterns today to discuss how we can help optimize your SaaS go-to-market strategy.
6. Usage-Based Pricing for Elastic Demands
What if your bill matched your usage?
Fixed-price tiers penalize customers with fluctuating needs, creating friction and driving potential churn for your growing company.
Traditional models create a lose-lose. You either overcharge customers, risking churn, or undermonetize your power users, leaving a major revenue gap.
In fact, Invesp reports that 38% of SaaS businesses now use this model, signaling a market shift away from rigid, one-size-fits-all plans.
This pricing gap creates unnecessary friction, demanding a model that perfectly aligns cost with the value customers actually receive.
Enter usage-based pricing.
This model directly links your pricing to specific consumption metrics like API calls or data storage, guaranteeing your customers only pay for what they truly use.
It creates a fair value exchange where the price scales alongside their usage. This builds incredible customer trust and fosters genuine long-term loyalty.
For instance, a cloud provider charges per gigabyte stored, while an email platform bills per contact. This is one of the most adaptable SaaS go to market pricing models.
Your revenue grows as they succeed.
It is ideal for attracting startups that can scale into major accounts, as it lowers the initial barrier to entry and effectively maximizes lifetime value.
Conclusion
Your pricing model defines your growth.
A mismatched strategy leaves money on the table. It either alienates promising early-stage users with high costs or undermonetizes your valuable enterprise clients.
A Maxio report reveals that 40% of SaaS agreements are now multi-year deals. This shift proves a buyer willingness to commit long-term to strategic pricing they trust and understand.
Now you have a clear framework.
This guide has equipped you with six distinct approaches. You can now confidently select a model that aligns price with value and supports scalability.
For additional insights, my analysis of revenue models and pricing strategies provides valuable perspectives on maximizing your MRR.
For instance, implementing a tiered model creates clear upgrade paths. Choosing the right SaaS go to market pricing models stops revenue leakage and fuels growth.
Don’t wait for another quarter of missed targets. Pick one model that best fits your product and begin outlining your implementation plan today.
Unlock scalable and predictable revenue growth. Ready to unlock your SaaS’s full revenue potential? Book a discovery call with me today to tailor a pricing strategy that fuels your growth and secures long-term commitments.
