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3 April 2026 · 5 min

How to price a SaaS before you've built it

How to price a SaaS before you've built it — the three-tier method we use with founders to anchor pricing without burning leads.

Start with what it replaces

Look up what your user pays today for the closest equivalent — software, a freelancer, a SaaS bundle. Your price ceiling is 60–80% of that. Your floor is whatever covers infrastructure plus 3x.

Use three tiers, not five

Cheap ($/$ single digits — for solo users), Pro (10x the cheap tier — for teams), Business (10x Pro, custom — for the few that need SSO and SLAs). Five tiers confuses; one tier under-prices.

Anchor with the middle

Make Pro the obvious pick. List it second, highlight it, and put the most-wanted features there. The cheap tier exists to make Pro look reasonable. The business tier exists to make Pro look affordable.

Don't launch with a free tier

Free tiers attract users you can't afford to support. Use a 14-day trial instead — same psychology, half the support load. Add a free tier later if your unit economics earn it.

Test it before you build

Put pricing on the landing page during validation. If nobody clicks 'pay', the price isn't the problem — the problem is. If they click and bounce at checkout, the price is the problem.

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