SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2023

So we’ve been writing about the power of a strong, funded, dedicated customer success organization since the beginning of SaaStr way back in 2012. I now dread calls and Zooms with Customer Success — and I’m not alone. Price increases across the board , often handled poorly. Thank you much. No Thank You.

Customer Success 293

Customer Success Pricing Revenue Sales 293

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2020

It’s goes like this: First, who’s your largest customer? Now … On that deal … go quote twice your highest price ever. It does >not< mean rip off your customer. Improve customer success. 200k your new enterprise price point, not $100k. Double Your Pricing. And then.

Pricing 318

Pricing Sales Hiring Engineering Enterprise 318

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2021

We’ve talked on SaaStr about leaning in on Customer Success as much as possible. the revenue ultimately generated or supported by Customer Success) is the key to growing a SaaS business. We’ve talked about how all the Second Timers are hiring in customer success way early , ahead of sales, ahead of revenue.

Sales Hiring 293

Sales Hiring Customer Success Headcount Churn 293

SaaStr

DECEMBER 30, 2023

The rise of customer success as a new, empowered function. Human support remained imporant, at least for paying customers. Customer Success has in many cases morphed into part of the sales team. And with that, the classic role of making customers happy with humans is in retreat.

Customer Success 339

Customer Success Scale AI Technology 339

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

8: 3x Net Dollar Retention Thanks to This Pricing Model Over time, the dominant pricing structure in B2C and B2B applications is like the cell phone plan. You get a base number of minutes for a particular price. But now there’s been a broad shift toward usage-based pricing or seat-based pricing, or a combination of the two.

Venture Capital 331

Venture Capital Marketing AI SaaS 331

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2025

Financial Services: Mortgage & Loan Processing Help users explore mortgage options by collecting key inputs like purchase price, credit score, down payment, and property location, then presenting tailored loan choices with current rates. Pay only for what you use with transparent pass-through pricing for 3rd party integrations.

Payment Solutions 267

Payment Solutions Scale AI Payment Services 267

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

Let’s review everything your customer success team has to do in the absence of any customer success tools. Collect customer data to calculate complex formulas for tracking metrics, monitor customer health scores, and resolve support tickets while continuously trying to improve retention and expansion.

Customer Success 105

Customer Success Enterprise Software Review Startup 105

SaaStr

MAY 22, 2021

Q: Dear SaaStr: Who Should I Hire First to Get My Customer Success Function Going? I don’t mean a true VP of Customer Success in the early days of revenues … you’re not ready for that yet. you believe in and would trust with your hard-won customers. It’s easy — these days. Just hire a veteran.

Customer Success 293

Customer Success Interviewing Pricing Revenue 293

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2022

SaaS pricing can be overwhelming when there are unlimited paths and opportunities that exist. Even though most companies acknowledge its importance, SaaS founders often choose a simplistic approach to pricing—that is, if they don’t choose to ignore it altogether. Making pricing work for your business.

Pricing 274

Pricing Strategy SaaS Forecasting 274

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 19, 2019

Others want to innovate in every dimension and re-invent every discipline from pricing to marketing to support to customer success. Kustomer’s platform is a fundamental re-architecture of customer support software. At the outset, Brad also sought to change the pricing model. We wanted to be innovative.

Pricing 277

Pricing Startup Sales Hiring Innovation 277

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2019

You could spend days reading about pricing and pricing strategies in software on the web, but a lot of this content doesn’t really hit one, basic fundamental point — there is no real reason any particular piece of software should cost anything in particular. Pricing in software is really in large part relative to what.

Pricing 337

Pricing Enterprise Software Sales 337

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2025

Competition and Differentiation: Founders worry about competitors copying their product or undercutting them on price. The key here is to focus on your unique strengths—whether that’s customer success, product innovation, or a specific niche—and double down on them. And you should.

Scale 227

Scale Part-Time VPE Scaling Sales Hiring 227

SaaStr

JUNE 6, 2025

Slower New Customer Growth. Many B2B and SaaS leaders continue to rely on price increases and upsells for more and more of their growth. Especially if NRR is falling, not adding enough new customers eventually leads naturally to slowing growth. Even market leaders like HubSpot have seen NRR fall from 110% to 110%.

Cloud 251

Cloud Software Marketing SaaS 251

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2022

59% of you have raised prices this year. I think most of us have found our pricing is more elastic than we thought. The related question then becomes do you raise prices on existing customers — or just new customers? In the scaling phase, I vote for leaving existing customers be. #9.

Sales Hiring 339

Sales Hiring Pricing Scale Interviewing 339

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2025

It’s about fundamental organizational redesign —from pricing models (hybrid consumption/subscription) to team structures (forward-deployed engineers vs traditional CSMs) to investment priorities (94% AI spend increases among high-growth companies). vs $8.7K), and dramatically leaner operations.

Scale 188

Scale AI B2B SaaS 188

SaaStr

DECEMBER 19, 2024

Raising prices may or may not work for you. And perhaps most important, move on from mediocre customer success folks. You need the team sharp to retain your customers in 2025. All the best are now multi-product. And most of us regret not having gone there a bit earlier. A related post here. #6. Be thoughtful. More here.

Sales Hiring 279

Sales Hiring SaaS Venture Capital Healthcare 279

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

And even in the enterprise, losing one big customer can swamp you here in the early days. One you may not have heard but it’s a good one — is Hire One Customer Success Manager for every $2m in ARR. say $300-$500k in customer revenue per segment). say $300-$500k in customer revenue per segment).

Scale 261

Scale Customer Success Sales Hiring Scaling 261

SaaStr

MARCH 21, 2019

A few thoughts at least: The stronger the brand, the more complex the pricing page can be. That means their prospects will be more patient with complex pricing. But your prospects may just move on if the pricing page makes it seem too … hard. Innovation is great … just often not on pricing. At least not in the early days.

Pricing 252

Pricing SaaS Enterprise Branding 252

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2025

They understood the actual workflow, the real pain points, and the specific language customers used. Simplified Pricing to Annual-Only Early Vanta initially offered both monthly and annual pricing options, following the standard SaaS playbook. Removing pricing complexity actually helped customers make decisions faster.

Sales Hiring 179

Sales Hiring Software Review compliance Sales Recruiting 179

Valuize Consulting

NOVEMBER 11, 2024

I’m talking about new pricing models: usage-based, consumption-based, value-based, output-based, and similar models that disrupt the conventional ARR-based, and seat-count approaches. Beyond their clear advantage of customer-centric pricing, these models are set to drive an AI-powered transformation across go-to-market strategies.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Pricing Investment Revenue 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2022

The more established your brand, the more complex your pricing page can be. What makes for a good pricing page? A few thoughts at least — mainly about what to copy from the big leaders, and what to maybe not copy from them: The stronger the brand, the more complex the pricing page can be. You aren’t there yet.

Pricing 261

Pricing Enterprise Branding Innovation 261

SaaStr

JUNE 10, 2023

If you do raise prices, how about also adding more value than price increase? 2023 has become the year of not just the aggressive price increase, but the threatening renewal conversation. 2023 has become the year of not just the aggressive price increase, but the threatening renewal conversation. At least, feel better.

Pricing 261

Pricing SaaS Marketing Customer Success 261

SaaStr

MAY 29, 2019

We’ve talked quite a bit about the pros and many cons of raising prices on existing customers on SaaStr. Our general view, and experience, is that until you are fairly mature, raising prices on existing customer isn’t worth it. They may even be incented to put up prices on existing customers.

Pricing 242

Pricing Scale Retention Enterprise 242

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2025

AI-native GTM organizations are becoming capable of things that traditional teams simply cannot do: real-time personalization at scale, predictive customer success, dynamic pricing optimization, and automated relationship management that maintains human-level quality.

Scale 179

Scale AI Headcount Sales Hiring 179

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 28, 2019

I remember the first time I tried to do the Old Price-Raise-Without-Notice tactic. But as time went on, we got a bit better at pricing ?? Just to increase Qualcomm to the same pricing everyone else had at their bracket. I canceled the price increase. Price increases on existing customers always lead to churn.

Pricing 273

Pricing Payment Features B2C Churn 273

SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2025

Naturally, their first customer was DoorDash and the quickly captured 95% of the gig economy market in their early days. When Lindsey joined, she inherited an already built-out self-serve/PLG model for small businesses and a mid-market and enterprise sales, customer success, and post-sales team.

Revenue 293

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Compensation 293

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2025

Alignment Across Teams : Ensure alignment between sales, marketing, and customer success. Are customer success teams equipped to drive renewals and expansions? This includes contracts, pricing approvals, and any legal requirements. Are leads being handed off smoothly?

Technical Review 179

Technical Review Sales Forecasting AI 179

SaaStr

APRIL 12, 2022

Raise prices on existing customers, Doesn’t help if you are growing quickly. Raise prices on new customers, Forces you to deliver more value. Dear SaaStr: How Do You Change the Price of Your SaaS Product Without Upsetting Existing Customers? My vote: don’t raise prices for existing customers.

Pricing 261

Pricing SaaS Revenue Customer Success 261

SaaStr

JUNE 20, 2025

This isn’t just about productivity — it’s about economic disruption : The Agent Economics: Traditional SaaS: $3,500 per employee annually across organizations AI Agents: Can replace entire job functions for <$100/month The math may be devastating for high priced seat-based pricing models 3.

AI Search 289

AI Search Artificial Intelligence AI CTO Hire 289

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

Balanced Metrics : While they track traditional SaaS metrics, they also measure customer success indicators specific to the construction industry. Efficient Growth : Word-of-mouth in tight-knit industries reduces customer acquisition costs. This helps ensure they’re creating real value, not just growing revenue.

Construction 251

Construction Scale SaaS Travel 251

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2025

Build the Right Team for Enterprise Success Enterprise selling requires a fundamentally different skillset. Map out all stakeholders and their motivations early. Focus on Land-and-Expand Economics Don’t obsess over initial deal size.

Enterprise 244

Enterprise Sales Hiring Scale Outsourced Development 244

SaaStr

DECEMBER 5, 2024

.” The AI Categories with the Most Traction in the Market McKinsey found that sales and marketing teams are seeing the biggest gains with AI adoption, followed closely by engineering and customer success teams. So between sales and marketing, let’s dissect first why Sales teams have been early adopters.

AI 273

AI Software Data SaaS 273

Sales Hacker

MAY 14, 2024

The post GTM 94: Mastering Branding, Pricing, and Customer Success for AI Startups with Holly Chen appeared first on GTMnow. Holly lives in San Francisco and speaks Italian and Chinese fluently. 46:33 – One thing that is working for Holly in go-to-market right now.

Customer Success 122

Customer Success AI Branding Pricing 122

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

SaaStr Annual attracts thousands of high-quality SaaS professionals across functions like engineering, product, marketing, sales, and customer success. From customer success platforms to billing solutions and marketing automation tools, the exhibitors represent a curated collection of resources that can help optimize your business.

Sales Recruiting 183

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 183

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

The peak moment for us was when a vendor we pay monthly for sent us a threatening email on the last days of a quarter telling us we had to now pre-pay for 4 years at a much higher annual price. Best case, unscheduled price increases were rolled out — without a commensurate increase in value. Worst case, customers were threatened.

Scale 293

Scale Market Segmentation Customer Success Pricing 293

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2022

Low touch you’re gonna talk a lot about what we call customer success teams. Customer success teams are basically about building at scale this self-serve engine. We look at annual churn, given the nature of those businesses that have annual or multi annual contracts with much bigger price items and tickets.

SaaS Payments 246

SaaS Payments Metrics Payment Methods Scale 246

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2025

This inefficiency stemmed from the high costs associated with maintaining sales development representatives (SDRs), customer success managers (CSMs), and account executives. This decision was validated through A/B testing, which showed new traffic converting at 20 times the previous rate, despite the significantly lower price point.

Scale 156

Scale Scaling Outsourced Development Sales 156