Pricing your first SaaS tier — the 90-minute exercise

Most first-time SaaS founders set their first price by gut — usually too low — and then live with the consequences for a year. This exercise gets you to a defensible first price in 90 minutes, using nothing but a notebook and three customer conversations.

Step 1 — The 5-question customer interview (45 min total)

Talk to three potential customers who match your ICP. For each, ask:

1. What are you doing today to solve this problem? (Maps the alternative they'd use if you didn't exist.)
2. What does it cost you in time or money per month? (Anchors value in their world.)
3. If we did exactly this, what's the most you'd be comfortable paying per month? (The willingness-to-pay top-end.)
4. What's a price that would feel too cheap to take seriously? (The lower bound; cheaper than this signals "not for real businesses.")
5. Per user or per workspace or per usage — which would feel natural? (Surfaces the natural pricing axis.)

You're looking for the median of question 3 across the three conversations. That's your anchor price.

Step 2 — Shape the three tiers (20 min)

Three tiers, named simply: Starter / Pro / Business.

• Pro is your anchor price. Set it equal to the median willingness-to-pay from Step 1.
• Starter is roughly half of Pro. Strip features until that price is defensible — typically: lower seat limit, less usage, no integrations.
• Business is roughly 3-4x Pro. Adds: priority support, SSO, audit log, custom contract. You don't need to build all of this on day one; you need to be able to credibly offer it.

The trap: don't price Starter at "free" unless you have a strong product-led growth motion that requires it. Free-with-no-strategy bleeds support burden and tanks signal quality.

Step 3 — Build the price ladder (15 min)

Write each tier in this format:

Starter — $X/month. For [who]. Includes [3-5 specifics]. Up to [limit]. Pro — $Y/month. For [who]. Includes [Starter plus 3-5 specifics]. Up to [limit]. Business — $Z/month. For [who]. Includes [Pro plus 3-5 specifics]. Annual contract.

If you struggle to fill in any line, the tier isn't defined enough yet. Iterate.

Step 4 — Test the ladder against the three customers (10 min)

Send your ladder to the three people you interviewed. Ask: "Which tier would you choose, and is there anything that doesn't match how you'd buy?"

• If all three pick Pro and nobody flinches at the price: you're underpriced. Raise everything 15-30% and re-test.
• If they pick Starter and would clearly never upgrade: your Pro features aren't actually pro.
• If two pick Pro and one picks Business: you've roughly hit it. Ship.

Common mistakes

• Pricing in dollars instead of value. "It costs us 10 hours/week to do this manually" lets you anchor much higher than "what would feel reasonable."
• Five tiers instead of three. Five tiers paralyse buyers; the conversion rate of any one tier drops materially.
• Annual without a discount. Annual prepay should always come with 15-20% off — it's the cheapest cash-flow improvement you'll ever ship.
• Treating the first price as permanent. Plan to raise it. The first price should make 2-3 hand-picked customers say yes; it shouldn't be the price you charge customer #100.