Getting pricing right is frequently the difference between scaling and stalling, and most SaaS companies treat it as an administrative decision made once at launch.

On a recent episode of the SaaS Stories podcast, I spoke with Bill Wilson, founder of Pace Pricing, about pricing strategy, how subscription models are evolving, and where monetisation goes next. Bill has 25 years in software and has coached more than 400 SaaS founders, which gives him an unusually wide view of how this goes wrong.

Listen to the full episode of SaaS Stories with Bill Wilson

Here's what came out of the conversation.

Why pricing deserves a fresh look

Pricing gets treated as set-and-forget, which is remarkable given the leverage in it. McKinsey found that a 1% improvement in pricing yields an 11% increase in profits, making it the single most effective lever available for revenue growth.

Bill's argument is that SaaS companies fixate on what to charge when the harder and more valuable question is how to charge. Too many default to industry convention — a flat subscription, because that's what everyone does — without asking how their customers actually derive value.

The difference is not academic. What you charge is a number you can change in an afternoon. How you charge is a structure, and it determines whether your revenue grows when your customer succeeds or stays flat while they get more out of you every month. Pricing should be a dynamic strategy that moves with customer needs and market conditions, not a decision made once during a fundraise.

The case for showing your prices

One of the biggest frustrations for buyers is a pricing page that tells them nothing. Gartner found that 55% of SaaS buyers want to see at least a starting price before they'll contact sales. Transparency builds trust, shortens the sales cycle, and lets a prospect calculate ROI without booking a call they don't want.

If you're not ready to publish everything, Bill suggests starting smaller and moving in three steps. Publish the pricing model first, so people understand whether you charge per user, per transaction or per outcome — that alone answers most of the question a prospect has. Then add a starting point, giving them a sense of scale so they can work out whether you are plausible for their budget. Then work toward comprehensive pricing over time.

The usual objection is that publishing prices arms your competitors. It does, marginally. It also stops you paying for sales calls with people who were never going to afford you, which is almost always the larger number.

Using pricing to scale

Pricing captures revenue, but it can also drive growth — what Bill calls pricing-led growth.

Focus on value metrics. Align what you charge with the value the customer receives. Dropbox charges on storage, Miro on boards created. In both cases the customer sees a direct line between what they use and what they pay.

Build hybrid models. Combining subscription, usage and outcome elements lets you capture value across segments that behave very differently.

Optimise net revenue retention. Pricing lifts NRR by giving customers a path to expand inside their existing plan. Usage-based elements — extra transactions, additional features — let spend grow without a disruptive plan migration.

Where companies get it wrong

Never updating. Many SaaS companies don't adjust pricing as they scale, despite inflation, rising operating costs and a growing feature set all justifying it. ProfitWell found that companies adjusting pricing annually grow at nearly double the rate of those that don't.

Discounting predictably. End-of-quarter promotions train customers to wait. Set a clear discount policy and deploy incentives deliberately rather than habitually.

Communicating badly. Canva drew significant backlash after introducing usage-based pricing that sharply raised costs for some customers. Bill's advice is to segment customers by how much the change affects them and roll it out gradually, because a change that is trivial for most of your base can be severe for a handful — and it is that handful who write the posts everyone reads.

How to overhaul pricing without losing the base

Bill recommends a phased approach. Segment your customers by tenure, current spend and likely impact. Communicate early and repeatedly, explaining both the reason and the added value. Offer transition plans for legacy customers, whether that's a gradual increase or a temporary discount. And test with a small group before the full rollout.

It works. In one case Bill helped a SaaS company introduce appointment limits for the first time, and by segmenting customers and moving incrementally they transitioned their entire customer base to the new model with minimal churn.

Final thoughts

Pricing is a strategic tool for growth, retention and differentiation rather than a mechanism for generating revenue. Focus on how your customers derive value, build the model around that, and revisit it on a schedule rather than in a crisis.

As Bill puts it:

"Product is pricing, and pricing is product. The two cannot be separated."

If you're not evaluating your pricing regularly, you're leaving growth on the table. Put a date in the calendar for twelve months from now, and start with the value metric.