Ask HN: “Contact Us” Pricing
172 comments
As you already know, this is typical for "enterprise" software due to the idea that potential customers will immediately click away if the price seems too high, so you need to let your customer know what value is in your software before they immediately walk away.
One take-away from this is the old "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", and another is that they're automatically filtering out lower-value or price-sensitive customers.
However, an obvious counterpoint is that Atlassian built a multi-billion-dollar business around up-front pricing, and even seem to still offer that up-front pricing today.
As a general rule, any software which requires "contact us" is going to be somewhere between $50k and $750k, generally annually, (usually for a fully-loaded site license on the high end), but there are definitely exceptions above and below. Certainly there are companies in some industries (WorkDay, Oracle, SalesForce, etc) that are known for being extremely expensive, and there are certainly many companies that would like to get into an upper tier but just aren't quite there yet, and smaller startups (esp non-VC funded) are often on the low end.
One take-away from this is the old "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", and another is that they're automatically filtering out lower-value or price-sensitive customers.
However, an obvious counterpoint is that Atlassian built a multi-billion-dollar business around up-front pricing, and even seem to still offer that up-front pricing today.
As a general rule, any software which requires "contact us" is going to be somewhere between $50k and $750k, generally annually, (usually for a fully-loaded site license on the high end), but there are definitely exceptions above and below. Certainly there are companies in some industries (WorkDay, Oracle, SalesForce, etc) that are known for being extremely expensive, and there are certainly many companies that would like to get into an upper tier but just aren't quite there yet, and smaller startups (esp non-VC funded) are often on the low end.
That's a much more generous take than I had. I always assumed "contact us" pricing meant "tell us who you work for so we can google their funding level before suggesting a price to you".
Whether or not your company has a procurement department should always be part of the equation when pricing enterprise deals. (Funding is an indicator of whether your company has one)
Smaller companies without procurement departments are quicker and faster to contract with and they pay on time. Bigger companies with procurement departments request last minute contract redlines and never pay on time (always at least 2 weeks late, as a rule of thumb).
“Contact us” pricing might benefit you if you are smaller. If you’re at a bigger company, the headache of dealing with your procurement department will inevitably (and justifiably) drive up the price - it’s the bureaucracy tax.
Smaller companies without procurement departments are quicker and faster to contract with and they pay on time. Bigger companies with procurement departments request last minute contract redlines and never pay on time (always at least 2 weeks late, as a rule of thumb).
“Contact us” pricing might benefit you if you are smaller. If you’re at a bigger company, the headache of dealing with your procurement department will inevitably (and justifiably) drive up the price - it’s the bureaucracy tax.
> always at least 2 weeks late, as a rule of thumb
Oh man! As consultant I hated that. They would pay 90 days late and just say "sorry, we always pay 90 days after we get the invoice". They know I don't have the resources to sue them, nor would I. And they really had no reason to hold it other than making sure they get the interest instead of me.
Sure maybe it takes a few days to validate the invoice, but 90 days was ridiculous.
Even worse was when I was on the corporate side. I was working with a small vendor and our company had a 90 day wait as policy, but the company refused to deliver the items until they got the money. I really needed the items, so I have to move mountains to get our procurement to cut a check ASAP.
Oh man! As consultant I hated that. They would pay 90 days late and just say "sorry, we always pay 90 days after we get the invoice". They know I don't have the resources to sue them, nor would I. And they really had no reason to hold it other than making sure they get the interest instead of me.
Sure maybe it takes a few days to validate the invoice, but 90 days was ridiculous.
Even worse was when I was on the corporate side. I was working with a small vendor and our company had a 90 day wait as policy, but the company refused to deliver the items until they got the money. I really needed the items, so I have to move mountains to get our procurement to cut a check ASAP.
if the contract your client signed said net-30 then wouldn't a 90 day payment incur 60 days of late fees and another invoice? i feel like you could rinse/repeat that forever. It would be like a subscription to late fees.
If a customer is paying you late because they think you won't/can't do anything about it, it seems the same disregard could apply to their payment of late fees.
If it’s low effort just keep sending in invoices. You could even write a script to help. The data entry person puts them on an A/R which gets larger and larger as each payment is not made and the past due rolls to the next invoice. Eventually the over 90 A/R will get attention.
It’s a lot of effort to keep going so it may just be more hassle than it’s worth. On the other hand, nothing wrong with that process if you’re within the terms of the contract. When the number gets large enough it will get escalated and, when you show your work, get paid and the payment clerk will get their hand slapped.
It’s a lot of effort to keep going so it may just be more hassle than it’s worth. On the other hand, nothing wrong with that process if you’re within the terms of the contract. When the number gets large enough it will get escalated and, when you show your work, get paid and the payment clerk will get their hand slapped.
I mean they will pay them if you escalate to legal but you won’t be able to do business with them again.
You'd think "suspend service until outstanding invoices are paid in full" would be in the "things which you would/can do about it" category.
Sometimes, they'll go as far as stiffing your payment just because.. what are you going to due, sue a Global 100 entity?
It's absurd, that's why I like working with smaller companies.
It's absurd, that's why I like working with smaller companies.
That's what credit reporting agencies like Dun and Bradstreet are for.
They usually just reject the invoice with late fees and quote their stated 90 day policy. Also usually they will redline it if you try to put net-30 and just change it to net-90 anyway.
It's up to you if you accept 90 days in a contract or not. And if you accept 90, then it's absolutely within their right to wait until day 90. Why would they not? It was agreed up front.
Sure, and I had to accept it because they would bully me into it. "Here is a contract for $200,000 and you'll bill us $30,000 each month, but we'll pay you 90 days later".
They know I don't have a choice to turn down that work just because I don't like the 90 day rule, and they only have that rule so they can keep money in their bank account longer.
And when I was on the corporate side, the vendor specifically would not do the work for me because they didn't agree to the 90 day terms, so I had to fight with my own people to get them paid faster so I could work with them.
It's just a pain all around.
They know I don't have a choice to turn down that work just because I don't like the 90 day rule, and they only have that rule so they can keep money in their bank account longer.
And when I was on the corporate side, the vendor specifically would not do the work for me because they didn't agree to the 90 day terms, so I had to fight with my own people to get them paid faster so I could work with them.
It's just a pain all around.
Technically, yes. But in practice, it's rarely worth the time or effort to collect.
One of the bigger accountants firms had a 180 days thing. Madness
Most companies pay very quickly if you offer 1% Net 10 or 2% Net 10 terms. Paying within 10 days to get a 2% discount is pretty money-efficient from their standpoint.
I also recommend this. It seems that some accounts departments are authorised to play absurd games with long delays but they aren't authorised to cost the company more money. They will complain about late fees but everyone likes a discount, right?
Then just price in a 10% overhead for your service of dealing with this game.
As a reformed former VP of Sales, I can assure that this is exactly how it works, except with much better research than Google.
Could you describe some of the research?
I am sure that's the correct assumption for some companies. I don't think it's right regardless how big the customer. But there are always exceptions, the size of your customer's business may affect your effort for onboarding and continues support, and therefore you may charge them different.
That's definitely true... I mainly service financial institutions and their asset size is part of the calculation.
Oh, it doesn't always mean personalized price gouging. My take was always simply that the product is overpriced to the point the vendor needs to employ a full time salesperson to make you want it. I think that was why I've always avoided making those calls. Not only did I know I was going to be annoyed, I was going to have to pay to be annoyed. "contact us" pricing was always the last option to try, especially from the well known brands.
Same thought here. If I see “contact us” for pricing, it means you’re gonna try and screw me over somehow. I usually avoid those even when I have a large budget.
…hell, if I have to speak to a human when I don’t think it’s necessary, then we probably won’t do business.
…hell, if I have to speak to a human when I don’t think it’s necessary, then we probably won’t do business.
This is real too. Prices are never fixed, was one of the first things I learned form my GSBer cofounder. In the "regular" world, the price is usually the price. In the business world it almost never is
Price discrimination is good actually. Why shouldn't you charge the fortune 500 company more than the cash strapped start up? Good for your business, and lets you sell to the startup for less and still have the same revenue.
I mentioned this in a different HN thread today, but I'm gonna say it again anyway: if I can get a publicly-available "standard" price for launching something into outer fucking space¹, it's absolutely ridiculous that I can't get the same for something multiple orders of magnitude cheaper. Will that "standard" price be negotiated? Sure. Whatever. Just throw out some number instead of forcing the buyer and seller to mutually waste each other's time on basic information gathering.
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¹: https://www.spacex.com/media/Capabilities&Services.pdf
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¹: https://www.spacex.com/media/Capabilities&Services.pdf
I'm a big SpaceX fan, but I know the prices are published for the fans (they make good PR). For those looking to launch things into space calling the three existing providers is not a serious barrier to entry.
I think the comment you’re responding to answers your response. Pricing isn’t opaque because they cannot determine a standard price, but because they don’t want to scare people away.
I’m expecting spacex is different because we already know intuitively that launching something is expensive and we know there are only a small number of vendors with which to do so. So space launch companies probably don’t have the same issue…
I’m expecting spacex is different because we already know intuitively that launching something is expensive and we know there are only a small number of vendors with which to do so. So space launch companies probably don’t have the same issue…
> they don’t want to scare people away
If that price tag is big enough to "scare away" a customer, then that'll be true with or without the extra contact info collection and sales call(s) and email spam. Like I said: might as well not have the vendor and customer mutually waste each others' time with a bunch of sales ceremony that has no hope of actually producing a sale.
If that price tag is big enough to "scare away" a customer, then that'll be true with or without the extra contact info collection and sales call(s) and email spam. Like I said: might as well not have the vendor and customer mutually waste each others' time with a bunch of sales ceremony that has no hope of actually producing a sale.
> As a general rule, any software which requires "contact us" is going to be somewhere between $50k and $750k
I really wish that were the case. Alas, more and more sellers think it makes them look cool and enterprise-y if they go the "contact us" route. Possibly the most ridiculous I encountered was a browser plugin startup offering that ended up costing something like $2/month/user with a 20 user minimum but even during the demo they were all about "Fortune 500 this and national ISPs that".
As far as actual very large enterprises are concerned (pardon the pun), there might even be some truth to that: I know procurement guys who would only buy if they got the white-glove/wine-and-dine treatment and would have never bought something with a corporate credit card on a website that said "click to buy 35,000 licenses now" (you can do that with Atlassian IIRC).
Fair enough.
But for 99% of companies (i.e. SMB) it's just annoying to the extreme, especially if you have to do this more than once per year because your org is restructuring, your CTO is actually the CFO and reads marketing whitepapers and case studies to follow the latest tech fads, or you're in consulting.
I say, offer both: An SMB plan with listed pricing (segment further at your leisure) and an Enterprise option with "call us". If you don't want SMB business, be honest about it and say "enterprise only, we only do bespoke, don't call if your budget is <50k".
I really wish that were the case. Alas, more and more sellers think it makes them look cool and enterprise-y if they go the "contact us" route. Possibly the most ridiculous I encountered was a browser plugin startup offering that ended up costing something like $2/month/user with a 20 user minimum but even during the demo they were all about "Fortune 500 this and national ISPs that".
As far as actual very large enterprises are concerned (pardon the pun), there might even be some truth to that: I know procurement guys who would only buy if they got the white-glove/wine-and-dine treatment and would have never bought something with a corporate credit card on a website that said "click to buy 35,000 licenses now" (you can do that with Atlassian IIRC).
Fair enough.
But for 99% of companies (i.e. SMB) it's just annoying to the extreme, especially if you have to do this more than once per year because your org is restructuring, your CTO is actually the CFO and reads marketing whitepapers and case studies to follow the latest tech fads, or you're in consulting.
I say, offer both: An SMB plan with listed pricing (segment further at your leisure) and an Enterprise option with "call us". If you don't want SMB business, be honest about it and say "enterprise only, we only do bespoke, don't call if your budget is <50k".
it's just annoying to the extreme
I once had to find software options for a company I worked for. I had a deadline to meet for that, plus my regular duties.
That meant that any company that had "Call for pricing" didn't make the cut. I don't have time for that.
We ended up spending $120,000 on the solution I chose. I don't know if we could have gotten a better deal from another vendor, because they wanted to play games. I don't have time for games.
The company that was honest and up-front about the pricing got the contract, which I know has renewed several times since then.
I once had to find software options for a company I worked for. I had a deadline to meet for that, plus my regular duties.
That meant that any company that had "Call for pricing" didn't make the cut. I don't have time for that.
We ended up spending $120,000 on the solution I chose. I don't know if we could have gotten a better deal from another vendor, because they wanted to play games. I don't have time for games.
The company that was honest and up-front about the pricing got the contract, which I know has renewed several times since then.
How did this work? Did they put $10,000/mo on their website?
Yeah maybe I'm a bit more cynical than you but the idea of contact us pricing for me has always been "dependa how much money you have and how much we can squeeze" also the idea of guaging how "critical" the service is for you.
It seems so sleezy in the way that sales generally gets a bad reputation.
There shouldn't be any problem with having the pricing on the site if it's all above board. That way you're actually reducing the wasted hours of sales people who have to determine if you're even a potential customer.
It seems so sleezy in the way that sales generally gets a bad reputation.
There shouldn't be any problem with having the pricing on the site if it's all above board. That way you're actually reducing the wasted hours of sales people who have to determine if you're even a potential customer.
Depends on the product. If it's off-the-shelf and every customer just does DIY deployment, 100% agree.
But many of these products have lots of different modules, and customers don't always know which ones they need. And some nearly require assistance/consulting with deployment, the complexity of which varies depending on environment.
So from the company's point of view, they don't want to put "$200k" on the website if the actual price is between $100k and $1m depending on customer specifics. It will scare off smaller customers and upset bigger customers.
But yeah if it's just one-size-fits-all, download-and-install SW, pricing should be listed.
But many of these products have lots of different modules, and customers don't always know which ones they need. And some nearly require assistance/consulting with deployment, the complexity of which varies depending on environment.
So from the company's point of view, they don't want to put "$200k" on the website if the actual price is between $100k and $1m depending on customer specifics. It will scare off smaller customers and upset bigger customers.
But yeah if it's just one-size-fits-all, download-and-install SW, pricing should be listed.
Or, if you're dealing with a startup, there's a chance the product doesn't actually exist and they'll want to lock you in a deal that gives them more concrete requirements and funds the MVP. This is based on a bet that programmers can crank out code faster than the enterprise customer can finalize the deal.
In the past, I've dealt with a startup that not only did just that, but also used the non-final deal with one very large customer to try and get similar deals started with several other large companies, with half the pitch being just "we're about to deploy our solution at ${very large and well-known international you've heard of}".
In the past, I've dealt with a startup that not only did just that, but also used the non-final deal with one very large customer to try and get similar deals started with several other large companies, with half the pitch being just "we're about to deploy our solution at ${very large and well-known international you've heard of}".
It has never ever been a bad strategy to get paid to build a product rather than building something and hoping there’s a market.
This is the way to do enterprise sales.
This is the way to do enterprise sales.
Right. My point is more about misleading presentation. The landing page will try to convince you the company is offering an amazing product that will solve your problems, when the reality is, the product doesn't exist and the company is trying to get you to fund it.
It's funny you bring this up because a startup i was involved in at the beginning did something similar. I was one of the seniors and we would have proposed "ideas" for what could be done with the product. The next day the sales people were selling those features .. unfortunately it created a huge divide between sales and development that ultimately couldn't be overcome.
I understand the insentive is to sell, but there has to be a balancing line between sales and development, both can't work solely independent.
I understand the insentive is to sell, but there has to be a balancing line between sales and development, both can't work solely independent.
Vendor list pricing is absurd. Real story but using made up numbers below:
I spoke with a vendor last week who came in at 500k. I told them my budget was 250k, price came back at 255k.
I spoke with a vendor last week who came in at 500k. I told them my budget was 250k, price came back at 255k.
Then your renewal comes up and you’ve already spent another million in salaries and bespoke shit to make it work for you and the sales guy hits you with 500k again because you’re in too deep.
Cisco was legendary around here (20+ years ago when I was around networking). They would win almost every tender, often with quotes below cost if that is what it took. And everyone in the know knew you would be paying much, much more over the next few years with support costs, renewals, etc. The first hit is free.
Bingo
Because they'd rather get $500K, but getting $255K is better than getting $0K.
Because the service costs them $40k. I've seen this in the physical world with markups like this in captured industrial markets.
No it doesn’t this makes zero sense. $40k is way too much for operational costs and way too little for human costs.
If you only count operational costs and a hypothetical skeleton crew to maintain it it probably costs damn near nothing to add another customer.
But once you include the salaries of 20 to 2000 engineers and the rest of the business to support them it’s a whole different ballgame. A major feature that takes one team 6 weeks to build costs a little less than half a mil in engineer salaries.
Software by its nature is weighted heavily in upfront costs and so pricing is “how little can we afford to charge to be in the black with ARR, how much do our competitors charge, and how much would it cost you to build it yourself.”
If you only count operational costs and a hypothetical skeleton crew to maintain it it probably costs damn near nothing to add another customer.
But once you include the salaries of 20 to 2000 engineers and the rest of the business to support them it’s a whole different ballgame. A major feature that takes one team 6 weeks to build costs a little less than half a mil in engineer salaries.
Software by its nature is weighted heavily in upfront costs and so pricing is “how little can we afford to charge to be in the black with ARR, how much do our competitors charge, and how much would it cost you to build it yourself.”
I mean that's how I would price it too.
Those sales people do ‘squeeze’ out a lot of $$$, and it’s also how they often get competitive and product intelligence. What other products is the person using, what expectations/requirements do they have that we might or might not be meeting, etc.
> due to the idea that potential customers will immediately click away if the price seems too high
That's not how I read these at all. "Contact Us" means the company doesn't have set pricing but rather will have a sales person/department that will structure a specific deal and negotiate a contract for your business's specific needs.
That's not how I read these at all. "Contact Us" means the company doesn't have set pricing but rather will have a sales person/department that will structure a specific deal and negotiate a contract for your business's specific needs.
I read it as: the company doesn't have set pricing but rather has a sales person/department that will charge you more than the next person for the exact same product/service if they have any reason to suspect they can get away with it after learning as much as they can about your finances and only after wasting your time on a high pressure sales pitch.
If someone refuses to openly list prices they're either:
If someone refuses to openly list prices they're either:
- Embarrassed by the amount of money they're charging
- Aware they charge more than others and don't want to let you comparison shop easily
- Planning on setting as high a price as possible depending on how much you can be fleeced into payingWe may not like it, but your last point is almost the exact definition of what a "price" is. Things don't have objective "prices" as an intrinsic quality. They don't even have "reasonable" prices intrinsically. A price is no more, and no less than an agreement between buyer and seller to make a transaction happen.
"how much you can be fleeced into paying" while a proactive way to phrase it, is also "What you are willing to pay." Key words - "you are willing". If it's too high, then it isn't a price, as there is no agreement.
Seller wants highest price, and buyer wants lowest.
When it's a commodity, like apples at the store, with many sellers of a basically undifferentiated product, prices average out to something we think of as "fair." But when a product is unique, or there is a monopoly on it, seller has a huge advantage in pricing.
"how much you can be fleeced into paying" while a proactive way to phrase it, is also "What you are willing to pay." Key words - "you are willing". If it's too high, then it isn't a price, as there is no agreement.
Seller wants highest price, and buyer wants lowest.
When it's a commodity, like apples at the store, with many sellers of a basically undifferentiated product, prices average out to something we think of as "fair." But when a product is unique, or there is a monopoly on it, seller has a huge advantage in pricing.
> We may not like it, but your last point is almost the exact definition of what a "price" is. Things don't have objective "prices" as an intrinsic quality. They don't even have "reasonable" prices intrinsically. A price is no more, and no less than an agreement between buyer and seller to make a transaction happen.
The difference is that most companies aren't pricing their goods to the maximum amount they think they can get from you personally. They instead price things according to what the majority of their target market is willing to pay.
You can say that ultimately it still comes down to paying only what you're willing to spend, but I might be willing to spend $20 on something, yet also be unwilling to spend $20 on it if I know you've been charging everybody else $12 for that same product. Consumers find personalized dynamic pricing to be unfair and discriminatory and for good reason. There's a really big difference between a company who uses their advantage in pricing to screw over everybody for extra profit and one who uses their advantage to personally screw you over in order to take more from you than they could normally get away with.
Publicly disclosed prices that apply equally to everyone puts a boundary on much a company can take advantage of any one person.
The difference is that most companies aren't pricing their goods to the maximum amount they think they can get from you personally. They instead price things according to what the majority of their target market is willing to pay.
You can say that ultimately it still comes down to paying only what you're willing to spend, but I might be willing to spend $20 on something, yet also be unwilling to spend $20 on it if I know you've been charging everybody else $12 for that same product. Consumers find personalized dynamic pricing to be unfair and discriminatory and for good reason. There's a really big difference between a company who uses their advantage in pricing to screw over everybody for extra profit and one who uses their advantage to personally screw you over in order to take more from you than they could normally get away with.
Publicly disclosed prices that apply equally to everyone puts a boundary on much a company can take advantage of any one person.
Enterprise SaaS customers are notorious for demanding one-off features, special packages, customizations, or hundreds of hours of meetings. For complicated enterprise products where these requests are inevitable, special pricing is inevitable.
There's a large and very lucrative industry around just implementing SaaS software.
There's a large and very lucrative industry around just implementing SaaS software.
You're right that for purely custom solutions it's understandable, but a base price could often be made public for a lot of products and services that don't offer one. Certainly anyone asking for something special expects to have to negotiate on what that's going to cost them above the standard price.
A base price can only be made public if there exists a base price that would be common among customers - however if it's not priced as a commodity, that's not the case, there simply is not a base price that could be disclosed because there is zero expectation that there should be "the same service" available for the same price, or that there is some base price from which discounts are negotiated or something like that. They want to preserve the ability to have wildly different pricing for different customers, and publishing (or even having internally published) some fixed base price works against that.
If they want to sell their services as custom services, that's the business model - and in this case, they want to make a clear point from the very beginning that this is not a commodity and every deal is a bespoke deal. Even if the technical platform is the same, every business relationship is custom and individually negotiated, with zero expectation that the price you get is in any way related to the prices someone else gets - sometimes that works against you, sometimes that works for you, but that's the business model they've chosen.
If they want to sell their services as custom services, that's the business model - and in this case, they want to make a clear point from the very beginning that this is not a commodity and every deal is a bespoke deal. Even if the technical platform is the same, every business relationship is custom and individually negotiated, with zero expectation that the price you get is in any way related to the prices someone else gets - sometimes that works against you, sometimes that works for you, but that's the business model they've chosen.
It really depends on the nature of the software and the target customer as to whether that makes sense. The spectrum of what "SaaS" is, is just so insanely broad that it's hard to make any sweeping statement here.
> There's a large and very lucrative industry around just implementing SaaS software.
The last decade of my career has been multi-million dollar project after project of just setting up and customizing enterprise SaaS software for a customer's specific need.
The last decade of my career has been multi-million dollar project after project of just setting up and customizing enterprise SaaS software for a customer's specific need.
That's just an extremely cynical way to describe "pricing". There are myriad reasons why a company does not have a fixed set of prices that don't have to do with fleecing anyone, being embarrassed, or trying to hide the fact that they charge more than competitors.
Having worked on pricing strategy, this is not what I've seen as the norm in B2B. If you're talking to an early company that is still working on product market fit, maybe, and definitely if you ask for your own features.
If you're talking to larger companies, thing FAANG, then they have a list price and discount levels that can act as incentives, levers or there are other options for inducement. Otherwise, you give the sales team the authority on go-to-market strategy while they are executing individual deals (tactics). Senior sales leaders can authorize some of those discounts and any special inducements or incentives have to be custom written into contracts by legal + deal desk, making them more time intensive and less desirable.
If you're talking to larger companies, thing FAANG, then they have a list price and discount levels that can act as incentives, levers or there are other options for inducement. Otherwise, you give the sales team the authority on go-to-market strategy while they are executing individual deals (tactics). Senior sales leaders can authorize some of those discounts and any special inducements or incentives have to be custom written into contracts by legal + deal desk, making them more time intensive and less desirable.
Sorry how is that at all different than what I said?
So that’s what I used to think (Price hiding to avoid sticker shock) But now I am convinced it’s a little bit the price point but more when there is variability in the pricing, and the pricing is done by a sales team that has flexibility on what they charge you (these companies always will ask for a budget and tailor the quote to what they can squeeze)
I take it as a sign that when they do give you a quote, it’s up for negotiation and you should never agree to the first number presented.
I take it as a sign that when they do give you a quote, it’s up for negotiation and you should never agree to the first number presented.
There is variability but in my experience it’s good variability, not bad. Every time I’ve gotten “contact us” pricing I have been presented with a slide deck “this is what we usually charge for companies with your needs”, and the sales call was to allow me a chance to negotiate the price down (or eg lock in a multi year contract for cheaper.
But this is nonsensical optimisation imo. At these price points, the ability to negotiate should be evident to anyone who has bought such products before.
But this is nonsensical optimisation imo. At these price points, the ability to negotiate should be evident to anyone who has bought such products before.
Don't forget that "contact us" pricing also gives vendor managers something to do, and the ability to brag about whatever discount they negotiate (and it hardly matters if everyone gets that "discount").
It's also the case that if something goes wrong the first question is often "do we have a contact at X?" and if you've gone through the "contact us" pricing dance, the answer is probably "yes", or at least "maybe', while if you use self-serve public-pricing plans, the answer is probably "no". Managers like having a named person to bug about problems, so the vendor manager gets to look more competent if they have one, even if the outcome's the same as if they didn't.
Besides, all pricing is "contact us" for enterprises. They don't pay what's on the sticker, even if there is one.
It's also the case that if something goes wrong the first question is often "do we have a contact at X?" and if you've gone through the "contact us" pricing dance, the answer is probably "yes", or at least "maybe', while if you use self-serve public-pricing plans, the answer is probably "no". Managers like having a named person to bug about problems, so the vendor manager gets to look more competent if they have one, even if the outcome's the same as if they didn't.
Besides, all pricing is "contact us" for enterprises. They don't pay what's on the sticker, even if there is one.
> It's also the case that if something goes wrong the first question is often "do we have a contact at X?" and if you've gone through the "contact us" pricing dance, the answer is probably "yes"
If you pay for a product or service and when something goes wrong your only contact is some jerk in sales that means you fucked up bad. Support options and contacts should have been determined and documented long before you spend a single cent.
If you pay for a product or service and when something goes wrong your only contact is some jerk in sales that means you fucked up bad. Support options and contacts should have been determined and documented long before you spend a single cent.
You usually end up introduced to one or more highish-level support and/or integration engineers as part of the sales process. If their sales folks don't volunteer to drag one or more into the conversation, they probably will if you ask.
Last time I had to deal with the contact at x due to something going wrong they were worse than useless. They broke the product with an update and when we asked to roll it back they organised a full sales team which was presented to us as a call with engineering, except they were trying to sell us on another product to solve a different problem and just ignored all questions about the product we had bought.
> One take-away from this is the old "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", and another is that they're automatically filtering out lower-value or price-sensitive customers.
I don't understand this viewpoint (which I've seen numerous times). If that's all it is, you can scare those customers away by posting a price, as opposed to having some of them call and hang up on your salesperson when they get a quote.
I don't understand this viewpoint (which I've seen numerous times). If that's all it is, you can scare those customers away by posting a price, as opposed to having some of them call and hang up on your salesperson when they get a quote.
It took me a long time to understand why companies price this way. The reality is that many viable SaaS businesses have fewer than 100 customers. If each customer pays you 1 million a year that's a hundred million dollar a year SaaS business commanding a valuation of 500 million dollars or more.
The problem is that this SaaS business needs to find a pricing model which net's them 1 million per customer. Charging too little means the business will starve, too much means that customers won't sign up. Sales & Contract negotiations can help arrive at the right number. Guessing the pricing model after 1-2 customers can break the business if you don't have infinite VC money.
The problem is that this SaaS business needs to find a pricing model which net's them 1 million per customer. Charging too little means the business will starve, too much means that customers won't sign up. Sales & Contract negotiations can help arrive at the right number. Guessing the pricing model after 1-2 customers can break the business if you don't have infinite VC money.
Counterpoint: https://www.spacex.com/rideshare/
SpaceX publicly lists all their prices. If they can list a price tag for a falcon heavy it $97m on their website, these crappy SaaS vendors can list their prices too.
SpaceX publicly lists all their prices. If they can list a price tag for a falcon heavy it $97m on their website, these crappy SaaS vendors can list their prices too.
The keyword here is estimated. That’s only a ballpark number. I think they did that because they were severely undercutting the competition and they want people who wouldn’t have thought about it to call their sales team. It’s not the final price.
>However, an obvious counterpoint is that Atlassian built a multi-billion-dollar business around up-front pricing, and even seem to still offer that up-front pricing today.
Not quite .. their "Enterprise" package only has a "Contact us" option (no pricing details).
Not quite .. their "Enterprise" package only has a "Contact us" option (no pricing details).
I'm fine with having a "Contact Is" at the top end of a pricing table. At that point you've probably got some pretty unique requirements and there's likely some level of customisation involved.
For the average SaaS I suspect this hurts sales. As someone who often gets to choose what services we pay for, any service where I have to send an email, or worse, involve our finance or accounts payable department and get non-technical people involved at the very start, it's a huge disincentive.
Having worked for an "enterprise" software biz, this is often because different customers can pay wildly different prices for the same software licenses. Often tailored less based on volume discounts or license type, and more around a customer's ability to pay.
And also based upon how much of a PITA the customer is. Sales cycles, compliance documentation, configuration, training, support, etc, can really vary between customers.
> As you already know, this is typical for "enterprise" software due to the idea that potential customers will immediately click away if the price seems too high, so you need to let your customer know what value is in your software before they immediately walk away.
That’s one way of seeing it which is not necessarily generous.
Another is “You and us both know there is no one size fit all standard solution here so we can’t give you an off the rack price. Call us so we can take your measure and we will start talking about how this bespoke thing might cost.”
That’s one way of seeing it which is not necessarily generous.
Another is “You and us both know there is no one size fit all standard solution here so we can’t give you an off the rack price. Call us so we can take your measure and we will start talking about how this bespoke thing might cost.”
> One take-away from this is the old "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", and another is that they're automatically filtering out lower-value or price-sensitive customers.
I have stopped government buying processes (yep, plural) because the price isn't available and they weren't priority enough to spend months on price research. With some companies, it is a larger time waster than the entire documenting the requirements, publishing it, answering questions, and watching the auction.
I have stopped government buying processes (yep, plural) because the price isn't available and they weren't priority enough to spend months on price research. With some companies, it is a larger time waster than the entire documenting the requirements, publishing it, answering questions, and watching the auction.
> As a general rule, any software which requires "contact us" is going to be somewhere between $50k and $750k, generally annually, (usually for a fully-loaded site license on the high end)
I'm working at a VC funded startup and fielding calls with "contact us" pricing, and while I've certainly seen some of those numbers floated, I saw just as many reasonably priced options that wanted to get on a sales call to try and upsell/make the case for going with them.
I'm working at a VC funded startup and fielding calls with "contact us" pricing, and while I've certainly seen some of those numbers floated, I saw just as many reasonably priced options that wanted to get on a sales call to try and upsell/make the case for going with them.
Sometimes 'contact us' for pricing is just a way to get potential customers to talk.
My company has standard pricing for all offerings (including cloud operation and support services) but we have said 'Contact Us' for years. The reason: we have a better chance of closing if we actually interact with prospects. We don't charge more for the privilege.
Just $0.02 from my personal experience.
My company has standard pricing for all offerings (including cloud operation and support services) but we have said 'Contact Us' for years. The reason: we have a better chance of closing if we actually interact with prospects. We don't charge more for the privilege.
Just $0.02 from my personal experience.
In an odd twist, We've had calls where the provider's questions almost asked we prove we should onboard their solution. I guess there are people who try to onboard a wrong solution and then bad-mouth a provider as not solving their need, but I think that could be "solved" with trials --that most of these solutions provide anyway.
There's also the ROI argument, enterprise pricing in many cases comes with a ROI estimate that requires quite a bit of involvement in understanding the potential customer use case.
The trick is to make the case that the price is cheap for them, given that they get more out of the software than what it costs.
The trick is to make the case that the price is cheap for them, given that they get more out of the software than what it costs.
I’m interested in this level of pricing. What are the breakpoints typically? Per-user, $-per-(record|gb|request), then ‘do what you want site wide’, is there any other aspects other than support / consulting times, etc?
Where is this general rule of $50k-$750k established? I think there are tons of saas products that target enterprises that are as low as ~$2k/month and up and require "contact us".
FWIW there are SaaS products in my field with "contact us" pricing that start at 1-1.5k per month.
But yah, they for sure aren't going to be $49 or whatever a month.
But yah, they for sure aren't going to be $49 or whatever a month.
There are also companies that do not really have a price list, they will just think up the price depending on what they think you are willing to pay.
The premise of your assignment is that the specifics of a customer situation don't affect price. For enterprise SaaS this is not the case. There is no "price list" there is structured negotiation that has many parameters, including:
Total likely value of the business relationship if solution widely adopted inside prospect
What options does winning this deal create? In particular what will the vendor learn and will this relationship open the door to new niches, segments, markets?
What is the value of a reference / testimonial from this particular prospect?
Two related blog posts for startups who need to manage an enterprise sales process:
https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2008/11/12/negotiate-the-level...
https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2013/02/16/price-based-on-your...
Total likely value of the business relationship if solution widely adopted inside prospect
What options does winning this deal create? In particular what will the vendor learn and will this relationship open the door to new niches, segments, markets?
What is the value of a reference / testimonial from this particular prospect?
Two related blog posts for startups who need to manage an enterprise sales process:
https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2008/11/12/negotiate-the-level...
https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2013/02/16/price-based-on-your...
"Professional" subreddits, such as /r/MSP, as well as the Spiceworks community will have answers for some of those, depending on what kind of SaaS it is exactly. Ask, oftentimes (former) vendor reps or happy/unhappy customers lurk there and are happy to help you out, although their info might be outdated - but it may help for a first orientation.
(I, too, consider price-hiding the bane of my existence and wish I could get those days and months of lifetime back that I spend going through useless "demos" and "quick calls with an evangelist/key account manager/person who nopes out at the first technical question".)
Another strategy is that you prepare a long-ish text that you email to a - perferrably senior - sales contact at each company, ideally one that has been referred to you (again, the above-mentioned sources may help).
Just change the name and first line mentioning their product and outline that "due to internal restructuring" your company will decide yea or nay "on doing a PoC within the next three working days" (i.e. you don't have time to waste on demos), that you are already very familiar with their product in all details from an earlier job, in fact, you want to recommend to your CTO to buy it, and that you wish to receive nothing more than their current pricing for $detailedreqs asap. Be overspecific as to your reqs and specs, so they can't weasel out with "it depends".
You might need to go one or two rounds where they try and talk you into doing calls/demos regardless but they will often CC more senior or local reps whose contacts are not public and if you push back repeating what you said in your first email but shorter, they will usually relent, especially if there are competitors in the field and they're getting afraid that the lead may go cold.
This strategy works maybe about 78.3% of the time but will likely fail if the SaaS offering does require extensive and bespoke customisation for your organisation.
Good luck, I really don't envy you having to go through this, to me it used to be like running the gauntlet.
(I, too, consider price-hiding the bane of my existence and wish I could get those days and months of lifetime back that I spend going through useless "demos" and "quick calls with an evangelist/key account manager/person who nopes out at the first technical question".)
Another strategy is that you prepare a long-ish text that you email to a - perferrably senior - sales contact at each company, ideally one that has been referred to you (again, the above-mentioned sources may help).
Just change the name and first line mentioning their product and outline that "due to internal restructuring" your company will decide yea or nay "on doing a PoC within the next three working days" (i.e. you don't have time to waste on demos), that you are already very familiar with their product in all details from an earlier job, in fact, you want to recommend to your CTO to buy it, and that you wish to receive nothing more than their current pricing for $detailedreqs asap. Be overspecific as to your reqs and specs, so they can't weasel out with "it depends".
You might need to go one or two rounds where they try and talk you into doing calls/demos regardless but they will often CC more senior or local reps whose contacts are not public and if you push back repeating what you said in your first email but shorter, they will usually relent, especially if there are competitors in the field and they're getting afraid that the lead may go cold.
This strategy works maybe about 78.3% of the time but will likely fail if the SaaS offering does require extensive and bespoke customisation for your organisation.
Good luck, I really don't envy you having to go through this, to me it used to be like running the gauntlet.
Unlikely you'll find any good source.
"contact us" pricing revolves around understanding the customer's use case deeply enough so that you can demonstrate maximum product value to them and then extract the most possible money. I despise it.
"contact us" pricing revolves around understanding the customer's use case deeply enough so that you can demonstrate maximum product value to them and then extract the most possible money. I despise it.
Sometimes I ask sales people of these companies, "why is it that SpaceX can give me a price for launching something into space, with detailed manuals about how to prepare all my interfaces, but you have to take 2 weeks to think about how much to charge me?"
Yes I know the comparison isn't quite right, but sometimes you just have to put some pressure on bro salespeople coming in, making shit up, and trying to test how willing you are to pay for something they haven't even built yet, and pricing it to maximally extract value later. Otherwise they'll start to think it's reasonable.
Yes I know the comparison isn't quite right, but sometimes you just have to put some pressure on bro salespeople coming in, making shit up, and trying to test how willing you are to pay for something they haven't even built yet, and pricing it to maximally extract value later. Otherwise they'll start to think it's reasonable.
You cannot tell SpaceX to move up their launch date for you. You cannot send a payload that exceeds the weight or size limits. You cannot tell them that you don't like the color of the rocket since it doesn't fit with your brand. As far as sales go, it's easy for SpaceX to publish their prices because it's the most rigid type of service possible.
Enterprise SaaS is the exact opposite. The product that is listed on the website is just a starting point. There are teams of sales reps, account managers, solutions architects and more who will customize it exactly to the customer's liking, and all that needs to be priced.
Enterprise SaaS is the exact opposite. The product that is listed on the website is just a starting point. There are teams of sales reps, account managers, solutions architects and more who will customize it exactly to the customer's liking, and all that needs to be priced.
SpaceX has years-long development timelines, huge capital and personnel costs, and huge liabilities/risks. Yet they can give you predictable pricing and understandable margins and cost models. Sure they are rigid in their requirements, but that pales in comparison to / is far from them using it as a pricing factor in comparison with the requirements asked of a sales guy selling a software team's services.
At the heart of it, the ridiculous pricing practices of "contact us" pricing are to test what a customer is willing to pay.
Have a look at this ML-favorite lately. $50/month for a general user turns into something you will not believe for corporate users. Totally testing what they can get away with. https://wandb.ai/site/pricing
At the heart of it, the ridiculous pricing practices of "contact us" pricing are to test what a customer is willing to pay.
Have a look at this ML-favorite lately. $50/month for a general user turns into something you will not believe for corporate users. Totally testing what they can get away with. https://wandb.ai/site/pricing
also if you screw up bad enough as a spacex customer and not meet their payload requirements after so many failed attempts then they refuse to ever do business with you again.
Exactly. This is the reason some smaller self-driving companies exist, even though Tesla has pretty much dominated the space. Tesla might have superior tech, but it's not for sale.
Most of them do already think it’s reasonable!
I'll defend it because I'm doing it: We have a very very young company, and we are building our product with our customers. We are in fact charging very little right now with the understanding that our product is immature, and later we plan to increase pricing to get to a profitable level. There is absolutely no way to come up with any sort of standard pricing for us, since each customer means a lot of feature and customer support.
It's a different question when you're in an MVP stage and for very different reasons.
Without knowing literally anything about what you're doing, I would still suggest you try to put some price where you can't lose money on the site with a group/bulk/quantity discounts available button. Especially put the same button on all the pricing pages inside your UI/interface as well. When people think you're too expensive, you want to confront them with "hey, let's talk."
Without knowing literally anything about what you're doing, I would still suggest you try to put some price where you can't lose money on the site with a group/bulk/quantity discounts available button. Especially put the same button on all the pricing pages inside your UI/interface as well. When people think you're too expensive, you want to confront them with "hey, let's talk."
I'd love to have a way to scare salespeople straight by showing them how many sales they are losing because of this bad practice.
For the sales people, it rarely results in missed sales they care about. The ones who are super into this are almost always commission. If the company does less overall revenue (due to fewer overall sales), that is not a problem as long as they get more overall revenue (commission) due to the sales they land being ‘richer’. It’s a pretty classic owner/agent issue.
The company should care, probably, but there are also reasons for some companies to prefer high touch interactions - it gives huge insight from a product perspective, and can provide insights to tackle other verticals they might otherwise struggle to even know existed.
Going in volume does make good numbers though, if you’re setup in a way that you can keep it going. Toyota, Honda, etc. have very solid fleet and ‘pay the flat rate and go’ markets they serve.
The company should care, probably, but there are also reasons for some companies to prefer high touch interactions - it gives huge insight from a product perspective, and can provide insights to tackle other verticals they might otherwise struggle to even know existed.
Going in volume does make good numbers though, if you’re setup in a way that you can keep it going. Toyota, Honda, etc. have very solid fleet and ‘pay the flat rate and go’ markets they serve.
Again I can vouche for seeing this in the physical industrial world. Sales only care about landing big deals with big margins, couldn't care less about many, many small fish. They wine and dine big clients and then build summer homes in the local hot spots off those projects commissions.
I've worked for such a company.
If asked for a "price list", they will ask an intern to create a customer-specific price list, based on nr. of users/nr. of transactions/nr. of whatever, that will certainly lead to the target price (based on optimistic estimation of product value).
Why? Companies usually buy something to make more money with or avoid losses, either directly, or indirectly. If something costs 500k a year but helps make the company 10M, or prevent a 10M hack, that's a win-win in my book.
There's some interesting data in the debt proceedings for the event startup Pollen:
https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/the-scoop-pollen/
Some snippets on their debts, which you cold normalize for their ~150 employees:
- Monday.com: ￡515k
- AWS: ￡105k
- Airtable: ￡7k
https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/the-scoop-pollen/
Some snippets on their debts, which you cold normalize for their ~150 employees:
- Monday.com: ￡515k
- AWS: ￡105k
- Airtable: ￡7k
Very interesting - although probably difficult to glean any kind of generalizable pricing data because some of those vendors could have let unpaid bills slide longer than others.
Also, how is Monday.com owed ￡515k on a company of 315 employees? That's 1.5k/employee, so if it's an annual contract they didn't pay, that's $150/user/month?
Seems _wild_ expensive. If that's accurate, no wonder Monday.com is able to spend so much on paid ads.
Also, how is Monday.com owed ￡515k on a company of 315 employees? That's 1.5k/employee, so if it's an annual contract they didn't pay, that's $150/user/month?
Seems _wild_ expensive. If that's accurate, no wonder Monday.com is able to spend so much on paid ads.
> For those asking "how can a 500-person company generate a ~$500K+, unpaid bill on Monday .com when most of the eng team uses JIRA (it would imply $1,000/person for Monday, which seems high, even for a year): I'm wondering the same.
> Asked the company: they've not responded yet.
https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1583401575715741696?...
> Asked the company: they've not responded yet.
https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1583401575715741696?...
[deleted]
I use the "if you have to ask the price in order to check whether you can afford it or not, you can't afford it, so don't ask" strategy.
The price-hiding tactic is a little rude: jewlery stores helped pioneer it, the idea being to get the customer hooked on the item before they think about price, and to imagine the largest number they might be okay with paying ahead of time, while simultaneously making them unsure whether it's too low or not.
I don't like dealing with companies who do that sort of thing and I worry what other curve balls they have in store later on. So I opt out.
The reason that you can use this on enterprise sales is that you are theoretically offering something that the enterprise needs, no matter how painful the process is -- and there are typically few competitors for them to turn to. Many of the competitors use the same tactic. Hence, we see it all over in that world.
The price-hiding tactic is a little rude: jewlery stores helped pioneer it, the idea being to get the customer hooked on the item before they think about price, and to imagine the largest number they might be okay with paying ahead of time, while simultaneously making them unsure whether it's too low or not.
I don't like dealing with companies who do that sort of thing and I worry what other curve balls they have in store later on. So I opt out.
The reason that you can use this on enterprise sales is that you are theoretically offering something that the enterprise needs, no matter how painful the process is -- and there are typically few competitors for them to turn to. Many of the competitors use the same tactic. Hence, we see it all over in that world.
There isn't a hidden price that is only shown in the sales funnel. But rather the price changes depending on the customer.
'Contact us' = 'give us enough information to accurately price the product for you.'
Best way to shortcut the process would be to work with a channel/var that has a majority of the items in their portfolio.
'Contact us' = 'give us enough information to accurately price the product for you.'
Best way to shortcut the process would be to work with a channel/var that has a majority of the items in their portfolio.
This is the answer that should top the list.
Instead of talking to the individual companies doing this practice directly engage a Value Added Reseller (VAR) large enough to work with most of the people on your list. Their (VAR) scale will let you get list price or typically some degree better and they can assist with the comparisons to pick the product and partner that fits your company needs. Keep in mind that there is essentially zero chance that you are the first person to ask many of the questions that you want answers to and a VAR is in a position to service you no matter which product you choose. All of this should help align you to the right fit.
Best of luck.
Instead of talking to the individual companies doing this practice directly engage a Value Added Reseller (VAR) large enough to work with most of the people on your list. Their (VAR) scale will let you get list price or typically some degree better and they can assist with the comparisons to pick the product and partner that fits your company needs. Keep in mind that there is essentially zero chance that you are the first person to ask many of the questions that you want answers to and a VAR is in a position to service you no matter which product you choose. All of this should help align you to the right fit.
Best of luck.
Contact Us Pricing has different meanings based on company size:
Newish Companies: they haven't been able to figure out how to price their product yet.
Growth Companies: We're revenue optimizing every deal.
"Sales Driven" (as opposed to "product driven): We have to justify the existence of our sales team.
Hyper competitive companies: I'm not publishing a price because someone will scrape it and beat us by $1.
Large Companies: Our pricing is a four-dimensional matrix with multiple elevators, and we need a team of people to figure out which spreadsheet and which tab to look up x and y to price your deal.
Newish Companies: they haven't been able to figure out how to price their product yet.
Growth Companies: We're revenue optimizing every deal.
"Sales Driven" (as opposed to "product driven): We have to justify the existence of our sales team.
Hyper competitive companies: I'm not publishing a price because someone will scrape it and beat us by $1.
Large Companies: Our pricing is a four-dimensional matrix with multiple elevators, and we need a team of people to figure out which spreadsheet and which tab to look up x and y to price your deal.
Don't underestimate the ability of small companies to have 4D matrix pricing that nobody can comprehend!
It's pretty common in custom manufacturing (which makes sense) but also companies that purchase product/services from others and re-sell them as part of a larger whole. Some folks also don't understand that pricing doesn't have to exactly match your product.
I think there is also value for certain lines of business for having a customer meet the sales team and possibly an account manager before using the product, usually if the product has some kind of learning curve or domain specific knowledge where insiders can unlock value.
It's pretty common in custom manufacturing (which makes sense) but also companies that purchase product/services from others and re-sell them as part of a larger whole. Some folks also don't understand that pricing doesn't have to exactly match your product.
I think there is also value for certain lines of business for having a customer meet the sales team and possibly an account manager before using the product, usually if the product has some kind of learning curve or domain specific knowledge where insiders can unlock value.
You likely won't get pricing information out of a company like this. It's safe to assume "Contact Us" is being used as shorthand for a price between expensive and absurdly expensive. Usually companies that do this offer some sort per-company rate based on what you need along with a bunch of additional services.
Hate to say it but you're basically only going to find out by going through the sales funnel. Some of them may even turn you down for simply saying "we're evaluating X and would like to know the price".
Hate to say it but you're basically only going to find out by going through the sales funnel. Some of them may even turn you down for simply saying "we're evaluating X and would like to know the price".
I tried looking for something like this but ended up doing over a month of sales calls and meetings.
One problem is probably that a lot of companies pull enterprise pricing out of their ass (or there's too many confounding factors that make it look like that), and the other big problem was already mentioned, they're trying to maximize your spending.
One problem is probably that a lot of companies pull enterprise pricing out of their ass (or there's too many confounding factors that make it look like that), and the other big problem was already mentioned, they're trying to maximize your spending.
There are only three reasons:
1. To allow you to charge customers differently for the same product.
2. If you are offering a highly customized product.
3. To establish value for your product prior to providing pricing.
In my experience, #1 is by far the most common for a SaaS.
The rationale of "if you have to ask" falls apart because you could just put a high price on your site to filter out the cheapskates.
I also find that when evaluating a new product, my first click on their site is the pricing page. It is a semi-standardized way to quickly see the significant features offered without all the verbose prose that you'll find on the product pages.
In my experience, #1 is by far the most common for a SaaS.
The rationale of "if you have to ask" falls apart because you could just put a high price on your site to filter out the cheapskates.
I also find that when evaluating a new product, my first click on their site is the pricing page. It is a semi-standardized way to quickly see the significant features offered without all the verbose prose that you'll find on the product pages.
One trick, just to ballpark this --- it probably worked better 10 years ago than today, but I checked a couple vendors and got results --- is to Google the vendor and "GSA price list" (for their FedGov pricing).
Don't B2B companies do something like RFPs where they do a request for pricing and give a boilerplate / generic usecase of number of users, number of requests etc and expect the companies to bid back on results?
Maybe something like that could help you / maybe there is a business opportunity there to do aggregated sales calls so these companies can be compared side-by-side (though they probably would give inflated rates like hospitals do because they know insurance will knock the prices down).
Maybe something like that could help you / maybe there is a business opportunity there to do aggregated sales calls so these companies can be compared side-by-side (though they probably would give inflated rates like hospitals do because they know insurance will knock the prices down).
"Contact Us" is called value pricing in enterprise lingo. It means the price will reflect how much "value" the product will provide to your organization. If the product can provide $100M "value" for your company, they will be happy to charge you $10M for the product. That's why they need to talk to you, to find out how much "value" they can provide for you.
My SaaS has only "Contact Sales" pricing right now because I currently don't have the infrastructure set up to sell to you in any other way. If the SaaS companies are young, they may be in the same situation. You could get a good deal by clicking the button.
Generally, the less you charge, the more infrastructure is involved in collecting payment - metered SaaS companies can charge you in increments of a few dollars but are backed by complex billing software, while enterprise sales is an invoice from quickbooks (I'm exaggerating a little bit about the level of automation here, but it's close to this).
Personally, the price for my "contact sales" product is a lot less than a typical "enterprise sales" product, with the price range being $10-50k. Some other young SaaS companies I have heard of are lower than that. Conversely, established companies with a "contact sales" button tend to start at $50k/year and go up from there to millions.
If you take control of the process during the call, and tell them "no" if they give you BS, you can probably get a price.
Generally, the less you charge, the more infrastructure is involved in collecting payment - metered SaaS companies can charge you in increments of a few dollars but are backed by complex billing software, while enterprise sales is an invoice from quickbooks (I'm exaggerating a little bit about the level of automation here, but it's close to this).
Personally, the price for my "contact sales" product is a lot less than a typical "enterprise sales" product, with the price range being $10-50k. Some other young SaaS companies I have heard of are lower than that. Conversely, established companies with a "contact sales" button tend to start at $50k/year and go up from there to millions.
If you take control of the process during the call, and tell them "no" if they give you BS, you can probably get a price.
I'd imagine surveys here could be useful (to you and to other searchers). But I'm not sure how accurate they'd be. If they list the price that way, it's likely to be highly variable for each client, possibly even with different contract/support terms by client.
But I feel your pain. Trying to compare preschool tuitions is a nightmare because they only want to tell you if you go for a visit.
But I feel your pain. Trying to compare preschool tuitions is a nightmare because they only want to tell you if you go for a visit.
It’s also because they are trying to compete on experience, which you have to be there to see, and not just raw $$ price. If they have out the price for free, it would be even more of a race to the bottom.
I'm Ryan -- CEO and co-founder of Vendr.com (YCS19). Since YC, we've become one of the largest software buyers in the world ($2B+ spend processed; 15k+ transactions). But, here's what I don't understand -- why does a company like Vendr even need to exist?
Companies flock to us to buy software because they are fed up with "Contact Sales", opaque pricing, expiring discounts, and the games associated with sales. Buyers of software are rapidly opting out of sellers' sales processes, coming to Vendr, and asking us to do it for them. Sales is broken.
Today, sellers focus on creating sales processes that maximize the leverage and outcomes for the sellers. This creates friction resulting in avg 90 days sales cycles and 20-25% close rates for sellers. Not good. No wonder sales and marketing expense equals ~50% of revenue.
When Vendr's successful, we'll have fixed sales. No more games. Fair pricing, correct and fast buying decisions -- powered by data. This results in a win for the seller (lower cost acquisition; shorter sales cycles) and a win for the buyer (best products win; fair pricing).
LMK if you need help with any of the "contact us" pricing -- we can easily answer this for you. [email protected]
Companies flock to us to buy software because they are fed up with "Contact Sales", opaque pricing, expiring discounts, and the games associated with sales. Buyers of software are rapidly opting out of sellers' sales processes, coming to Vendr, and asking us to do it for them. Sales is broken.
Today, sellers focus on creating sales processes that maximize the leverage and outcomes for the sellers. This creates friction resulting in avg 90 days sales cycles and 20-25% close rates for sellers. Not good. No wonder sales and marketing expense equals ~50% of revenue.
When Vendr's successful, we'll have fixed sales. No more games. Fair pricing, correct and fast buying decisions -- powered by data. This results in a win for the seller (lower cost acquisition; shorter sales cycles) and a win for the buyer (best products win; fair pricing).
LMK if you need help with any of the "contact us" pricing -- we can easily answer this for you. [email protected]
To be fair to the annoying "call us" pricing practice, on your end you need to have a ballpark idea of what you want, whether its number of seats, data size, or whatever the product is sized in. Having that makes the calls go faster and can help you and the salesguy save time if there isn't even a chance of a match.
This will normally depend on many factors. This is usually going to be the quantity of units and the level and availability of support, but could include other factors depending on the domain. Your initial "subscription" is generally going to be more than your renewal, sometimes way more.
If it is a COTS offering that is likely to be used in the US Govt, I recommend trying to find your product on GSA Advantage [0], but it is helpful to have the manufacturer's part number handy, which often takes a consultation with a sales entity. Good luck!
[0] https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/
If it is a COTS offering that is likely to be used in the US Govt, I recommend trying to find your product on GSA Advantage [0], but it is helpful to have the manufacturer's part number handy, which often takes a consultation with a sales entity. Good luck!
[0] https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/
It’ll be good for you to practice cutting these calls short so you can get your quote.
“Contact Us” Pricing == Highly Variable Pricing. I personally see it as them inviting me to hear them out then waste some of their time before making a deal more along the lines of my price guidelines. Im about 50% success rate id say.
End of month reports are always a good time, End of quarter even better, Triple witching week is the best. Sometimes you get lucky and some middle-manager-muckity-muck is only $X thousands from the bonus target... and thats when you find your deals. Start early and be prepared to wait.
End of month reports are always a good time, End of quarter even better, Triple witching week is the best. Sometimes you get lucky and some middle-manager-muckity-muck is only $X thousands from the bonus target... and thats when you find your deals. Start early and be prepared to wait.
I know an electric utility that had senior folks work on the last day of the financial year to extract these bargains from desperate licensing vendors.
> Is there a website or service that lists cost ranges for enterprise SaaS products?
Probably not. Have had good success in the past posting random stuff on reddit, like "I'm paying 12000 / core for Oracle, am I high? Is this common?" in r/sysadmin, and then having people correct me.
But for the most part SaaS ain't offer those prices online. Contact someone, set up time for a call, and get prices. This is why vendor managers, sales engineers, solution architects, etc. are a thing.
Probably not. Have had good success in the past posting random stuff on reddit, like "I'm paying 12000 / core for Oracle, am I high? Is this common?" in r/sysadmin, and then having people correct me.
But for the most part SaaS ain't offer those prices online. Contact someone, set up time for a call, and get prices. This is why vendor managers, sales engineers, solution architects, etc. are a thing.
Best option is to have both. Some fixed starting prices and then Custom/Enterprise/Contact us. That's what we do for my SAAS where we start at $599/Month (B2B) but our custom/contact us prices can go $50k/Year or even more. Some reasons are custom user count, custom features/integrations, tighter SLAs with dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM) etc. Gotta charge for all those conveniences.
Most of the times you can get rough pricing from them before taking a call if you describe your needs / number of seats, or at most a 20min call. Just make it clear you have many vendors to assess in a first pass and the more calls the less likely you are to subscribe in your opening contact.
I'd also recommend only engaging with the top 3 better products before you go through such a big list.
I'd also recommend only engaging with the top 3 better products before you go through such a big list.
From someone who’s done a lot of sales, I agree with this. If they dodge the question, asking something direct like: “how many figures are we talking about, 5, 6, 7?” can help.
Most of the time sales folks don’t want to quote you a ballpark right off the bat because they know that you’ll be expecting something like that number on the final proposal.
If they dodge giving you a price range then try approaching from a different angle, asking what’s the smallest implementation they’ve done (tell them it’s to make sure you’re not too small a project for them). Then ask them about their biggest client (they might start chatting your ear off so be ready to cut them off). Then ask them directly what they would charge for those exact same implementations.
You’ll end up with a huge 10k foot view, but you might be able to get that in a few days, then you can drill down into a few of the more suitable vendors.
Most of the time sales folks don’t want to quote you a ballpark right off the bat because they know that you’ll be expecting something like that number on the final proposal.
If they dodge giving you a price range then try approaching from a different angle, asking what’s the smallest implementation they’ve done (tell them it’s to make sure you’re not too small a project for them). Then ask them about their biggest client (they might start chatting your ear off so be ready to cut them off). Then ask them directly what they would charge for those exact same implementations.
You’ll end up with a huge 10k foot view, but you might be able to get that in a few days, then you can drill down into a few of the more suitable vendors.
TL;DR: use a SaaS procurement vendor like TropicApp.io or Vendr.
Long version: First, my heart goes out to you. I was in charge of a lot of SaaS procurement for a number of years, and even as our company grew and our ability to pay went up, the lack of pricing transparency only became more frustrating to me! It used to be: “if we have to ask, we can’t afford it,” but then it became, “we can likely afford it, but it would be nice to make sure we should even talk to this vendor or industry before sitting through long eye-rolling sales calls.” (Or even worse, the 15 minute sales call with an intern to get you as a lead before you can talk to someone who knows anything.) but my blood pressure is rising, and I digress…
To level the playing field, we recently signed up with one of the “SaaS procurement” companies that has made this MUCH more tolerable. We use TropicApp.io, and have been happy with them and how they do business. They help us find and negotiate purchases. Even before we buy something, we can ask them stuff like, “we need a tool to do X. What are people using these days, and what is ballpark pricing and pricing model for a tool like that?” They (and their competitors) charge a percentage of the money they save you. They can’t help with smaller stuff (less than 5k per year), but are helpful with the rest. (Not affiliated with them or any competitors like Vendr.com - just happy that these companies exist now, and wish we’d found them sooner.)
Long version: First, my heart goes out to you. I was in charge of a lot of SaaS procurement for a number of years, and even as our company grew and our ability to pay went up, the lack of pricing transparency only became more frustrating to me! It used to be: “if we have to ask, we can’t afford it,” but then it became, “we can likely afford it, but it would be nice to make sure we should even talk to this vendor or industry before sitting through long eye-rolling sales calls.” (Or even worse, the 15 minute sales call with an intern to get you as a lead before you can talk to someone who knows anything.) but my blood pressure is rising, and I digress…
To level the playing field, we recently signed up with one of the “SaaS procurement” companies that has made this MUCH more tolerable. We use TropicApp.io, and have been happy with them and how they do business. They help us find and negotiate purchases. Even before we buy something, we can ask them stuff like, “we need a tool to do X. What are people using these days, and what is ballpark pricing and pricing model for a tool like that?” They (and their competitors) charge a percentage of the money they save you. They can’t help with smaller stuff (less than 5k per year), but are helpful with the rest. (Not affiliated with them or any competitors like Vendr.com - just happy that these companies exist now, and wish we’d found them sooner.)
Just email them :)
Its easy to tell them in the email to not call you back. Plus you can instruct them to include a specific word in their reply subject line so that you can quickly filter to see who read your instructions and who didn't. It's a bit like that concert M&M check.
Its easy to tell them in the email to not call you back. Plus you can instruct them to include a specific word in their reply subject line so that you can quickly filter to see who read your instructions and who didn't. It's a bit like that concert M&M check.
> concert M&M check
For anyone that does not immediately recognize it refers to a popular trope that Van Halen contractually required venues to always sort M&Ms to not have brown ones. It is said this was their canary (in the coal mine) that was supposed to indicate if the venue took obligations seriously and hence will the concert be safe and up to standards.
This has a mixed review on snopes.com so take it with a grain of salt but it's a nice idea: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brown-out/
For anyone that does not immediately recognize it refers to a popular trope that Van Halen contractually required venues to always sort M&Ms to not have brown ones. It is said this was their canary (in the coal mine) that was supposed to indicate if the venue took obligations seriously and hence will the concert be safe and up to standards.
This has a mixed review on snopes.com so take it with a grain of salt but it's a nice idea: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brown-out/
I tried to get SuSE to tell me how much Rancher was so I could just buy it. I was completely ready to just lay down my credit card. They refused without a sales call. And in fact, it was impossible for me to even schedule a sales call without joining their Slack channel to tell them their website's Contact Us form was broken. The call got bumped like 3 times over 2 months, they didn't schedule a new one. Now I've found out that Rancher's support sucks and SuSE is botching their communication, so I'm going with a competitor.
SaaS people: Don't make it hard for me to give you money. At the very least, give me a 30 day trial (of Enterprise features) while we go through your stupid sales dance.
SaaS people: Don't make it hard for me to give you money. At the very least, give me a 30 day trial (of Enterprise features) while we go through your stupid sales dance.
It really depends heavily on the products and industries or verticals they serve. Also, it may depend on their exact GTM strategy, companies that sell primarily through a VAR type of channel are usually more hesitant to disclose pricing, as some of their partners may wrap other services or functions around the offering.
Pricing can also vary based on how turn-key the product it. An enterprise CRM, for example, can be really hard to get pricing for as you are likely going to spend more on the implementation at first than on the actual licenses. In those cases the solution is also somewhat like buying insurance, where the expectation is that you have some customized add-ons and things that are specific to your environment.
Pricing can also vary based on how turn-key the product it. An enterprise CRM, for example, can be really hard to get pricing for as you are likely going to spend more on the implementation at first than on the actual licenses. In those cases the solution is also somewhat like buying insurance, where the expectation is that you have some customized add-ons and things that are specific to your environment.
I bought several "contact us" style software.
Usually their licensing is hard to calculate and you will need to buy more licenses upfront from what you think you need just in case.
Worst experience was a reporting tool for telecoms that was licensed by port. Devices used to have 4-8 ports but the year before suddenly it was feasible to ship 32-port devices to customers. This made the tool prohibitive.
My best experience was when a sales rep just called and told me the pricing range for their product: 5x our budget, without counting cost of migration. It was the most productive sales call I ever had.
Worst experience was a reporting tool for telecoms that was licensed by port. Devices used to have 4-8 ports but the year before suddenly it was feasible to ship 32-port devices to customers. This made the tool prohibitive.
My best experience was when a sales rep just called and told me the pricing range for their product: 5x our budget, without counting cost of migration. It was the most productive sales call I ever had.
I avoid companies that won't publish their prices because it signals two things:
1. If you're not going to spend time jumping OUR hoopes to talk with us, you're not that important, we don't care about you, little fish.
2. We won't quote our price because we want human-human time with you to maximize our quote based on how dumb you are. (how hard can we scam you out of money).
There might be a place in the world for a site where existing customers can anonymously report how much they've been quoted for named services at named companies. It'd be very convenient.
1. If you're not going to spend time jumping OUR hoopes to talk with us, you're not that important, we don't care about you, little fish.
2. We won't quote our price because we want human-human time with you to maximize our quote based on how dumb you are. (how hard can we scam you out of money).
There might be a place in the world for a site where existing customers can anonymously report how much they've been quoted for named services at named companies. It'd be very convenient.
If they have a "personal/business" tier that has a price, just use that multiplied by the number of seats/licenses. It's ballpark close enough usually.
That’s what I would have ordinarily thought but I had a vendor who charged $10/user/mo per user for their “Team” tier but $180,000/year for their “Enterprise” tier with up to 150 users. Made no sense at all.
This isn't for B2B - I've seen this a lot in daycares and high-end cars. Generally, it's a way to signal "if you have to ask, you can't afford it"
I've had success asking other clients what they pay, assuming they're not a direct competitor of yours. This is easiest at conferences and professional events.
Some sites like Capterra or TrustRadius will occasionally have pricing data about various products.
If you go through a third party vendor or MSP, they may also be able to give you more realistic pricing data based on existing customers.
But honestly, picking up a phone and calling is good practice anyway. If you can't get an honest ballpark estimate within 5 minutes that's not a company you want to work with anyway.
If you go through a third party vendor or MSP, they may also be able to give you more realistic pricing data based on existing customers.
But honestly, picking up a phone and calling is good practice anyway. If you can't get an honest ballpark estimate within 5 minutes that's not a company you want to work with anyway.
[deleted]
Details like what you actually need are less important, but you would definitely need to enter how much your company is worth as an input, if such website existed.
If you have enough options though, you can be upfront about it - hey I have a number of services to check, either you give me ballpark given this copypasta or I'm checking the other ones.
If you have enough options though, you can be upfront about it - hey I have a number of services to check, either you give me ballpark given this copypasta or I'm checking the other ones.
Joel wrote about it in 2004: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-...
If your company is serious about buying that much software your best bet is something like vendr. It'll cost you, but you'll get answers to your pricing questions, and if you're buying, they'll negotiate discounts for you. no need to 'talk to sales'
I think that they hide prices so that they can charge you the most that they find suitable for your use case. If you are an enterprise user off-the-shelf product is probably not what you need.
I normally find discussions on Reddit for these kinds of things. Recently have had to research Acunetix, Snowflake and some others and have found interesting (if anecdotal) info on Reddit.
I'd say if you don't want to spend a month in sales calls then don't work in procurement. There isn't really a short cut, that's what the job is.
I have pricing on my site revpilots.com for various enterprise software that is normally not listed publicly. We'll even get on calls for you to get pricing.
Check out Vendr!
https://www.vendr.com/
No, the only comfort I can give you is that you also have to make deals with companies with list prices. Otherwise you end up paying too much.
G2.com has a lot of pricing for comparison. Not sure if it necessarily shares information not available on the vendor sites, though.
i liked the differentiation where Enterprise customers paid for full seats + things only a large company would want + fudge factor for slow to pay and higher cost of sales.
the hardest part is if their software required extensive integration and customization; that help would cost extra and the project would be largely it depends.
the hardest part is if their software required extensive integration and customization; that help would cost extra and the project would be largely it depends.
I have found https://sso.tax/ to be helpful.
Find a government contract for the services. Many things are on GSA or state contracts.
Companies do this so they can price discriminate for high margin goods and services
capiche.com has some good pricing data and reviews from knowledgeable users.
Don’t ever use a service that only offers “contact us” pricing.
Done.
Some companies make you sign an NDA before they tell you their prices.
I should make a bookmarklet that changes "call for pricing" to something like:
window.location="https://www.google.com/search?q=" + window.location.host.split(".").slice(-2,-1) + "+vs";Contact us == Prepare for daily emails until you block our domain
"Camels and Rubber Duckies", Joel on Software
> I'd like to avoid spending the next month in sales calls.
Just exclude them from your search. They're garbage software anyway.
Just exclude them from your search. They're garbage software anyway.
Capiche.com
A lot of good feedback here. One additional thought I'd provide is that I wouldn't rule someone out based on a "Contact us for price" button. I'd click the button, let them know what you need, and then let them rule themselves out based on their responses. Sometimes they may give you a price directly in their response (or at least a ballpark), sometimes they may insist on a call. Take the call, but draw the line where you're comfortable (e.g. give me a ballpark after 30 minutes or I'm out - you can be more tactful in your wording).
Think about it from the company's perspective. Let's imagine as a company, you do an experiment where you have one landing page that shows the pricing, and another landing page that says "contact us". Let's also imagine that your product is enough of an enterprise solution that no one ever buys it without talking to someone at some point during the evaluation process (even if the pricing is up front, it requires enough of an investment that the customer wants to be absolutely certain it will satisfy their needs both now and as they grow). Finally, let's imagine that you have 3 full-time sales people to handle the incoming communications at whatever step of the evaluation process.
Now, if the outcome of this experiment is that the "contact us for pricing" results in 1/5th the incoming contacts, but those then convert twice the rate, you might choose the up-front pricing (2x conversion rate but on 20% of the leads means only 40% the sales compared to up-front pricing).
However, what if the 5x incoming contacts is too many for your sales team of 3 to respond, causing the up-front pricing to result in fewer sales with more work? Then you might choose the "contact us for pricing".
But what if it's so many more incoming contacts at a consistent enough conversion rate that you can justify adding a 4th and 5th sales person to realize those sales? Then you might choose the up-front pricing.
But what if the up-front pricing pigeon-holes you into your beachhead market and makes it more difficult to expand vertically or horizontally, which could lead to a trail-off in the incoming contacts and sales? Then you might choose the "contact us for pricing".
The point is, the one that makes the most sense for a company depends on a lot of variables, most of which would be opaque to an outside observer. Being able to tell the difference between a company that has "contact us for pricing" because it made sense for them, compared to one trying to exploit price discrimination (as described by some of the more cynical takes) is next to impossible without talking with them. Even in that scenario though, if they end up giving you a better product for a better price, then being willing to reach out to them could end up being a competitive advantage for your company over another which disqualified them on that basis.
Think about it from the company's perspective. Let's imagine as a company, you do an experiment where you have one landing page that shows the pricing, and another landing page that says "contact us". Let's also imagine that your product is enough of an enterprise solution that no one ever buys it without talking to someone at some point during the evaluation process (even if the pricing is up front, it requires enough of an investment that the customer wants to be absolutely certain it will satisfy their needs both now and as they grow). Finally, let's imagine that you have 3 full-time sales people to handle the incoming communications at whatever step of the evaluation process.
Now, if the outcome of this experiment is that the "contact us for pricing" results in 1/5th the incoming contacts, but those then convert twice the rate, you might choose the up-front pricing (2x conversion rate but on 20% of the leads means only 40% the sales compared to up-front pricing).
However, what if the 5x incoming contacts is too many for your sales team of 3 to respond, causing the up-front pricing to result in fewer sales with more work? Then you might choose the "contact us for pricing".
But what if it's so many more incoming contacts at a consistent enough conversion rate that you can justify adding a 4th and 5th sales person to realize those sales? Then you might choose the up-front pricing.
But what if the up-front pricing pigeon-holes you into your beachhead market and makes it more difficult to expand vertically or horizontally, which could lead to a trail-off in the incoming contacts and sales? Then you might choose the "contact us for pricing".
The point is, the one that makes the most sense for a company depends on a lot of variables, most of which would be opaque to an outside observer. Being able to tell the difference between a company that has "contact us for pricing" because it made sense for them, compared to one trying to exploit price discrimination (as described by some of the more cynical takes) is next to impossible without talking with them. Even in that scenario though, if they end up giving you a better product for a better price, then being willing to reach out to them could end up being a competitive advantage for your company over another which disqualified them on that basis.
Is there a website or service that lists cost ranges for enterprise SaaS products?
Thanks in advance for your help!