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Research Outline
Prepared for Neil S. | Delivered September 21, 2020
Pricing Models
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Goals
To understand pricing models by identifying the per-seat and usage pricing models and examples of companies employing these models to inform the development of a pricing strategy.
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Early Findings
Per User Model
Per seat
pricing is also known as per user pricing, and it is one of the most common models used in Software as a Service (SaaS) products.
Companies using the per user pricing model charge a
set amount
monthly for each user. This is an easy to use model; however, it has its downsides.
It has been considered that this pricing model
penalizes growth,
as companies pay more when more employees adopt the software in question, which can lead to inadequate license-sharing.
This model used alone is considered
antiquated
and it has been estimated it will be used less often as
technology
evolves.
Per Usage Model
This refers to how
m
u
c
h
customers pay according to
how often
they use a service.
There are different per usage
models
, which include tiered pricing, subscription+usage pricing, subscription+overage pricing, and linear pricing.
Some benefits of per usage pricing are the fact that prices correspond to the
growth
of a business as well as the demand for their services.
Furthermore, it is available for businesses of
all sizes
, adapting to the size of each business and user costs.
A negative part of this model is that it makes it very difficult to
predict
revenue and user costs overall, as volatile clients might have unexpected changes.
This model is not as common in SaaS companies. An example of services using this model includes cell phone and
bandwidth
companies.
Per Seat + Per Usage Model
A
version
of this model is the per active user pricing scheme. A company can hire an annual service meant for hundreds of employees with the caveat that it will only be charged for the number of active users.
A second version could be the
subscription+usage
model in which a company pays a subscription fee and additional usage costs.
This applies to companies in different industries. For example, there are car
insurance models
that charge a subscription fee plus an additional amount per mile driven.
The advantages of this model include the fact that there is a base,
predictable revenue
, which can cover platform expenses. Also, additional services can be offered on top of those included in the subscription. That said, the base subscription rate could be a limit for smaller companies.
Companies
Companies that are often used as examples for efficient pricing models include G-Suite,
Slack
, and HubSpot.
Summary of Findings
We used this initial hour of research to assess the availability of the information and to provide a brief overview of per-seat or user-based pricing, usage-based pricing, and combined pricing models.
During our research, we identified pros and cons regarding the use of these types of models,
w
i
t
h
combination models appearing to be the most recommended.
While we identified examples of companies using these models, we did not have time to provide insights into how they apply the model. We could provide this information with additional research.
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