Kyle Poyar, VP Marketing Strategy at OpenView, discusses SaaS pricing strategy, the importance of pricing for SaaS companies, and avoiding common pricing mistakes. He shares examples of successful pricing strategies, the impact of pricing on revenue growth, and the importance of having a seamless way to land new customers. The chapter also covers how to improve pricing strategy and highlights the five common mistakes in SaaS pricing. In addition, they delve into a potential business idea and the guest's background in environmental studies and passion for Mediterranean cooking.
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volunteer_activism ADVICE
Stop Being Too Cheap Early On
Test higher prices early instead of defaulting to being cheap.
Increase in small increments and roll back if conversion drops significantly.
question_answer ANECDOTE
StatusPage Raised Prices Successfully
StatusPage launched extremely low and repeatedly raised prices without harming conversion or churn.
Each increase boosted ARPU and helped them scale to $2.5M ARR before acquisition.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Choose The Right Value Metric
Pick a value metric that correlates with customer ROI, not just industry norms.
Charge on metrics like contacts, views, or usage when they better predict customer value.
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The average SaaS company spends just eight hours in its entire lifetime thinking about SaaS pricing. Kyle Poyar has spent over a decade on it - and the gap shows. In this episode, Kyle breaks down five common SaaS pricing mistakes with real examples from OpenView's portfolio including Expensify, Calendly, and New Relic.
Kyle found that 98% of companies that changed their SaaS pricing saw neutral or positive revenue impact, with two in five reporting 25% or faster growth. StatusPage raised prices three consecutive years, grew ARPU 2.5x, and got acquired by Atlassian. Logikcull switched from annual commitment to usage-based pricing and signed more customers in two months than in four years.
The right value metric matters more than the actual price point. Expensify differentiated from Concur by charging only for active users. New Relic achieves 123% net dollar retention through their pricing strategy. Kyle explains how to pick the right value metric and build expansion into your SaaS pricing from day one.
🔑 Key Lessons
💰 Your SaaS pricing is probably too cheap: Most founders underprice because they project their own price sensitivity onto buyers. StatusPage raised prices three times without hurting conversion, growing ARPU 2.5x.
🎯 Pick a value metric that scales with customer success: Users are not always the best SaaS pricing metric. Expensify charges per active user, HubSpot per contact, Wistia per video - each aligning price with value delivered.
🚀 Remove friction to land customers with better pricing strategy: Logikcull switched from annual prepaid to usage-based pricing and signed more customers in two months than in four years.
🔄 Build expansion into your SaaS pricing from day one: New Relic achieves 123% net dollar retention by combining usage-based pricing with tier upgrades - multiple upsell paths compound growth.
📉 Static SaaS pricing kills growth at every stage: OpenView data shows 98% of companies that changed pricing saw neutral or positive results, yet most avoid touching it.
Chapters
Introduction
Kyle Poyar's background and role at OpenView
Kyle's decade of SaaS pricing experience
Why SaaS pricing matters for growth
First Round Capital data on monetization timing
The 8-hour pricing statistic from ProfitWell
Mistake 1: You are too cheap
How StatusPage raised prices 3x before Atlassian acquired them
Mistake 2: Wrong value metric
How Expensify beat Concur with active user pricing
The SaaS Podcast - AI, Growth & Product-Market Fit for SaaS Founders 