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The idea of higher Willingness To Pay is simple; it's the maximum amount of money your customers are willing to pay for your tool or services.
Don't let the plainness of the term deceive you, however. Because of where the Saas industry is heading - a fully commoditized market, with numerous players fighting over more demanding and less paying customers - the awareness of WTP is fundamental to your SaaS business.
In this article, you will learn:
The revenue growth rate of SaaS companies decreases compared to the base year. Once the market moves towards commodities, it creates more pressure on profitability. Without understanding willingness-to-pay, you can' fully unleash your pricing potential.
In fact, without a well-defined WTP, you can't charge for your product optimally. You will either turn off potential users because the price is too high, or you will waste the revenue and growth potential (and potentially sink your company) because it's too cheap.
SaaS is all about value creation and division.
If you don't want to be in either of these groups, you need to define the Willingness to Pay of your client base and then build the product around it. In the end, what matters is how much value you provide in exchange for what money. Let's see how to define the second part of this equation.
It's also essential to mention the concept of the demand curve.
The demand curve represents the relationship between the price of a product or service and the quantity demanded by customers. Understanding this curve is crucial for optimizing pricing strategies and determining the optimal price point.
If you want to know how much your potential clients are willing to pay for your services, you can simply ask them this question during sales calls and increase the proposed price with every next one (or every next couple of calls).
The idea is beautiful in its simplicity, as it doesn't require much time or effort. However, it works well only under particular circumstances.
Asking for the Willingness to Pay directly is an excellent start for small businesses that are just trying to figure out their pricing strategy and mostly rely on outbound sales. You can consider the WTP question as part of the general market research you conduct among your buying personas to understand your business environment better.
The downside of this method, and an ultimate reason you shouldn't use it in the further stages of your business growth, is the risk of price anchoring your customers. As you establish a certain pricing point in the client's mind, it won't be easy to ask for more if the price you've proposed turns out to be too little.
💡 An important note: you're not supposed to ask: "How much would you pay for this or that."
This type of question might provoke your client to be wondering whether price X is good or not. You want to offer your clients gradually increased prices until you meet the spot where they say, "That's too expensive." You shouldn't be asking questions, but instead, observe the reaction after telling them that "the price is X."
Also, there is a cool analysis done by OpenView Partners based on the data from public SaaS companies. They calculated the average revenue per customer depending on the customers served. It's not perfect, but it allows you to get the essential information if you're in the pricing corridor or your pricing is off. Very useful if you have a mid-market/enterprise-level solution and still try to price it well.
This one is quick, effortless, and requires you to do nothing but just simple math. Think of how much value your tool provides to your users.
In a sense: how much time does it save your average customer, and how much is this time worth? Then take 10-15% from this amount as what your users are supposed to be paying you.
For instance, if my tool saves you ten working hours every month, and your working hour is worth $50, I'm effectively saving you a total worth of $500 every month. By a rule of thumb presented by Kyle Poyar in his ebook here, it's fair if I charge you $50-$75 a month.
You can use the following matrix for that:
The Price Sensitivity Meter (PSM), made by Peter Van Westendorp in 1976, is another method to determine price preferences. It also includes customer interviews. As such, it has the advantages and disadvantages of the first method - it's easy and quick in the making but exposes you to potential price anchoring.
These are the four questions that you ask your customers:
After you collect the answers, you need to plot the numbers to a line graph, where the x-axis stands for the price and the y-axis for the number of respondents, as presented on the chart from a real case study.
Conjoint analysis is the creme de la creme method of determining Willingness to Pay. Its purpose is to understand how much the user values different attributes that make up a product, and does he or she consider them necessary or not.
It attempts to capture the complexity of our choices, all small decisions that lead us to choose this or that.
The ultimate idea behind that methodology is that we evaluate products' characteristics differently, and we match those evaluations with our preferences before any buying decision.
To measure the WTP through conjoint analysis, you need to break down your SaaS business into features and then identify customer preferences by presenting different sets of those features to them. Respondents have to choose between potential product concepts formed through the combination of features.
The power of conjoint analysis lies within its versatility: businesses of all industries can use it, no matter the size, development stage, or competitiveness in the market. As the survey respondents are anonymous, you cannot price ladder your potential customers.
However, to conduct it properly, you need a large sample group and a proper knowledge of the methodology itself.
Measuring WTP through various methods, such as asking clients directly, conducting value analysis, using the Van Westendorp framework, or employing conjoint analysis, allows businesses to gather insights and plot customer preferences on the demand curve.
Willingness to Pay is the maximum amount customers are willing to pay for a product or service. Understanding WTP is crucial for SaaS businesses to optimize pricing, avoid underpricing or overpricing, and maximize revenue growth.
There are several methods to measure WTP, including asking clients directly, conducting value analysis, using the Van Westendorp framework, and employing conjoint analysis.
Asking clients about their WTP during sales calls can provide initial insights. However, it should be used cautiously as it may anchor the price and limit potential increases in the future.
Value analysis involves assessing the value your product provides to customers in terms of time saved or other benefits. A portion, typically 10-15%, of this value can be considered as the amount customers should pay.
The Van Westendorp framework involves customer interviews with four questions about price perceptions. The responses are plotted on a graph to understand customers' perceived value at different price points.
The conjoint analysis assesses customer preferences by presenting different product features or attributes. Respondents choose between product concepts, and their choices help determine WTP by understanding attribute values.
For small businesses starting out, testing pricing with clients and gathering feedback is a good initial approach to gauge WTP.
The value-based method allows for quick estimation by calculating the value your product provides and pricing it accordingly.
The Van Westendorp methodology can provide precise information on WTP with relatively less effort.
The conjoint analysis offers the most accurate WTP insights but requires a larger sample size and a deeper understanding of the methodology.
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Expert in B2B pricing, monetization and value-based selling strategies. Over the past year, he has completed over 40 consulting projects in Europe. Prior to founding Valueships, he worked at McKinsey & Company, mainly in the TelCo, software, and banking industries. He completed his doctorate in pricing in SaaS start-ups at the University of Economics in Wrocław, where he also lectures.
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Expert in B2B pricing, monetization and value-based selling strategies. Over the past year, he has completed over 40 consulting projects in Europe. Prior to founding Valueships, he worked at McKinsey & Company, mainly in the TelCo, software, and banking industries. He completed his doctorate in pricing in SaaS start-ups at the University of Economics in Wrocław, where he also lectures.
