technical-product-pricing

Name: technical-product-pricing
Author: beingsmit

39stars7forks

How to install technical-product-pricing?

beingsmit/technical-product-gtm/technical-product-pricing

$npx -y skills add beingsmit/technical-product-gtm --skill technical-product-pricing

Installs into the current project.

Summary

Pricing strategy for technical products. Use when choosing usage-based vs seat-based, designing freemium thresholds, structuring enterprise pricing conversations, deciding when to raise prices, or using price as a positioning signal.

Files · 1

View on GitHub

SKILL.md

1	# Technical Product Pricing
2
3
4	## Initial Assessment
5
6	Before recommending pricing, understand:
7
8	1. Product type: API/platform, developer tool, SaaS application, infrastructure?
9	2. Current pricing: What do you charge now? How long has it been this way?
10	3. GTM motion: Self-serve, sales-assisted, enterprise, or hybrid?
11	4. Cost structure: What's your marginal cost per customer/user/unit?
12	5. Competitive landscape: What do alternatives cost? (Including "do nothing")
13
14	---
15
16	## Core Frameworks
17
18	### 1. The Price Increase Nobody Noticed (You're Probably Underpriced)
19
20	The Pattern:
21
22	Platform company, growth stage. Pricing hadn't changed since launch. Enterprise customers paying $15K/year for a product saving them $200K+ in engineering time.
23
24	Leadership debate: "If we raise prices, we'll lose customers."
25
26	What actually happened:
27
28	Raised enterprise tier from $15K to $45K/year. Added dedicated support, SSO, audit logs to justify the jump.
29
30	Lost: 0 enterprise customers. Zero.
31
32	Gained: 3x revenue per enterprise account. Plus the customers who stayed started taking the product more seriously — higher adoption, more internal champions, more expansion.
33
34	Why This Happens:
35
36	Technical founders anchor pricing to cost ("it costs us $X to serve them, so we charge $2X"). Enterprise buyers anchor pricing to value ("this saves us $200K, so $45K is cheap").
37
38	The Pricing Sanity Check:
39
40	For every customer segment, calculate:
41
42	```
43	Value Ratio = Customer's alternative cost / Your price
44
45	If Value Ratio > 10x → You're massively underpriced
46	If Value Ratio > 5x → You're underpriced (most startups are here)
47	If Value Ratio 3-5x → Healthy pricing
48	If Value Ratio < 3x → Approaching ceiling
49	If Value Ratio < 2x → You're expensive (need strong differentiation)
50	```
51
52	How to Calculate Alternative Cost:
53
54	- Hours spent on manual process × hourly rate × frequency
55	- Cost of building in-house (engineers × months × loaded cost)
56	- Cost of existing tool + switching cost + productivity loss during transition
57	- Cost of not solving the problem (incidents, downtime, churn)
58
59	Common Mistake:
60
61	Comparing your price to competitors instead of to customer's alternative cost. Competitors anchor you to a race to the bottom. Value anchors you to what the customer actually saves.
62
63	---
64
65	### 2. The Three Pricing Models (And When Each Breaks)
66
67	Model 1: Seat-Based ($X/user/month)
68
69	Works when:
70	- Value scales with number of users (collaboration tools, communication)
71	- Usage is relatively uniform across users
72	- You want predictable revenue
73
74	Breaks when:
75	- Power users and casual users get same price (casual users churn)
76	- Product value doesn't scale with seats (one admin configures for 1,000 users)
77	- Customers consolidate seats to reduce cost (usage goes up, revenue doesn't)
78
79	Model 2: Usage-Based ($X/unit)
80
81	Works when:
82	- Usage varies significantly by customer (API calls, compute, storage)
83	- Marginal cost is meaningful (you need usage to track with revenue)
84	- Value directly correlates with usage
85
86	Breaks when:
87	- Customers can't predict bills (sticker shock at month-end)
88	- Low-usage customers aren't worth supporting
89	- High-usage customers negotiate volume discounts that compress margins
90
91	Model 3: Outcome-Based ($X/result)
92
93	Works when:
94	- You can measure outcomes reliably (leads generated, tickets resolved, code deployed)
95	- Outcomes directly create customer value
96	- You have confidence in your product's effectiveness
97
98	Breaks when:
99	- Outcomes depend on factors outside your control
100	- Measurement is disputed ("that lead wasn't from your tool")
101	- Customers game the metric
102
103	The Hybrid That Usually Wins:
104
105	Platform fee (covers your fixed costs) + usage/outcome variable (scales with value).
106
107	Example: $500/month base + $0.05 per transaction (or API call, task completed, record processed — whatever your unit of value is).
108
109	Why this works:
110	- Base fee ensures every customer covers cost to serve
111	- Variable fee aligns price with value
112	- Customers can predict minimum spend (base) while scaling naturally
113	- You capture upside when customers grow
114
115	---
116
117	### 3. Freemium Threshold Design (Where Free Ends and Paid Begins)
118
119	The Pattern:
120
121	The hardest pricing decision for developer tools: where do you draw the line between free and paid?
122
123	The Framework: Find the Production Boundary
124
125	Free users who never pay are fine — they create awareness, community, and content. The problem is when production users never pay.
126
127	How to Find the Boundary:
128
129	Map your usage distribution:
130
131	```
132	Usage Level \| User Type \| Willin

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6 picks

Type

technical-product-pricing

39stars7forks

View on GitHub

How to install technical-product-pricing?

beingsmit/technical-product-gtm/technical-product-pricing

$npx -y skills add beingsmit/technical-product-gtm --skill technical-product-pricing

Installs into the current project.

Summary

Files · 1

View on GitHub

SKILL.md

1	# Technical Product Pricing
2
3
4	## Initial Assessment
5
6	Before recommending pricing, understand:
7
8	1. Product type: API/platform, developer tool, SaaS application, infrastructure?
9	2. Current pricing: What do you charge now? How long has it been this way?
10	3. GTM motion: Self-serve, sales-assisted, enterprise, or hybrid?
11	4. Cost structure: What's your marginal cost per customer/user/unit?
12	5. Competitive landscape: What do alternatives cost? (Including "do nothing")
13
14	---
15
16	## Core Frameworks
17
18	### 1. The Price Increase Nobody Noticed (You're Probably Underpriced)
19
20	The Pattern:
21
22	Platform company, growth stage. Pricing hadn't changed since launch. Enterprise customers paying $15K/year for a product saving them $200K+ in engineering time.
23
24	Leadership debate: "If we raise prices, we'll lose customers."
25
26	What actually happened:
27
28	Raised enterprise tier from $15K to $45K/year. Added dedicated support, SSO, audit logs to justify the jump.
29
30	Lost: 0 enterprise customers. Zero.
31
32	Gained: 3x revenue per enterprise account. Plus the customers who stayed started taking the product more seriously — higher adoption, more internal champions, more expansion.
33
34	Why This Happens:
35
36	Technical founders anchor pricing to cost ("it costs us $X to serve them, so we charge $2X"). Enterprise buyers anchor pricing to value ("this saves us $200K, so $45K is cheap").
37
38	The Pricing Sanity Check:
39
40	For every customer segment, calculate:
41
42	```
43	Value Ratio = Customer's alternative cost / Your price
44
45	If Value Ratio > 10x → You're massively underpriced
46	If Value Ratio > 5x → You're underpriced (most startups are here)
47	If Value Ratio 3-5x → Healthy pricing
48	If Value Ratio < 3x → Approaching ceiling
49	If Value Ratio < 2x → You're expensive (need strong differentiation)
50	```
51
52	How to Calculate Alternative Cost:
53
54	- Hours spent on manual process × hourly rate × frequency
55	- Cost of building in-house (engineers × months × loaded cost)
56	- Cost of existing tool + switching cost + productivity loss during transition
57	- Cost of not solving the problem (incidents, downtime, churn)
58
59	Common Mistake:
60
61	Comparing your price to competitors instead of to customer's alternative cost. Competitors anchor you to a race to the bottom. Value anchors you to what the customer actually saves.
62
63	---
64
65	### 2. The Three Pricing Models (And When Each Breaks)
66
67	Model 1: Seat-Based ($X/user/month)
68
69	Works when:
70	- Value scales with number of users (collaboration tools, communication)
71	- Usage is relatively uniform across users
72	- You want predictable revenue
73
74	Breaks when:
75	- Power users and casual users get same price (casual users churn)
76	- Product value doesn't scale with seats (one admin configures for 1,000 users)
77	- Customers consolidate seats to reduce cost (usage goes up, revenue doesn't)
78
79	Model 2: Usage-Based ($X/unit)
80
81	Works when:
82	- Usage varies significantly by customer (API calls, compute, storage)
83	- Marginal cost is meaningful (you need usage to track with revenue)
84	- Value directly correlates with usage
85
86	Breaks when:
87	- Customers can't predict bills (sticker shock at month-end)
88	- Low-usage customers aren't worth supporting
89	- High-usage customers negotiate volume discounts that compress margins
90
91	Model 3: Outcome-Based ($X/result)
92
93	Works when:
94	- You can measure outcomes reliably (leads generated, tickets resolved, code deployed)
95	- Outcomes directly create customer value
96	- You have confidence in your product's effectiveness
97
98	Breaks when:
99	- Outcomes depend on factors outside your control
100	- Measurement is disputed ("that lead wasn't from your tool")
101	- Customers game the metric
102
103	The Hybrid That Usually Wins:
104
105	Platform fee (covers your fixed costs) + usage/outcome variable (scales with value).
106
107	Example: $500/month base + $0.05 per transaction (or API call, task completed, record processed — whatever your unit of value is).
108
109	Why this works:
110	- Base fee ensures every customer covers cost to serve
111	- Variable fee aligns price with value
112	- Customers can predict minimum spend (base) while scaling naturally
113	- You capture upside when customers grow
114
115	---
116
117	### 3. Freemium Threshold Design (Where Free Ends and Paid Begins)
118
119	The Pattern:
120
121	The hardest pricing decision for developer tools: where do you draw the line between free and paid?
122
123	The Framework: Find the Production Boundary
124
125	Free users who never pay are fine — they create awareness, community, and content. The problem is when production users never pay.
126
127	How to Find the Boundary:
128
129	Map your usage distribution:
130
131	```
132	Usage Level \| User Type \| Willin

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6 picks

Type