I’m at a PLG company working on improving our public-facing pricing page. As I dug into the problem, I realized that the true goal of our pricing page is not just to communicate price or compare plans. It is to drive sign ups. For the most part, we want people to start their journey in the product and begin discovering value but obviously immediate conversions are nice.
That made me wonder. If the primary goal is sign ups, why do pricing pages at PLG companies often look just like those at non PLG companies? The standard three column, Good Better Best layout is everywhere.
A pricing page mindset seems focused on transparency and comparison. But a sign up mindset would be more about motivating a decision and reducing friction to act. And while some might say the page should do both ( inform and convert ) I wonder if trying to do both means it is not really optimized for either.
Curious how others have approached this. Have you leaned into one mindset more than the other? Does reframing the pricing page as a sign up page change how you think about design and content?
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@Andrew_Yee I love this topic!
Here’s my take, based on working at format.com for 3 years (50K subs) - pure PLG company.
The primary goal IMO of the pricing page is to drive website to signup conversions (i.e. to get someone to start a trial or freemium)
Now, there are two other goals to keep in mind are:
- converting user from trial/free to paid
- getting user to pick the most suitable plan
These two goals however can be accomplished in the product itself in the checkout flow. Some companies, re-purpose the pricing page for both, which is usually not optimal for either use case.
So in a nutshell, they should be optimized for sign-ups, but in reality, but most companies don’t have a good checkout flow, so they overload the page with too much info.
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A very good question. I think there are a coupe of reasons for this, the biggest being just inertia.
But there are other reasons. One is that there are actually rather few pure PLG companies. Most companies have a hybrid strategy, PLG for small accounts, SLG for larger accounts. Perhaps the decision here is to separate the sign up page from the pricing page.
Another emerging issue is the role of buyer AIs. Our research at Ibbaka suggest a growing role for buyer AIs as the first touch by a buyer and pricing pages are one of the key pages that the AIs parse. Going forward good pricing page design as to include design for AI.
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Andrew, this is an awesome question. I think you’re on to something. I generally think of the Pricing Pages as a member of your Sales team. Depending on your GTM, the pricing page can either be a AE or BDR.
If you lean PLG, think of your pricing page as an Account Executive . That means building your pricing page to convert qualified visitors into users or paying customers. This requires:
↳ Clearly define the ICP and value proposition for each plan
↳ Listing key features so visitors know exactly what they get when they sign up
↳ Sharing testimonials from customers for social proof
↳ Using appropriate CTAs like ‘Sign Up’ or ‘Get Started’
If you lean Sales-Led — think of your pricing page as a Business Development Rep. That means designing your pricing page to qualify prospects, and schedule discovery calls with AEs. This requires:
↳ Use positioning statements that align with challenges for qualified prospects
↳ Provide enough pricing info that a visitor knows if its in the budget ballpark
↳ Use appropriate CTAs like “Schedule a Demo,” “Contact Sales,” or “Schedule a Free Assessment”
Wrote about this a little while back. Here’s the link to the full post.
In my previous role at a PLG company, we realized that the highest conversion rate to an opportunity from a lead came from either a demo or through pricing page. To me, there’s a simple explanation why: If someone looks at your pricing page and then signs up, they indicate a high intent.
So yes, while the role of the pricing page is to communicate the pricing, it also acts as a filter for high intent leads. If you turn the question upside down and ask: what would happen when prospects start their journey on the pricing page, rather than the product itself? You will most likely find higher conversions.
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Thanks John!
Totally agree with your last point about pricing pages getting overloaded with too much information. Those endless feature comparison tables are a great example. So much time and effort goes into maintaining them, and honestly, I’m not convinced they actually help users make a decision.
I think of it like car websites. They rarely lead with a detailed spec list or feature-by-feature breakdown. That stuff is often tucked away and hard to find. If auto manufacturers can get people to visit a dealership (which is kind of like getting someone to sign up) without needing to surface every technical detail upfront (and for a much higher-priced product), then maybe we don’t need to either.
Thanks Steven. Do you see us going back to the days where all the creativity gets sucked out of the room b/c we’re optimizing for the system vs. the human? Examples that come to mind would be search engines, applicant tracking systems, etc.
Thanks Rob! I remember reading that post. And like every good AE, you don’t go heavy on talking about what’s on the pricing sheet. This and all the other comments have me thinking that the path forward is less emphasis on the presenting the full pricing menu and more of what you highlighted.
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Thanks Oz. I love that last point. I’m going to start working w/ the teams to figure out we start measuring that point of entry through the webpage.
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Our research at Ibbaka suggest a growing role for buyer AIs
Is this a good place to start understanding Buyer AIs?
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It is one place to start. Would appreciate your thoughts. I am thinking of creating a standard set of prompts that buyers can use for this and distributing them through Ibbaka.