The Thursday Thread: What’s your favorite real-world pricing case study?

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I’ll kick this off. I have two favorites in the world of SaaS:

  1. Zoom’s Freemium Strategy: When Zoom entered the market, the other players offered a Freemium plan, but limited it to 2-3 users. Zoom flipped this on its head, offering the free plan for 50 users, but limiting meeting duration to 40 minutes. Have always thought this was a master class in how to thoughtfully limit a free plan to draw users into a product, but also ensure the plan doesn’t cannibalize paid plans.

  2. HubSpot’s 3-Part Tariff: In the early days of HubSpot, they charged a flat fee for each plan, and due to higher churn from SMBS, were struggling with net dollar retention. Inspireed by the team at Sequoia, they changed to 2-axis pricing, where they offered a base fee, and a variable fee based on contact volume. The results speak for themselves!

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