How to Price Your SaaS Product (With No Customers Yet)

You've built something people want. Now comes the hard part: how much do you charge?

Price too low and you leave money on the table — or worse, signal that your product isn't valuable. Price too high and nobody bites. Most founders guess, and most guesses are wrong. The good news is SaaS pricing isn't magic. It's a process.

Here's how to price your SaaS product without overthinking it — including pre-launch pricing when you have no customers yet to ask.

The short answer

Price at roughly 10-20% of the measurable value you create — and don't wait for customers to do it. Four decisions cover almost every first SaaS product:

1. Anchor on outcome, not cost. If you save a customer 5 hours a month at $50/hour, that is $250 of value, so $25-50/mo is defensible.
2. Launch with one price, not four tiers. One price tells you whether anyone wants the product at all.
3. Put the price on a page and watch behaviour. A real click beats any survey. A waitlist where people saw the price before signing up is the cheapest test available.
4. Add price tiers after you have data. Tiers encode what you have learned about segments. Guessing them up front produces arbitrary limits nobody asked for.

Everything below is the detail behind those four decisions.

The options for pricing your product

Every pricing approach makes a tradeoff between accuracy and effort. Here are the main strategies and when each makes sense.

Option 1: Cost-plus pricing

You calculate your costs — hosting, tools, your time — add a margin, and charge that amount. If it costs you $10/month per user to run the service, you charge $20.

When it works: You're selling a commodity where costs are the main differentiator. Physical products and low-margin services often use cost-plus.

Where it falls short: Cost-plus ignores value entirely. A tool that saves a user $1,000/month is worth far more than your hosting bill. Pricing based on costs leaves that money on the table.

Best for: Products with predictable, proportional costs. Rarely the right call for SaaS.

Option 2: Competitor-based pricing

You look at what similar products charge and set your price in relation to theirs. Slightly below to compete on price. Slightly above to signal premium quality.

When it works: You're entering an established market with clear competitors. It gives you a starting point that won't seem outrageous to potential customers.

Where it falls short: Competitor pricing is a reference, not a strategy. If your product is different — even slightly — your pricing should reflect that. Blindly matching competitors ignores your unique value.

Best for: Getting a ballpark number when you have no other data.

Option 3: Value-based pricing

You estimate the quantifiable value your product delivers and charge a fraction of that. If your tool saves a freelancer 10 hours per month at $50/hour, that's $500 of value. Charge $50-100 and it's an obvious buy.

When it works: The value you deliver is measurable. B2B tools that save time, reduce cost, or increase revenue are ideal for value-based pricing.

Where it falls short: Value is hard to measure for some products. A journaling app or a habit tracker delivers real value, but putting a dollar number on it is difficult.

Best for: B2B SaaS where you can calculate ROI for your customers.

Option 4: Tiered pricing

You offer multiple plans at different price points — typically three tiers (Good, Better, Best). Each tier includes progressively more features or usage limits.

When it works: Your product serves different types of users with different needs. Tiered pricing captures value from each segment without turning anyone away.

Where it falls short: Bad tier design confuses customers. If the differences between tiers aren't clear, people choose the cheapest out of uncertainty. And too many tiers create decision paralysis.

Best for: Most SaaS products. It's the standard for a reason.

Pricing approaches compared

Approach	Effort	Risk	Upside	Best when
Cost-plus	Low	High	Low	Commodities with predictable costs
Competitor-based	Low	Medium	Medium	Entering an established market
Value-based	High	Medium	High	B2B with measurable ROI
Tiered	Medium	Low	High	Multiple user segments

Value-based pricing with tiered delivery is the gold standard for SaaS. Use value-based to set your anchor price, then build tiers around it.

SaaS pricing models: what you charge per

The four approaches above answer how to set the number. This answers a different question: what unit is the number attached to — the pricing metric. People search for it as "SaaS pricing models", and getting it wrong is why a good price still feels unfair.

Model	You charge per	Fits when	Watch out
Flat rate	One price, everything included	One type of buyer, similar usage	Heavy users are subsidised forever
Per seat	Each user	Value grows with team size (collaboration, workflow)	Buyers hide seats and share logins
Usage-based	What is consumed (calls, records, credits)	Consumption tracks value (API, data, AI inference)	The bill is unpredictable, which scares buyers
Tiered	A package of features plus limits	Multiple segments with different needs	Badly drawn limits feel arbitrary

Two tests for picking one:

1. Does the bill grow when the customer succeeds? If a customer gets more value and pays the same, the metric is wrong. This is the single question to ask.
2. Can the buyer predict next month's bill? If not, either cap it or add a floor. Unpredictable bills stall adoption even when the value is obvious.

For a first product, the safest default is flat rate or simple per-seat, with one price — then move to tiers once you can see which segment uses the product hardest.

The tiered pricing playbook

If you decide tiered pricing is right for your product — and for most SaaS products it is — here's how to structure it.

The three-tier structure

The standard pattern is Good, Better, Best. Here's how each tier should feel:

• Good (entry tier): Solves the core problem with limits. Enough to deliver value, but constrained in usage, features, or support. This is often free or very cheap.
• Better (middle tier): Removes the most painful limits. This is where most of your revenue comes from. Price it for the customer who needs the full solution.
• Best (top tier): Everything unlocked plus extras. This exists mostly to make the middle tier look reasonable — it's the anchor that drives people to Better.

The anchoring effect

When you see a $199 plan next to a $49 plan, the $49 plan feels like a deal — even if you would have balked at $49 on its own. That's the anchoring effect. Your top tier exists to make your middle tier the obvious choice.

What to put in each tier

Avoid arbitrary limits. Every feature in every tier should exist because it serves that customer. A solo founder doesn't need 10 waitlists or 25,000 subscribers — so those limits on the free tier aren't punitive, they're appropriate.

Good features for differentiation: usage limits, team seats, advanced features, support level, custom branding.

A real example: GetWaitly's pricing

I went through this process myself when building GetWaitly. Here's how it played out.

The product is a waitlist tool for founders and makers. Most users need one waitlist and a few hundred subscribers. Power users need multiple waitlists, broadcast emails, and subscriber management at scale.

The value is clear: a solo founder who validates their idea with a waitlist avoids months of building the wrong thing. That's worth thousands. But the price needs to match the customer — founders with limited budgets.

Here are the resulting tiers. The Starter plan at $5/mo is the most affordable paid option — designed for solo founders who need more than the free plan without breaking the bank.

• Free ($0): 1 waitlist, 100 subscribers. Enough to validate a single idea.
• Starter ($5/mo or $50/yr): 3 waitlists, 1,000 subscribers, referral links, broadcast emails (1,000/mo), open and click tracking. The most affordable paid option for founders.
• Pro ($15/mo or $150/yr): 10 waitlists, 10,000 subscribers, broadcast emails (3,000/mo), custom domain, webhooks. For growing products with real traction.
• Business ($45/mo or $450/yr): Unlimited waitlists, 25,000 subscribers, broadcast emails (10,000/mo), everything in Pro. For products that have outgrown the early stages.

These are early adopter launch prices — locked in forever for existing subscribers.

I don't share this as "here's how you should price" but as "here's how one founder thought about it." Your product, audience, and costs are different. The process — understand value, segment users, build tiers, test with real people — is what transfers.

How to find your price

The methods above give you a range. Here's how to narrow it.

Step 1: Pick a number

Use value-based pricing to find your anchor. If you save a customer 5 hours per month at $50/hour, that's $250 of value. Charge $25-50 — roughly 10-20% of the value you create.

For a sanity check, most early-stage B2B SaaS products land somewhere between $29 and $99 per month. Treat that range as a market reference, not a target — your value calculation sets the number, and a first price outside the range is a reason to double-check your reasoning, not to change it.

Step 2: Test with real people

Put a price on your landing page. See if people sign up. If they do, you have signal. If they don't, the price might be wrong — or the value might not be clear enough.

Watch for specific signals:

• People sign up but churn quickly → price is fine, retention is the issue
• People hesitate at checkout → price is too high or value isn't clear
• People say "this is cheap" → you're probably undercharging

That's the passive version. The testing section below covers the active version: what to ask, how many people to ask, and how to test specific price tiers.

Step 3: Adjust

Raising prices is easier than lowering them. Start slightly higher than comfortable. You can always add a discount or a lower tier. It's much harder to raise prices after launch.

Step 4: Add tiers once you have data

Don't start with four tiers. Start with one price. As you learn how different customers use your product, build tiers that match their needs. The best tier structures come from usage data, not guesses.

How to test a price before you have customers

Pricing tests fail for one reason: founders ask the wrong question. "Would you pay $20 for this?" gets a polite yes from almost anyone, and that yes is worth nothing. What you want is not a prediction — it's a reaction.

Talk to 10-20 people in your target market. Not 2, and not a survey sent into the void. Enough conversations to hear the same objection twice.

Ask these four questions, in this order:

1. "Which of these would you choose?" Show two or three tiers with real numbers. The tier people reach for tells you where your anchor should sit — and it's far more honest than a yes/no about a single price.
2. "Does this feel expensive, cheap, or about right?" You are listening for the word, not the argument. "Cheap" is the most actionable answer you can get.
3. "What would make you pick the higher tier?" Whatever they name is the feature that belongs in your upgrade path. Whatever they struggle to name is a feature that isn't worth building.
4. "At what price would this be too expensive to try?" This gives you a ceiling without asking them to commit. The gap between their ceiling and your intended price is your margin for error.

To test price tiers specifically, build a mock pricing page with the actual numbers — not a Google Form asking for a number. Ask them to choose a tier as if they were buying today. Within a ten-minute conversation, watch what they do in the first five seconds: people who take a tier seriously read the feature rows, and people who are being polite go straight for the button.

Read hesitation, not enthusiasm. Silence, a change of subject, or "let me think about it" is data. Enthusiasm without a follow-up question is usually not.

This is the same conversation you would have for testing whether anyone will pay at all — pricing is just the part where you put a number on it.

Pricing launch checklist

Before you publish a pricing page, confirm:

• Two or three tiers — not four, not one
• One clear value metric that customers can predict their bill from
• The anchor tier visually highlighted so the middle option is the obvious choice
• An annual option at 15-20% off monthly
• Feature differences between tiers obvious at a glance
• At least 10 conversations with target customers done
• A documented plan to review pricing after 60-90 days

If you cannot tick the conversations item, you are not ready to publish — you are ready to start talking to people.

FAQ

Should I offer a free plan?

A free plan is a marketing expense, not a pricing strategy. It can be effective if it leads to paid conversions. It's a mistake if it attracts users who will never pay. Free works best when there's a clear upgrade path and the free tier is genuinely limited.

How do I know if my price is too high?

Conversations stop. People visit your pricing page, then leave. You get questions about value but few signups. If engagement is high but conversion is low, the price might be the blocker. Try lowering it or adding a cheaper tier.

When should I raise prices?

Raise the price when any of these is true: you close more than about 40% of the people who get a real demo or trial, nobody has ever pushed back on price, you have added meaningful value in the last 6-12 months, or your cost to serve has risen. All four point the same way — the price is below what the market will bear.

Raise it for new customers first and grandfather existing ones at their current rate. That gives you a live test of the higher number without risking the revenue you already have, and grandfathering builds real goodwill.

Annual vs monthly?

Offer both. Annual at a discount (15-20% off) improves cash flow and reduces churn. Many SaaS products see roughly 20-40% of customers choose annual when given the option.

How many tiers should I have?

Three is the sweet spot. Two doesn't give enough differentiation. Four or more causes decision paralysis. Three tiers with clear progression is the standard for a reason.

How do you test price tiers with real users?

Show two or three tiers with real numbers and ask which one they would choose. Within one conversation you learn which tier pulls, whether the price reads expensive or cheap, what would push someone upward, and the ceiling where it becomes too expensive to try. Ten to twenty conversations is enough to hear the same objection twice — which is the point at which it becomes a signal instead of an anecdote.

How do I price my SaaS product with no customers yet?

Anchor on value, not costs. Estimate what the product saves or earns a customer each month, then charge a small fraction of that — often 10-20%. Put that number on a landing page or waitlist and see if people take the next step. With no customers, the goal isn't the perfect price; it's any real signal that the price isn't obviously wrong.

What is value-based pricing for SaaS?

Value-based pricing means setting your price from the customer's outcome, not your costs. If a tool saves a team $1,000 a month, a $50/mo price is easy to justify. Cost-plus pricing (costs + margin) is common but usually wrong for software, because the value a product delivers is often far larger than the cost to run it.

How do I know if I'm charging too little?

Three signals: users say "that's cheap" without being asked, conversion is far higher than you expected, or customers get more value than the price implies and rarely churn. Under-charging is common because founders price from their own wallet instead of the customer's outcome. Test a higher price with new customers — you can always grandfather early adopters at the lower rate.

Should I price monthly or yearly?

Offer both. Monthly lowers the barrier to start; annual improves your cash flow and cuts churn because customers commit up front. A 15-20% annual discount is a standard incentive. Many founders find annual plans make up a meaningful share of revenue even when they assume most people will pay monthly.

How do I test a price without losing customers?

Grandfathering is the safest method: raise the price for new customers, keep existing ones at their current rate. For a brand-new product, test with a landing page or pre-sale before you build — a price that converts real visitors tells you more than any survey. If you must change an existing price, give notice and a reason.

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Related guides

• How to Validate What People Will Pay For — testing willingness to pay before you build the full product
• Email vs Waitlist vs Landing Page: Which Comes First? — choosing the right channel to capture demand once you've set your price
• How to Build an Audience Before Your Product Is Ready — building an audience that's ready to buy at your price point
• How to Get Your First 100 SaaS Customers — converting your first paying customers
• How Much Does a Waitlist Tool Cost? — what the pre-launch tooling costs before you charge anyone
• The Indie Hacker Tech Stack for 2026 — one tool replaces four. Here's the simple pre-launch stack for founders.
• Prefinery vs LaunchList vs GetWaitly — how the most established waitlist tool compares for founders.
• Best Waitlist Tools for Solo Founders in 2026 — seven waitlist tools compared side by side. Which one should solo founders actually use?