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independence4 unconnected · 3 more authors in those circles
standing

contested · 8 claims against 1

applies to

b2b, no audience needed

mixed results

confidence

high

evidence

9 claims · 7 articles · 4 receipts

window

2015-10-01 → 2023-10-14

4 builders who never spoke to each other · contested

Leave a gap between the value and the price

Capturing everything the buyer would have paid turns a product people love into one they resent, and the surplus you deliberately leave is the cheapest churn reduction available because nobody with a bargain goes shopping. Operators describe holding the base price flat as features accumulate, or aiming for a number that still feels like a steal, and reading refund requests as evidence they have not reached it. The dissent is blunt: if most of your customers call it a bargain, you are simply charging too little.

Where this splits

Jackson, Barry, Tringas and Jarvis deliberately price below what buyers would accept to keep goodwill, while Hillman treats customers calling it a bargain as proof the price is too low.

8 claims against 1

Cory Zue · Justin Jackson · Justin Welsh · Nathan Barry · Paul Jarvis · Tyler Tringas

Leave value on the table to buy goodwill

  1. 01Deliberately leave some of the value on the table so the customer feels a surplus, because capturing all of it turns a product people would love into one they resent.
  2. 02Deliberately leave a gap between the value you deliver and the price you charge, because that gap is what buys goodwill.
the objection · 1 claimAlex Hillman

If they call it a bargain you are undercharging

Ask your current paying customers to weigh what they receive against what they hand over, and if most of them call it a bargain you are charging too little.

  1. 03Keep a value buffer in the price so customers never start shopping for alternatives, which is the cheapest churn reduction available.
  2. 04Repeatedly raising price to close that gap turns customers who would have loved you into resentful ones.
  3. 05Deliberately price under what your customers would pay, because good support is really about exceeding expectations and a price set at the ceiling imports expectations you then have to beat on every ticket.

What it returned

  • $1,000

    Nathan Barry said ConvertKit would keep paying Basecamp even at ten times the price, around $1,000 a month, while Segment's pricing matched its value so exactly that it bred resentment; Ryan Kulp never returned to a taco chain after a $10 meal.

  • $100

    Basecamp charges $100 a month flat for any team size; ConvertKit would have paid ten times that and still come out ahead

  • $30,000

    Segment's increase cost ConvertKit $30,000 more per year plus tighter contract lock-in; Intercom grew extremely fast with far less customer goodwill

  • The author argues that customers who would happily pay double are relaxed about problems and content to wait days for a fix

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

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More in pricing

all pricing plays

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.