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independence4 unconnected · 4 more authors in those circles
standing

contested · 16 claims against 7

applies to

b2b, no audience needed

mixed results

confidence

high

evidence

23 claims · 17 articles · 4 receipts

window

2012-11-12 → 2025-09-13

4 builders who never spoke to each other · contested

Walk the price upward until sales actually react

The most repeated finding in this corpus is that founders charge too little and discover it only by moving the number. Operators selling templates, boilerplate, analytics, store locators and B2B SaaS all report the same shape: raise it, watch, raise again, and signups keep coming long past the point instinct said they would stop. Dissent comes from people who measured the other direction, finding a cut that bought retention and referrals, or a market where competitors shipping the same features at the same pace made any increase an invitation to switch.

Where this splits

Zue, Tringas, Riley, Barry and McLeod treat repeated increases as the strongest growth lever available, while Jackson argues the advice is unconditional nonsense and reports a case where cutting prices raised lifetime value.

  1. side 01 · 16 claims

    Raise the price repeatedly until signups actually fall

    Cory Zue · Dru Riley · Harry Dry · Justin Jackson · Justin Welsh · Nathan Barry · Steve McLeod · Tyler Tringas

    1. 1Price sensitivity may simply not exist in the low single digits, so stop guessing and walk prices upward until sales react.
    2. 2Raise prices by half during a demand peak and watch what happens, because seasonal buyers may not notice at all.
    3. 3Test raising prices rather than assuming resistance: doubling prices and putting a charge on the previously free designs increased unit sales instead of reducing them.
    4. 4Raise your price repeatedly as the product improves and keep raising it while signup growth holds; the author names this his single most effective growth lever.
    5. 5The standard advice to raise prices does hold arithmetically: you can keep adding 50% and see slightly fewer signups while total revenue still climbs, to surprisingly high levels.

  2. side 02 · 7 claims

    Cut or hold the price to buy retention

    Cory Zue · Justin Jackson · Tyler Tringas

    1. 1Ignore blanket instructions to raise your price; set it against four things at once - the value delivered, the segment you're aimed at, the state of the economy, and how far along your startup is.
    2. 2Price increases are effectively off the table while competitors are shipping the same features at the same pace, because nothing stops a customer moving across.
    3. 3Test cutting prices as seriously as raising them: cheap enough makes renewal automatic and switching not worth the bother, trading lower revenue per account for retention, referrals and faster organic growth.
    4. 4Be willing to roll a price rise back even when it earns more, if the new customers no longer feel they are getting a bargain.
    5. 5Raising your price well above $100 a month to compensate for a small market tends to slow acquisition further and can force you into hiring salespeople.

What it returned

  • $3

    Still mostly under $3, Zue hit a record 28 sales and $53 revenue in a week and saw no meaningful price sensitivity

  • 50%

    Zue raised prices about 50% and saw no significant sales impact while weekly revenue set a record at $168, which he assumed was an unsustainable holiday bump

  • $1

    Zue moved two free designs to $1 and doubled the rest to $1.95, and that week hit 16 sales and just under $22, another record

  • $5

    Storemapper went from $5 to $9 for new customers after six months, then to $20 three months later, a 300% rise across four months, with monthly signup growth still increasing at each new price

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

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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.