One of the great things about SaaS & Web Apps is the fact that your customers and users are a captive audience. One of the major mistakes many SaaS & Web App companies do is forget that! Too many vendors put all of their time, effort, money, resources, etc. into getting people to their site and converting visitors to customers or registered users - and then they stop.
For those that are successful at getting the visitor to sign-up, they often stop most marketing activities right there. There are many reasons why a vendor might do this, but it usually comes down to these: 1) simply not thinking it is necessary to continue to market (vs. communicate) to the user / customer once they are "in" the system or 2) they think the App is so great it will sell itself - or the "premium features" will cause customers to trip over themselves to upgrade. The latter is one of the primary reasons Freemium fails.
Whether you are attempting to convert free users to customers, or up-sell existing customers, it is critical that you remember this: the same rules apply for in-app pricing pages as for public-facing pages. The ability to perform in-app up-sells to your active customer base is key to growing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) - a key metric for measuring the success of a SaaS company. Of course, there are other factors that come into play. You have to have a great product that works, your customer service has to be great, streamline workflows, etc.
To be clear, you do not have to have a full "pricing page" in-app, but the same principles that apply to public pricing pages apply to in-app pricing screens/pages/etc. This is especially true when you force all customers to go through a "Free Trial" sign-up before they can give you their money (a topic for another day). If the internal pricing page, requires ~6 steps to get to, including a trip to the email inbox, before the customer has an opportunity to give you their money, it better convey a significant amount of value around that pricing. Why some app vendors put up barriers to taking money from customers still eludes.
The internal or in-app pricing page should be as much about marketing as the public-facing pricing page. But for many SaaS & Web App vendors there does not seem to be a marketing effort around in-app pricing, often there is just an option to upgrade that brings up an order or sign-up form. The message around it is usually "Get premium features..." which is not compelling, especially when you are not really sure what you currently have - another problem with many vendors' use of "Free."
The only difference between public pricing pages and in-app pricing pages is that your users or customers have already taken a step to move into the application and have now clicked Upgrade. This means that they are ready to be reminded of why they should pay you or upgrade - but it does not mean they are ready to buy. Assuming that clicking on "upgrade now" is a guaranteed sale can be a costly assumption and can kill CLV growth. The in-app pricing page should be as much about marketing as elements external to the application. While the workflow may be a bit different, the ideas are the same.
How is your pricing page working out for you - public or in-app? You could probably use a Pricing Page Tune-Up™ - sign-up today for only $149 and ensure that you are on your way to solid CLV growth. Yeah, we'll check out your in-app page, too!
Author: Lincoln Murphy (@lincolnmurphy on Twitter)