The Pricing Page for a SaaS or Web App company that uses an automated sales process, where marketing and e-commcerce are tied with automated provisioning of the application, live and die by their marketing websites. For these companies, the most important page on that marketing website is the pricing page. Really? Yes. Read on...
Truth be told, especially in startups, we see at least 75% of all effort going into the application itself, with the remaining 25% going into everything else, including marketing. Since pricing is marketing, just a fraction of that 25% of effort is focused on this incredibly important factor in the success of a business. Developing pricing is often overlooked or put off until later - which sometimes never comes, only to have someone eventually throw some numbers on a page and call it a day. This is a great way to fail, by the way - an over-engineered app that no one will (because they don't know about it) or can (because it is priced wrong) buy. Too many startups you'll never hear of end up this way.
From our experience, too many SaaS and Web App companies do not have a real pricing strategy - that is, an actual strategy around their pricing decisions - and the window into that strategy, their pricing page, often makes this abundantly clear. Look at enough pricing pages for SaaS or Web Apps and you will notice a disturbing trend; seldom does a pricing page convey the same message as the overall marketing website. In fact, it is almost as if most companies say "I've done such a great job building my marketing site that when someone clicks 'Plans and Pricing' that it is just a formality at that point." It isn't, and you just killed any momentum you had built up because your pricing page is ineffective. Have you wondered why your bounce rate is so high on your pricing pages? There you go.
When we review pricing pages for our Pricing Page Tune-Up™ service, we look at over 100 different points in 10 different categories. One of the easiest fixes most SaaS or Web App vendors could make has nothing to do with their pricing itself, the display of the versions or pricing tiers in grid form, or even where the sign-up buttons are located. The very first thing to look at is their main Call to Action - the thing that says, "hey, you made it this far, let me remind you of why you're here so you'll hit the buy button"...
Understanding that the pricing page should maintain, or even better, build on the momentum generated by the rest of the marketing site, being the culmination of all of that effort where the buying decision is ultimately made (with sign-up or payment the next and last step), why would a company let this opportunity slip through their fingers? Because they don't view the pricing page for what it is: the most important page on your marketing website. There are always naysayers, but what I've found is that those who argue against this fact are simply trying to justify their lack of attention to their pricing page or overall pricing strategy - but I invite you to try; the comments are open.
Lets look at the pricing pages of three similar SaaS or Web App companies and to keep this post from getting entirely out of hand, we'll focus on just one small aspect of the overall design of the pricing pages; the Call to Action. Since Rags Srinivasan just called out some versioning improvements for Mind Mapping app MindMeister over on his Iterative Path blog, we'll stick with that theme and look at them, plus two of their competitors - comapping and Mindomo.
First, what is the Call to Action? At Sixteen Ventures we describe this as the main headline of the pricing page... or the first thing beyond the header that viewers of the page will see. This should be aligned with your overall marketing message! The stronger and more aligned with the "what's in it for them" to the end-cusotmer, the strong the Call to Action is said to be. Unfortunately, for the three companies we looked at here, there is simply no strong (or even passable) call to action. All of these vendors fall into the ill-conceived category of "presumptive close" - if you get to this page, you will buy.
Unfortunately none of the key marketing elements from the main pages of any of these companies are present on the pricing pages, let alone in the main Call to Action. Each company simply presents the pricing page as if it is a given that the marketing job is done and now it just a matter of taking the customers' money. This is an incorrect assumption that could be costing them money.
Do not assume that their purchasing decision is made and that all you have to do is present three options and a buy button. Don't let your Pricing Page stop the momentum created by your marketing website. Understand the reason for the pricing page and how important it is to you as a SaaS or Web App company. Use the pricing page to remind the customer of what's in it for them should they decide to sign-up.
All of these pricing pages reviewed need a lot more help than has been detailed in this post. But sometimes just making one tweak will lead you down the right path so hopefully this was helpful to those three companies and you. However, I would suggest that MindMeister, Mindomo, and comapping all get a Pricing Page Tune-Up™ right away - and so should you. It is time to make your Pricing Page work for you!
Author: Lincoln Murphy (@lincolnmurphy on Twitter)