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Startup Pricing Experiments

A first price you can defend and change: a cost floor, a value metric, willingness-to-pay research, tiers and discounts with rules, a running test log, and price increases handled without losing trust.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for Startup Pricing Experiments, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

What it installs.

1

Pillar

1

Area

50

Projects

202

Starter tasks

🚀 Founding & Startups

Startup Pricing Experiments

Setting a first price and testing tiers, packaging and discounts with early customers, without anchoring too low to change later.

  1. What the first price has to achieve
  2. Cost to serve and the price floor
  3. Choosing the value metric
  4. Competitor and alternative price map
  5. First price set with written reasons
  6. Pricing experiment log
  7. Choosing a billing provider that allows price changes
  8. Grandfathering policy before the first price change
  9. Discount policy with a ceiling and approval rule
  10. First version of the pricing page
  11. Monthly pricing metrics review
  12. Pricing objection capture
  13. Discount ledger and leakage audit
  14. Quarterly price review meeting
  15. Competitor price watch
  16. Downgrade and cancellation price signals
  17. Pricing test backlog and one-at-a-time rule
  18. Plan limit and expansion signal watch
  19. Annual price rise calendar
  20. Price-to-value check-ins with five customers
  21. Willingness-to-pay interview technique
  22. Van Westendorp price sensitivity survey
  23. Packaging research with MaxDiff and conjoint
  24. Reading pricing test results honestly
  25. Anchoring, decoys and price presentation
  26. Saying the price out loud without flinching
  27. Pricing reading list and case studies
  28. Good, better, best tier design
  29. Feature fencing between tiers
  30. Free tier, free trial or neither
  31. Monthly versus annual billing and the prepay discount
  32. Testing a higher price on new customers
  33. Add-ons and paid extras
  34. Nonprofit, education and early-stage discount programme
  35. Usage-based or hybrid pricing evaluation
  36. Converting pilots and design partners to paid
  37. First price increase for existing customers
  38. Founding member offer with a hard end date
  39. Seasonal promotion with a fixed end and review
  40. First enterprise quote and procurement
  41. Bootstrapped founder pricing for profit
  42. Consumer subscription and app store pricing
  43. Marketplace take rate setting
  44. Hardware retail price from cost and channel margin
  45. Pricing a productised service
  46. Pricing from a small home market
  47. Price book and deal desk rules
  48. Price elasticity from cohort data
  49. Credits and fair use for AI features
  50. Migrating customers off legacy plans

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

What the first price has to achieve

Founders often argue about a number before agreeing what the price is for: covering cost, signalling quality, filtering for serious buyers or winning a reference logo. Writing the two or three jobs the price must do, and the segment it is aimed at, turns every later debate into a check against an agreed goal.

First tasks

  • Write the segment you are pricing for in one sentence
  • List and rank the jobs the first price must do
  • Note one goal the price will deliberately ignore for now
  • Review the one-pager with your co-founder and date it

Cost to serve and the price floor

Below a certain price every new customer loses you money once hosting, payment fees, support time and third-party licences are counted. Working out that floor per plan, before any discount talk, stops a founder from agreeing a deal that grows the loss with every signature.

First tasks

  • Pull last month's hosting, tooling and licence invoices into one sheet
  • Estimate support hours per customer from your inbox or help desk
  • Add payment and platform fees at the rate you actually pay
  • Calculate the floor price per plan at your chosen gross margin

Choosing the value metric

The unit you charge by, whether seats, projects, transactions, gigabytes or outcomes, decides whether revenue grows as customers get more value or stalls while usage climbs. Picking it deliberately in the first months is far easier than migrating paying customers to a new unit later.

First tasks

  • List every unit you could reasonably charge by
  • Score each unit on value tracking, predictability and gaming risk
  • Ask five customers which unit would feel fair to pay by
  • Record the chosen metric and the runner-up with reasons

Make it yours.

Install Startup Pricing Experiments, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.