I recently made an inquiry to a software company to help set up a report in Google ads for our clients. It wasn’t rocket science and in part was laziness on my side. I could ask a web dev and have it created for us, but meh – quicker to pay the dollar and get on with it.
I booked a call to check if the particular feature I had stopped would do the trick but I hadn’t checked the pricing before arranging the call.
The pricing structure took me over the top tier of £4999 and into POA 😭
And what was this based on?
Features used? ❌
Set up and support? ❌
Implementation costs? ❌
Management fee? ❌
Nope, you guessed it – Ad spend.
Sorry, but the days of charging based on ad spend are archaic and especially so when it comes to SAAS. You’d think SAAS and agency pricing models would have caught up or paid attention to the countless examples of charging a customer ‘what they’re worth’ rather than the hard work your fee represents leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
You don’t have to be a buyer of SAAS to know the sting of pricing by worth. How many times have you booked an AirBNB only to find the prices are heavily inflated because of a local event or occasion? Or tried to book an Uber in peak hours only to find out the cost is doubled?
How does the double cost translate to an improved service or enhanced experience? In my experience, it never does.
We all have countless personal experiences of this – remember Oasis tickets and dynamic pricing? Or the furore over the Pink Tax – where women are charging disproportionately more for the same razor, just because it’s pink?!
I find this pricing system – especially when it comes to buying a pre-made software script, utterly ridiculous.
So as for the software fees which are ‘Price on Application’, it’s a firm decision here that I won’t trade or do business with a company based on what we spend elsewhere.
Charge a fair fee based on your own value – not someone else’s.
