Ask HN: How to price your first enterprise customer?
Your journey will be unique, so take everyone’s advice with a grain of salt. However, here is one thing I have learned about pricing after two decades of recurring revenue software and services: you can ALWAYS raise your price.<p>Many people will tell you that your price cannot be raised. That is utter BS. For the first enterprise customer, I suggest giving them a price they can’t refuse; something that will cover your bases providing a healthy gross margin (something like 70-80% after paying your hosting costs, support costs, and other direct selling expenses). But don’t make a “meal train” out of them yet.<p>Once you get their logo on your sales slide deck, it will be far easier to close enterprise deal #2. And once you reach perhaps ten enterprise customers, all of whom are extremely happy, then you can announce to the initial group that you intend to raise your price “a year from now”. For new customers, the price is already raised.<p>Keep doing this a batch at a time, but don’t let the price get too far behind. It is far more difficult to raise ancient customer prices by 50% all at once vs. a steady 5-10% per year all the way along. So long as you are continuing to provide good value, customers will stick with you.