What is cost plus pricing strategy?

Why did GoodData stop showing their pricing page?

• The trend in design of saas websites tends to include a pricing page with the different packages and options with their price. As a potential customer I like this because it gives me an instant insight into what it might cost me to use the product. But gooddata decided to stop using this kind of sales page and instead require customers to ring for information which in my opinion adds a barrier to customer signup. I remember having seen the pricing page for http://gooddata.com (the latest I can find on the web archive dates all the way back to 2010 http://web.archive.org/web/20100811023135/http://www.gooddata.com/pricing/) Anyone got any ideas as to why this might be a good strategy?

• Answer:

  Sorry guys, you are all wrong ;) I am a huge fan of transparency.  I always had transparent pricing at EchoSign up to $20m in ARR or so.  But once you get bigger, you basically have to do this, or at least some variant of it.  Salesforce's variant is pseudo-transparency, with the high end being ~$300/seat, but really this is just an anchor for pricing for larger deals.  You'll see Box does the same -- the top of the pricing page looks transparent (and certainly is, up to a point), but the "Elite Plan" at the bottom is "Call for Pricing". Why? First, deals will get more complex and bigger.  You'll eventually do a $100k deal, then a $250k deal, and then ... some day .. a $1m ACV deal.  Those deals will be priced based as a solution, not a tool.   And they can't be fully expressed as part of $X/seat/mo pricing.  If services, etc. are implicitly or explicitly included, integrations, etc. ... that can't always be fully expressed in List Pricing. Second, discounting will get complicated.  I know you don't want to discount, you want Fair Pricing for All.  So did I.  But as you go further and further into the enterprise, this becomes impractical.  Your champion will require a discount.  Then, it will get sent to procurement.  Procurement's bonus will be tied to the next discount they win.  If you have rigid pricing, you'll blow the deal and make customers frustrated in Large Enterprise Deals.  I almost blew a key, make-the-company deal with one of the most successful web company because of rigid pricing.  Even if as founders we know this is irrational and wastes cycles. Third, you'll end up with multiple pricing tracks and want to have salespeople segment them.  A $100k deal is sold differently than a $700k deal.  "Call me" is a way to make sure you go down the right path. Fourth, enterprise customers don't mind.  Enterprise customers don't demand transparency, believe it or not.  80%+ of them want to be sold to.  To get a webinar, and then, a personalized demo.  To be quoted "list" pricing and negotiate it down.  They are OK that pricing isn't quoted on the pricing page.  Small businesses don't want to buy this way, they hate it.  But true F500 type buyers are fine with this.  They expect it in fact.  I know this may be counterintuitive if you haven't been through it before.  But trust me. Fifth, you may inadvertently create negative signaling.  Turns out this is important.  I know you are proud of transparent pricing, if you do it (I was).  It seems so customer-centric.  But once you have a brand, or at least, a mini-brand, it won't all be about price.  If your competitor says "Call Me" and appears more or equally enterprise-grade and trustworthy -- your transparent pricing may say "cheap". I love transparent pricing.  But I think as you get bigger, you'll gonna end up with "Call Me".  Or some variant thereof.  And you can still be just as customer-centric as you are today.