What's REALLY holding you back from launching your pricing? 💭
Laura here from @Atlas 👋🏻, and the team is genuinely curious about something we keep hearing from founders:
"We know we need to launch pricing, but..."
and then there's always a but.
So we want to get real with you all - what's actually stopping you from pulling the trigger on your pricing model?
Is it the fear factor? 😰
Are you worried about picking the "wrong" price and scaring customers away?
Stressed about not having enough customer research or willingness-to-pay data?
Paralyzed by all the big decisions (freemium vs. paid, tiered vs. usage-based, etc.)?
Afraid of that awkward conversation with early users about starting to charge?
Or is it the engineering headache? 🛠️
Dreading the technical work of connecting billing to your app?
Overwhelmed by invoicing, payment processing, and subscription management?
Worried about building something that breaks or charges people incorrectly?
Just don't know where to even start with the implementation?
We're asking because we want to build our product in a way that helps solve these pain points for you - so understanding which one hits hardest is super valuable for us!
Drop a comment and tell me honestly - what's your biggest pricing launch blocker? Is it the strategy stuff, the technical stuff, or something completely different?
Let's help each other out! 🚀
Replies
Purposeful Poop
unsolicited feedback, but i noticed your pricing page is a bit rough. i think im to some extent your target customer, but i figured the easiest way to vet what i would get from you was to look at your own pricing page.
i guess to put it gently, this was insufficient to convert me :)
hope that helps, and congrats on shipping!
Atlas
@catt_marroll OH! yeah, we are currently in the process of moving our current pricing page (webflow) over to be hosted by our own app. I totally hear you — a company that is saying they specialize in pricing and can't get their own pricing page right is a red flag. I promise, the update is happening soon! cc: @albert_colmenero_collado @clay_miner
That said, we'd love for you to try it out (it's FREE!!!!).
And also, would love to hear your thoughts on the forum question - What's held you back from pricing your product?
Atlas
@catt_marroll great feedback Matt, thanks for being honest. We're on it!
Atlas
@catt_marroll Totally fair! We've updated that pricing page quite a few times shortly after our launch and cleaned it up... Classic startup stuff... move-fast-and-break-stuff... turns out "stuff" was our own pricing page! :'-D
Appreciate you checking it out and stress testing it though. Especially coming from someone who knows a thing or two about tracking where the shit happens.
Atlas
@catt_marroll Temporarily fixed in webflow (for now)! the team got on it super fast.
Next up, moving it to our own platform. Stay tuned! 👀
Purposeful Poop
@laura_cruickshanks awesome! looks much better :)
Yes to all of the above? 🫣
But also — the fear of pricing too low or too high, and then not getting sufficient signal on which way to adapt — up or down!
Atlas
@chrismessina great call out - its not just a technical capability thats a hurdle, its also insight!
Atlas
@chrismessina So, it's a follow up action. Are you thinking it's a manual process, like an interview? Or an automated thing, like a feedback form? Which one were you thinking of and/or which one seems more daunting?
Hey Laura, there are more factors, but I would like to point out two main ones from my own "feeling" and also from the company experience.
My feeling: I come from a background where the price is not so communicated (which is not good) because I used to be not so accurate about the price (I used to undervalue myself, resulting in anxiety, and that feeling I cannot handle everything for such a low price – but I am fixing this one)
The company experience: TL;DR: We faced such comments as "You motherf*ckers, that is a theft."; "Pricy product"; "You a**holes, make it free!" – yes, I am that person who has to handle this 💩storms and explain to people that employees need to be paid for their work. 😀 This experience helps me have tougher skin.
Atlas
@busmark_w_nika OMG! that's a nightmare!!! I'm so sorry to hear how you were abused. 😭
It sounds like you were afraid to commit to a single price. Perhaps you were experimenting and seeing what would stick? If you could do it again, would you want someone to help you walk through that process today?
@laura_cruickshanks It is not so bad now when you are used to it :D
To be honest, the price evolved. Of course, at the beginning, when the product didn't have many users, we had a free version (for beta testing), but gradually, prices were increased.
Of course, many people right now write how the product is pricy, but it is a small %. A huge number of people are willing to pay for it, and that's a sign that our pricing is fair enough. We also customised it to regions.
Dunno whether we would collab on the pricing, but at least we would like to know the pricing of competitors... it is hard to say because we were among the first coming up with such a product, and marketing research couldn't bring us enough pricing data (because there wouldn't be so many back then)
Atlas
@busmark_w_nika Oh no, I wasn't suggesting we collab now. It was more of a hypothetical question of what you would do differently looking back.
It sounds like you were new to the market so even doing competitive research was hard.
Too many options. Tiered? Usage? Flat rate? My brain just shuts down.
Atlas
@dharpal_chauhan sounds like you get stuck on the strategy part. Would you want some one to guide you through that?
Nothing, here it is :P https://equip.co/pricing/
On a serious note, I hear you. Scaring customers away and leaving money on the table always seems scary. Have read some articles here that I found useful https://www.growthunhinged.com/t/pricing
Atlas
@aishwaryalohi Oh yeah, Kyle Poyar has some great articles. We reference him all the time!
I get it, publishing that first pricing page is scary. Are you able to talk to customers to get feedback on whether or not that price point is fair? What happens if you need to pivot and change the price or pricing model? Is that a concern? Or is that an easy task once you make a decision?
Atlas
@aishwaryalohi PS - good luck on your launch!!!!! 🎉
@laura_cruickshanks thanks!
IMGPT
Great question, Laura.
For us at IMGPT, the hardest part wasn’t just the “strategy vs. tech” debate… it was making decisions under total uncertainty.
When you’re launching, you have no LTV, no CAC, no clue how long it takes to convert a user. So we had to pick a model we could test and adapt fast. Here’s what we learned:
Freemium vs. Trial:
We went with a free trial, not freemium. Freemium works better when your costs are low and user LTV is clearer. A trial gives people value upfront, but with stronger conversion urgency.
Credit card or no card?
We skipped the card. Yes, conversion drops, but you get more users, more feedback, and less friction.
(Pro tip): If you think you might go freemium later, a no-card trial setup lets you easily move to a freemium model.
Pay-as-you-go vs. Tiered:
We mix both. Plans are tiered (monthly or quarterly), but users can top up with pay-as-you-go tokens inside the app. It's a last-resort for people who don’t want a plan, and we make sure that the smallest plan gives more value than the add-on.
TL;DR: Strategy was the hard part, especially choosing a model that let us iterate fast. Engineering came second. But we wanted pricing to learn, not be perfect.
Atlas
@davidpopescu66 yeah, i totally agree. Strategy is hard, and if your code isn't set up for quick pivots, then Engineering is hard! is there anything you would've done differently?