Comprehensive Report Highlights Key Pricing Trends and Strategies for SaaS Companies in the First Quarter of 2024
PricingSaaS, a leading provider of B2B SaaS pricing research, announced the release of its 2024 Q1 B2B SaaS Pricing Benchmarks. This comprehensive report offers detailed insights into the latest pricing trends, strategies, and benchmarks for SaaS companies, providing invaluable information for businesses looking to optimize their pricing models.
The report reveals several key trends:
- AI Monetization: The proliferation of AI features and capabilities is in full swing. While many companies are adding AI features to existing plan tiers at no extra cost, explicit AI monetization is still in its infancy, with only 24.7% of companies charging for AI features.
- Usage-Based Pricing: Pure usage-based pricing (“Pay as You Go”) is present in about 12% of the companies studied, with over half incorporating at least one usage-based pricing component.
- Price and Packaging Updates: In Q1 2024, 12% of companies changed their prices, and 46% updated their packaging, with new features, plans, and adjustments to limits within plans being common.
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“We are excited to share the 2024 Q1 B2B SaaS Pricing Benchmarks with the industry,” said John Kotowski, Co-founder & CEO at PricingSaaS. “This report underscores the dynamic nature of SaaS pricing and offers actionable insights that can help companies enhance their monetization strategies.”
Key Findings
AI Pricing Models:
- Tiered Pricing: 55% of companies monetize AI through tiered pricing, integrating new AI capabilities into existing plans.
- Usage-Based Pricing: 30% charge for AI based on usage, using metrics like credits or tokens.
- Per-Seat Add-Ons: 14% use per-seat pricing to monetize AI, often around content generation and workflow automation.
- Outcome-Based Pricing: Only 1% charge for AI based on outcomes, a challenging but potentially valuable model.
Usage-Based Pricing:
- Consumption Metrics: 45% of usage-based pricing metrics are tied to consumption (e.g., compute power, data storage).
- Revenue/Cost Metrics: 20% charge based on revenue or costs (e.g., transaction fees, subscription fees).
- Sessions/End Users: 12% base their pricing on the number of sessions or end users.
- Units: 23% charge based on other units, such as projects or locations.
Notable Changes in Q1:
- Price Increases: Companies like Monday and Wix increased their prices by 12-20% and 6-12%, respectively.
- Packaging Changes: Anaconda added a new free plan and reduced plan prices, while Resemble supplemented its pay-as-you-go model with tiered plans.
Industry Context
The report’s findings highlight significant shifts in the SaaS industry, influenced by factors such as market saturation, evolving customer expectations, and technological advancements. By analyzing these trends, SaaS companies can better understand how to adjust their pricing strategies to remain competitive.
Sponsors and Sponsorship Opportunities
We would like to extend our gratitude to our sponsors, Pricing IO and Orb, whose support made this report possible. Pricing IO provides B2B SaaS pricing consulting services, while Orb offers usage-based billing software.