The Pricing Mistakes Almost Every Founder Makes
Pricing gets less thought than any decision of comparable consequence, and the errors are remarkably consistent.
Last updated 2026-08-17
Mistake one: pricing against competitors
Your competitor's price reflects their cost structure, their funding and their segment — none of which are yours. Price against the workaround your customer uses today, because that is what they are actually comparing you to.
Mistake two: defaulting to per-seat
Per-seat is easy to explain and often actively hostile to adoption, because it penalises the customer for rolling you out. If your value scales with usage or outcomes, price on that instead.
Mistake three: fearing the price rise
- Cheap customers churn more and demand more support
- A low price caps what you can spend to acquire, which caps growth
- In B2B a low price reads as a toy, not a bargain
- The conversion drop from a price rise is almost always smaller than founders fear