How to Price a Micro SaaS Product
Pricing is the highest-leverage decision you will make and the one founders agonise over least productively. A few principles remove most of the agony.
Last updated 2026-08-17
Price against the workaround
Your competitor is not another product — it is the spreadsheet, or the four hours a week somebody spends doing it by hand. Price a fraction of what that costs and the value case makes itself.
If somebody spends four hours a month on a task and their loaded cost is $40 an hour, you are displacing $160 of cost. Charging $49 is not expensive; it is obvious.
Why low prices hurt
- Cheap customers churn hardest and ask for the most support
- A low price caps the acquisition spend you can afford, which caps growth
- Raising prices later is possible but awkward; starting higher is easier
- A low price signals a toy, which is fatal in B2B
Test before you commit
The pricing calculator models how a price change flows through conversion and revenue. A higher price with lower conversion often nets out ahead — and better retention compounds that further.