Pricing
The value metric: what to actually charge for
Before the price, before the tiers, one decision governs everything: what you charge PER. Get the value metric right and the rest of pricing gets easy.
The value metric is the unit you charge per — per seat, per project, per thousand API calls, per outcome. It's the single most important pricing decision, and most founders skip straight past it to “how much,” which is the wrong order.
Get the value metric right and price feels fair, scales naturally, and grows the account as the customer succeeds. Get it wrong and no amount of tuning the number will fix it.
What makes a good value metric
Three tests. It should align with the value the customer gets — they pay more as they get more. It should be easy for the customer to understand and predict — surprise bills destroy trust. And it should grow with the customer's success, not their pain — charging per support ticket punishes the customer for your product's failures.
Slack charges per active user, not per message. Stripe charges per transaction, not per API call. In both cases the metric tracks value, scales with success, and makes intuitive sense. That's not an accident.
Choosing yours
The right metric is specific to how YOUR product creates value, which is why generic pricing advice fails here. Cadenly's Pricing Strategy workflow derives the value metric from your actual product and justifies it — then builds the model and tiers on top of that foundation, in the right order.
- The value metric is what you charge per — decided before the price.
- A good metric aligns with value, is predictable, and grows with success.
- Charging per the customer's pain (e.g. per ticket) backfires.
Get the foundation right
Cadenly derives your value metric from your product, then builds the price on top.
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