Pricing & packaging

Set your price on value, not on your costs

The first mistake, and by far the most widespread, is to calculate your price from your costs. You add up your expenses, tack on a comfortable margin, and get a rate. It's reassuring, it's logical, and it's almost always too low. Because this reasoning ignores the only thing your customer really cares about: what your offer brings them.

In B2B, a buyer never pays for your effort. They pay for a result: time gained, extra revenue, a risk averted, a team relieved. The question to ask isn't "how much does what I sell cost me", but "how much is the problem I solve worth to my customer". If your solution saves a company 100,000 euros a year, billing it 5,000 euros because that's what its production costs you is an economic aberration. You're giving them 95,000 euros for no reason.

Concretely, start from the customer gain. Estimate it, even roughly, and capture a fraction of it. Many B2B offers position themselves around ten to twenty percent of the value created for the customer: enough for the purchase to remain a financial no-brainer on their side, enough for your margin to be healthy on yours. Your costs serve only one purpose in this calculation: to check that the resulting price leaves you a margin. They set a floor, never the price itself.

Packaging your offers: tiers and options

A good price isn't enough. You also need to present what you sell so that the customer chooses fast and well. That's the whole point of packaging: splitting your value into clear offers, easy to compare, that guide the decision rather than drown it.

The most effective structure remains tiers, usually three. An entry tier that addresses the basic need, a middle tier that answers the most common case, and a top tier for the most demanding customers. This logic works because it speaks a language every buyer understands instinctively: "which one is for me". Most recognise themselves in the middle offer, which is no accident, we'll come back to it with anchoring.

A few principles for building these tiers without going wrong:

• Give each tier a name that speaks to the customer, not internal jargon. "Essential", "Standard", "Premium" beat an obscure product reference.
• Raise the perceived value from one tier to the next, not just the quantity. The customer must see why it's worth moving up a level.
• Limit the number of tiers. Beyond three or four, you create hesitation, and a customer who hesitates postpones their decision.
• Reserve options and add-on modules for genuinely variable needs. Not everything should be an option: too much choice paralyses.

Packaging is also a positioning tool. The way you split your offers says who you're addressing. A very accessible entry tier attracts small structures; an ambitious top tier signals that you can handle important accounts. This split must stay consistent with your go-to-market strategy and with the customer profile you target first.

Choosing the right pricing model

Beyond the amount and the packaging, there's the question of the mechanics: how does the customer pay, and for what exactly. Three main models dominate B2B, and each sends a different message.

The subscription, that is a recurring amount, monthly or yearly, has become the norm for software and many services. It smooths the spend for the customer, secures your revenue, and creates a lasting relationship. The downside: it forces you to prove your value continuously, on pain of seeing the customer cancel.

The usage-based model bills according to actual consumption: number of users, volume processed, requests made. It reassures the customer, who only pays for what they use, and naturally supports their growth. In return, it makes your revenue less predictable and can complicate reading the invoice if the consumption metric is poorly chosen.

The licence, finally, corresponds to a more one-off payment for a usage right, sometimes with annual maintenance. It suits stable products, sold to organisations that prefer a clean investment rather than a recurring commitment. It simplifies the purchase but limits revenue over time.

The right model is the one that fits the way your customer draws value from your offer. If value grows with usage, bill by usage. If it's continuous, subscription is the obvious choice. And nothing stops you combining them: a subscription base with a usage share is very common today, provided the whole thing stays understandable at a glance.

Working on anchoring and value perception

A price is never perceived in the absolute. It's always compared to something: another price, an expectation, a mental reference. This is what's called anchoring, and it's a powerful lever, provided you use it honestly.

The mechanism is simple. The first price a customer sees becomes their reference, and all the following ones are judged against it. That's why presenting your most complete, therefore most expensive, offer first makes the others look more reasonable. It's also why the middle tier, in a range of three, sells so well: it benefits from a low reference below and a high reference above, and appears as the common-sense choice.

Value perception is also built by everything surrounding the price. An offer presented with concrete results, customer references, a guarantee or a proof of return on investment justifies a higher rate than a bare offer. The price doesn't defend itself alone: it's defended by the context you set around it. Tending to this context is an integral part of your positioning and of the way you talk to your target customer.

One last point on form. A round, clean price inspires confidence on a premium offer; a precise price suggests a rigorous calculation. Presentation matters, but it never replaces substance. Anchoring showcases real value; it doesn't create value that doesn't exist.

Avoiding B2B pricing mistakes

Some mistakes come back in almost every young B2B company. Knowing them is already half the way to avoiding them.

The most common is setting your prices too low. For fear of scaring people off, out of a lack of confidence, or from the habit of reasoning in costs, many under-charge. The trap is twofold. First, you leave money on the table. Second, a price that's too low sends a signal of low value: in B2B, a wary executive often wonders what's wrong with an abnormally cheap offer. Too low doesn't necessarily attract, it can even repel.

The second mistake is complexity. Illegible pricing grids, dozens of options, terms that change according to obscure criteria: all of this slows the decision and wears down trust. A buyer who doesn't understand your price within seconds postpones their purchase or asks for a discount to reassure themselves. Simplicity sells better. If you can't explain your offer and its price in one sentence, it's too complicated.

Here are the other classic traps to watch for:

• Aligning your price on the cheapest in the market, and entering a price war you can't win.
• Granting discounts by reflex, at the slightest sign of hesitation, which teaches the market to always negotiate.
• Keeping the same price for years while the offer has kept gaining value.
• Having a price inconsistent with the sales pitch: selling premium and billing like low cost, or the reverse.

Testing and adjusting your pricing

Nobody finds the right price the first time, and that's normal. Pricing isn't a fixed decision but a setting you refine over time with market feedback. The good news is that there are simple ways to test without risking everything.

Start by listening. When you sell, watch the reactions at the moment you state the price. If no one ever bats an eye, it's often the sign that you're too low. If everyone gets defensive, you may be too high, or the value isn't clear enough. The rate at which your prospects accept or refuse your proposals is a mine of information.

You can also test in real conditions. Offer a higher price on part of your new offers and compare the results. Launch a new range at an ambitious rate. Change a tier and measure the effect on customers' choices. The idea isn't to overturn everything at once, but to move forward through small observable adjustments.

When the time comes to raise your prices, and that time always comes, tend to the method. Tie the increase to visible value, give your customers notice in advance, ease a transition for ongoing contracts, and apply the new rate first to new customers. A well-handled increase almost always goes down better than feared. The real danger isn't raising prices, it's staying still while your value keeps growing.

Pricing is foundational work, never finished, that deserves to be reviewed at least once a year. It's one of the most profitable growth levers there is: changing a price costs far less than hiring a salesperson, and its effect on your margin is immediate.

Frequently asked questions

How do you set a price when launching a new B2B offer?

Start from the value your customer gains: time saved, revenue generated, risk avoided. Estimate this annual gain, then set a price that captures a reasonable fraction of it, often ten to twenty percent. If you have no benchmark, offer three deliberately spread-out prices and observe what customers actually choose. Their choices are worth more than any market study.

Should you show your prices on your site in B2B?

Showing at least a range or an entry price reassures and qualifies. Visitors out of budget disqualify themselves, and those who stay arrive already convinced of the price range. For very bespoke offers, show a starting point, along the lines of "from", rather than total silence that scares people off and lets them believe the price can be negotiated endlessly.

How do you raise your prices without losing customers?

Tie the increase to visible value: a new feature, an added service, a proven result. Give notice in advance, keep the current rate for a while for your existing customers, and apply the new price first to new contracts. An increase of ten to fifteen percent a year rarely becomes an issue when the value follows. The real risk is staying too low for too long.

Pricing isn't steered in isolation. It's part of your overall go-to-market strategy, alongside your GTM strategy and your positioning and ICP. It's by aligning these three pieces that your price becomes a real commercial force.