Anecdotes and Background on Getting into Pricing

Maciej Wilczyński is a pricing expert and Partner at Valueships, a consultancy boutique specializing in software, cloud, subscription, and digital businesses. He is also a lecturer and faculty at the Wroclaw University of Economics, where he has finished his PhD title in strategic management, writing a thesis about software-as-a-service companies and their pricing capabilities.

He gained consulting experience at McKinsey & Company, where he led the EMEA part of Agile Insights solutions focused on digital marketing and customer insights.

In this episode, Maciej discusses the potential positive impact on your SaaS pricing when considering the removal of grandfathering for customers.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Discover significant insights to expanding your business and boosting your income with SaaS pricing strategies
• Understand the ins and outs of SaaS pricing and gain insights into how companies can effectively gauge the value of their offerings, empowering them to make confident decisions in pricing
• Unlock valuable insights about grandfathering customers and potentially double your income

"Value-based pricing has an ability to at least double your current business."

- Maciej Wilczynski

Topics Covered:

01:33 - Just wasn't cut out for a metal band fame

02:22 - How he got into pricing

04:19 - What Valueships is all about

05:31 - B2B SaaS pricing and what makes it interesting

08:12 - Buying growth with pricing

10:31 - Four major reasons companies don't raise prices

14:20 - Important thoughts on companies grandfathering customers [effect on short-term and long-term]

19:18 - No such thing as lifetime pricing 

22:29 - Why pricing is hard and where should you get the motivation to increase price

24:57 - What you should bear in mind when increasing prices: listen to the majority and not to the few complaining minority

29:03 - Connecting your price increase to a customer-centric narrative

30:51 - Maciej's best pricing advice

Key Takeaways:

"You should forget the word forever or lifetime in pricing." - Maciej Wilczyński

"Where should companies look for the courage and energy to do it [pricing] is purely from value exercise." - Maciej Wilczyński

"To really understand the value, run as many case studies as you can, quantified case studies, try calculating the ROI of your service initially internally as an exercise, as a workshop in exercise, and then move and try to do it with your customers to see the power of the product." - Maciej Wilczyński

"Pricing starts from value, but if you're afraid of raising prices, simply look at your churn rates. If they're below four or 3%, you're good to go." - Maciej Wilczyński

People/Resources Mentioned:

• Patrick Campbell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickccampbell
• Zappos: https://www.zappos.com
• Stephan Liozu: https://impactpricing.com/podcast/classic-value-based-pricing-how-to-get-started-and-how-to-succeed-with-stephan-liozu/
• Appsumo: https://appsumo.com
• Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/ph-en/
• Utpal M. Dholakia: https://hbr.org/2021/06/if-youre-going-to-raise-prices-tell-customers-why

Connect with Maciej Wilczyński:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wilczynskim/

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/
• Email: mark@impactpricing.com