> why do so many SaaS lock SSO (Google/Microsoft) behind their Enterprise offerings?
"Price discrimination" is a pricing strategy where very similar products are sold at different prices in different market segments.
Imagine you've invented an amazing silver bullet that makes software developers 30% more productive.
For the likes of Google who pay developers $200k/year, getting 30% more productivity would be a great deal even if you were charging them $10k per user per year, because that productivity boost is worth $60k.
For unpaid students, casual users, open source projects and cash-strapped micro-businesses - a 30% improvement in $0 is still $0 so they can't afford much. Maybe $50/user/year, and they'll still complain like hell about it. But it'll help your tool spread and build word-of-mouth.
So how do you price your product - $50 or $10,000?
With "price discrimination" you can do both. Offer a cheap tier for home users and micro-businesses, and an enterprise tier with features Google desperately wants, at a much higher price.
By having prospective customers call for pricing, your sales folk can research each customer and figures out whether they're the kind of place that pays their developers $200k/year or more like $30k/year - allowing them to figure out how much the product is worth to that particular customer.
"Price discrimination" is a pricing strategy where very similar products are sold at different prices in different market segments.
Imagine you've invented an amazing silver bullet that makes software developers 30% more productive.
For the likes of Google who pay developers $200k/year, getting 30% more productivity would be a great deal even if you were charging them $10k per user per year, because that productivity boost is worth $60k.
For unpaid students, casual users, open source projects and cash-strapped micro-businesses - a 30% improvement in $0 is still $0 so they can't afford much. Maybe $50/user/year, and they'll still complain like hell about it. But it'll help your tool spread and build word-of-mouth.
So how do you price your product - $50 or $10,000?
With "price discrimination" you can do both. Offer a cheap tier for home users and micro-businesses, and an enterprise tier with features Google desperately wants, at a much higher price.
By having prospective customers call for pricing, your sales folk can research each customer and figures out whether they're the kind of place that pays their developers $200k/year or more like $30k/year - allowing them to figure out how much the product is worth to that particular customer.