Practical pricing insights for SaaS and IoT scale-up founders.
Maarten Laruelle Notes from Wintercircus Gent with Roeland Delrue (Aikido Security) and Cameron Deatsch (ex-Atlassian). Two completely different companies, two different growth stages, but the same underlying thread about scaling.
Maarten Laruelle From a conversation with Dylan Mendes of We Are Sales: seven things about pricing that keep coming up in every scaling company.
Maarten Laruelle Not all AI is created equal for pricing. Three distinct categories of AI features need three different pricing approaches. Here is the framework I use after working with several scale-ups adding AI to their products.
Maarten Laruelle Aikido Security reached €16M ARR in 3 years with radically simple pricing. Not through value-based pricing, but by deliberately ignoring it. Sometimes market capture is your value capture.
Maarten Laruelle Product managers make pricing decisions every day without realizing it. Three common mistakes that cost real money, and what to do about them.
Maarten Laruelle A beer tour entrepreneur in Belgium discovered that simplifying pricing for additional participants led to higher revenue. The lesson: shield your customers from your internal cost structure.
Maarten Laruelle Outcome-based pricing ties fees to measurable results, but customers often resist when they invest heavily in achieving those outcomes themselves. Here is what actually works.
Maarten Laruelle A case study in asset management showing how to handle four pricing dimensions by splitting into two distinct models: comprehensive for critical assets and simplified for peripheral ones.
Maarten Laruelle A modern pinball machine costs between €12,000 and €15,000 for collectors but far less for arcade operators. The same product, two completely different markets. Here is why that matters for SaaS pricing.
Maarten Laruelle A pricing workshop revealed that user-based pricing can disadvantage certain customer segments. Evaluating two distinct profiles showed the need for a more nuanced approach.
Maarten Laruelle When pricing AI workflow solutions that span multiple departments, you face a fundamental choice: discount for land-and-expand, or charge a premium for multi-department orchestration value.
Maarten Laruelle Documenting every pricing decision in a central tool like Miro, Notion, or Obsidian can save your organization thousands by preventing repeated mistakes and preserving institutional knowledge.
Maarten Laruelle A nine-step framework for building a pricing strategy that reflects the value you deliver, from customer portfolio analysis to setting the right price point.
Maarten Laruelle A structured customer interview template with seven sections designed for recent customers, helping you gather practical pricing and product insights.
Maarten Laruelle Rob Fitzpatrick's Mom Test teaches us to ask better questions in customer conversations, avoiding false positives that lead to misguided pricing and product decisions.
Maarten Laruelle The actual six-section customer survey template with ready-to-use questions. A companion to 'A template for structured customer surveys' with the complete interview guide.
Maarten Laruelle A practical six-section customer survey template designed for startups facing high churn, focused on uncovering the real reasons customers leave and what would make them stay.
The Pricing Guide covers SaaS pricing strategy from A to Z.
Read the Pricing Guide