The 9 Basecamps to Better SaaS Pricing (Step-by-Step)
Maarten Laruelle How do you actually get to better pricing? Not by starting with the price. Most founders jump straight to “how much should we charge?” That’s the last step, not the first.
In this video I walk through the 9 basecamps of my pricing method — a route from understanding who your customers are all the way to setting the price itself.
Basecamp 1: Who’s already buying (and why)?
Before you can price for anyone, you need to know who’s actually showing up to buy from you today, and what brought them there. Your existing customer base is the cheapest, fastest source of truth about your market.
Basecamp 2: Drawing the lines between customer segments
Not all customers buy for the same reason. Segmentation isn’t about industry codes — it’s about the underlying job they’re hiring you to do. The lines you draw here determine how you’ll package, position, and price later.
Basecamp 3: What they’re hiring you for
Beyond the segment, the specific outcome. The promotion they want to give themselves. The risk they want to avoid. The metric on their dashboard that needs to move. Get this wrong and every downstream pricing decision misfires.
Basecamp 4: The path to value
How do customers actually get from signup to outcome? Where does value compound, where does friction kill it? This is the curve your pricing has to follow.
Basecamp 5: What drives the bill
What should the customer pay for? Seats? Usage? Outcomes? Time saved? The closer the bill tracks the outcome your customer achieves, the more value you capture.
Basecamp 6: Your building blocks
Break the product into pieces customers actually recognize. These are what you’ll combine into packages, not the engineering modules from your backlog.
Basecamp 7: Packaging and growth paths
How do the building blocks combine into tiers? More importantly, how do customers grow between them? Packaging is a growth tool, not a price-fence.
Basecamp 8: Payment structure — how customers want to pay
Subscription, commitment, credits, usage, hybrids. The structure shapes cash flow, predictability, and how your customer experiences cost. Get this wrong and even the right number feels wrong.
Basecamp 9: Your price — the last step, not the first
Only now does the number make sense. By the time you reach this basecamp, the price is informed by who’s buying, why, what they value, what drives cost, and how they want to pay. You’re not guessing anymore.
The closer the bill tracks the outcome your customer achieves, the more value you capture.
Working on your pricing? Let’s talk.