Should we charge a flat monthly fee or per active user for our SaaS?

[KevinKW]

We’re about to launch a new SaaS tool and I’m stuck on whether to charge a flat monthly fee or use a per-active-user model. I see the logic in aligning our costs with customer usage, but I’m worried it might make our pricing feel unpredictable and scare off smaller teams right when they’re getting value.

[Luke_W]

I pushed for a flat monthly price at first. It gave my early customers a predictable bill and we learned quickly who would stay. When a team grew from 2 to 6, the price still felt fair, but once they brought in a couple contractors the math got fuzzy and some potential customers paused.

[Steven31]

During a short pilot we tried a per-active-user setup. It looked fair for bigger teams, but a 4-person shop ended up with 8 seats in a couple of weeks and their monthly bill jumped by about 40 percent, which didn’t feel right to them.

[TimothyS]

I keep wondering if the real bottleneck isn’t price at all but onboarding and visible value. If users see value early, a higher per-user price could work, but right now the signal is weak and adoption feels capricious.

[Larry.C]

Would a base price with a small per-seat add-on feel predictable enough for small teams while still letting bigger usage pay for itself, or is that just another halfway solution?