Should we switch from per-user pricing to a flat rate for our saas?

[Justin.L]

I’m trying to decide if we should switch our SaaS product from a per-user monthly fee to a flat-rate platform fee. The main issue is that our heaviest users are small teams who feel penalized by seat-based pricing, but I’m worried a flat rate will leave a lot of money on the table from our larger clients.

[OliverT]

Back when we were on per-user pricing, the small teams carried a lot of waste because they paid for seats they barely used. We experimented with a flat-rate platform fee for a quarter and it landed well with 2 to 3 person teams who finally felt ownership over cost. The downside was that the bigger teams asked for more analytics and governance, and we kept deferring those requests.

[William80]

As a founder, I watched the heavy users push for more value while their bill didn’t grow with usage. We ran a pilot where large teams paid the same as medium teams and the math looked off on paper, yet we saw adoption stay solid and renewals dip only slightly.

[Michael.M]

I tried a two tier setup in a mock pricing table for two weeks: small teams under 5 on one price and everyone else at a higher flat rate. Measured activation, churn, and net revenue. Activation ticked up a bit, churn fluctuated, and the last week the numbers looked noisy.

[MatthewRR]

Is the real issue here that the product isn’t delivering enough incremental value to larger orgs, or is it the feeling of unfairness that pushes buyers toward a different model?

[KyleTC]

I drifted into onboarding emails, thinking if we just taught people how to use the platform better maybe pricing wouldn't sting as much. Then a call with a customer made me realize the problem wasn’t how we charge but how they measure value.

[Jason_L]

We tried a hybrid: base monthly plus a per seat above a threshold, which felt like we kept the small teams happy while not leaving money on the table. We tracked MR revenue, renewal rate, and callbacks about price. It helped reduce pushback but still required guardrails.

[Richard46]

From the finance side we ran a simple sensitivity model: what if the top 5 accounts would be underpaying by 20 percent under a flat-rate scheme. The gap was big enough to rethink timing and we paused a rollout.