Instead of raising prices on its entire customer base, the company rewards its earliest adopters by letting them keep their original, deeply discounted price ($60-80/mo). This builds extreme loyalty, even as new customers pay 5-7x more ($400-500/mo) for the same platform.
Related Insights
Attract customers with a heavily discounted first month or term. Simultaneously, charge a substantial one-time setup fee. This strategy liquidates acquisition costs and generates immediate cash flow while the discount drives initial interest, solving two problems at once.
Superhuman's new suite uses a "one of n" bundling strategy. If a customer is a paid power user of any single product (like Coda or Superhuman Mail), they get access to the entire suite for roughly the same price. This leverages deep loyalty in one area to drive adoption and discovery across the platform.
Offer a significant, permanent discount exclusively to customers who sign up before a product or location officially launches. This creates urgency and scarcity, driving a large influx of initial customers and ensuring immediate profitability from day one.
To make annual contracts more compelling, introduce a substantial setup or integration fee in your pricing. Then, offer to waive this fee entirely if the customer signs a yearly agreement. This frames the decision around a significant, immediate saving, increasing commitment rates.
To generate cash flow and secure commitment before their product was mature, Qualia sold multi-year deals paid entirely upfront. The key was framing it as "pay for one year, get four free," which made the value proposition a no-brainer for early adopters and funded their development.
To increase retention, offer subscribers a permanent, high-value upgrade (e.g., 'free bacon for life') that they lose forever if they cancel their service. This leverages loss aversion, making the cost of churning much higher than the monthly fee.
Instead of offering a fixed lifetime price (e.g., "$10/month forever"), offer a percentage or dollar amount off the retail price. This allows you to raise your base prices in the future to account for inflation or added value, while still honoring the discount for loyal customers.
A significant one-time startup fee increases a customer's initial investment and creates a psychological barrier to leaving. This counterintuitive strategy can drastically reduce churn and increase lifetime value, as customers feel they have more to lose by canceling.
Customers who pay a significant initiation fee are psychologically primed to stay longer to justify their initial investment, even if their monthly rate is lower. This "sunk cost fallacy" makes them a "stickier" customer than those on low-cost, no-commitment plans.
Many subscription companies employ a "penetration strategy," pricing below cost to attract a large user base. Once loyalty is established, they leverage their pricing power to increase profits, shifting focus from pure growth to appeasing shareholders who now demand profitability.
