AMA: Brex Product Marketing Lead, Jesse Lopez on Pricing and Packaging

Rolling out pricing and packaging for a new product launch requires a well-planned execution plan that informs multiple audiences as to "what you are selling," "how you deliver value," and "why you are better than alternatives" in your product launch. The plan should include critical phases for enabling internal audiences, educating customers and partners, and collecting feedback from internal and external sources to optimize the rollout process. Key audiences to consider in your planning: Inter ...Read More

Your pricing and packaging are components of your competitive positioning - the way you group features or the value metric you use to charge a SaaS fee helps frame your offering to your target audiences. For example, suppose your packages serve different audiences with differentiated needs. In that case, your competitive positioning requires packaging that clearly states the positioning, benefits, and features each audience desires from your product category. Pricing is equally essential to posi ...Read More

Both - pricing is a team effort. PMM and PM should be in lock-step when building, executing, and optimizing a pricing strategy. Some considerations on critical phases of pricing strategy development:  Competitive differentiation: Both teams should proactively build a comprehensive understanding of the competitive landscape (e.g., how competitors price, what pricing/packaging models they offer, what makes their offering different or valuable, etc.) and form a joint POV on what makes the most sens ...Read More

A pricing launch is never easy; you must educate internal and external audiences on your pricing model's "what" and "why." Some key learnings based on my past experiences include: Over-communicate pricing plans to GTM partners (e.g., sales, customer success, customer support, etc.) to ensure there is a clear understanding of your pricing strategy (e.g., positioning & messaging, competitive differentiation, objection handling, etc.) and pricing timeline (announcement, go-live, post-launch rev ...Read More

With limited context into your exact situation, I can share some initiatives/tactics I have employed in the past to execute price increases or restrictions to features: Understand your customer base, assess the impact of pricing or feature changes for different customer audiences, and build communications based on those insights. There may be some customers that recommended changes may disproportionately impact, so preparing tailored communications by key audiences can help soften the pricing ne ...Read More

The role of PMM in pricing strategy varies across companies. There is never an "ideal" time to make pricing changes. My core belief is that a pricing strategy should be an active discussion between product, marketing, and GTM teams that is never locked but optimized as opportunities arise (e.g., clarify value, messaging, competitive differentiation, etc.). In organizations where PMM leads pricing decision-making, you should: Actively monitor your competitive landscape and understand how your pri ...Read More

It would be best if you considered both options when determining a pricing strategy for a product - based on my experience, the answer typically lies between both options. You want to articulate what value you deliver to your customers and ensure your price is competitive. Typically, when you base your pricing on competitive alternatives, customers can easily compare options across the marketplace and understand how you position vs. competitors. Marketing efforts usually anchor messaging that he ...Read More

Education, education, and more education! Adoption takes time and education. Many companies plan for a pricing rollout by writing an informative email, which drives awareness of change but not adoption. Some key tactics to drive adoption from your existing customers when pricing variables change:  Leverage in-app messaging on how variables have changed in context to the announcement (e.g., modals, tooltip, banner, etc.) to drive targeted education of changes and increase adoption. Track the perf ...Read More