What are the key differences between SaaS pricing and consumer software pricing?

The biggest differences in SaaS pricing and consumer software pricing can be grouped into 3 key buckets:

• Discounting

  • SaaS discounts based on volume - e.g. price per user typically goes down the more user seats you purchase. There is also room to negotiate the pricing based on volume, term length, or if the customer is already or also purchasing other products from the same vendor.

  • Consumer software discounts typically come in the form of term length - e.g. the monthly cost goes down the more months you purchase up-front, such as a 1 year or 2 year subscription.

• Contract Terms

  • SaaS contracts can be month to month, yearly, or multi-year depending on the business need and usually the business size - enterprise, mid-market, smb.

  • Consumer contracts are usually much simpler and non-negotiable with the ability to cancel at any time and terminate future billing periods.

• Editions

  • These actually can be fairly similarly when you unpack the details, but are presented in different ways. Both usually follow a Good, Better, Best framework.

  • SaaS editions are usually aimed at enterprise customers, vs. SMBs or even start-ups with specific depth of features and capabilities aimed at these particular segments.

  • Consumer editions are similar, but presented as more features for more money.

Of course, there's a lot more nuance to the specifics here, but this gives a high-level comparison of the big differences between SaaS and consumer software pricing.