Kim acknowledged that the handful of customers a typical B2B company has versus a B2C business does change “the equations quite a bit.” But he believes the basic framework is relevant.
Whether you’re B2B or B2C you still need to ask, and answer the following questions to inform your pricing structure:
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What kind of business environment am I operating in?
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How many customers do I have?
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What kind of competition do I face?
Being strategic with user fees is also important. You want to encourage potential customers to experiment with and experience a broad range of your products. But often user fees do the opposite, leading clients to limit the number of users to keep costs down. The downside, which Sudhir outlined is, that chokes off the incentive for users to “try out, understand, learn, …” reducing potential “penetration of the product.”
Balancing these trade-offs might mean that a freemium model makes sense. You could start with a fixed trial period. Or you could offer a basic free offering indefinitely, combined with tiered pricing for a higher level of service.