SaaS pricing and revenue simulator
Pain Point
Complex pricing (usage/tiered/multi-currency) makes revenue and churn hard to forecast, so decisions rely on guesswork and are error-prone.
Target User
SaaS founders and pricing leads
Keywords
Monetization
Free basic simulation; $9-19/mo for saved scenarios, comparison, exports, and sharing
Competition
BillingPlatform supports complex pricing models but targets large enterprises with heavy deployment and high cost, so small teams can't use it for quick pre-pricing simulations.
Project Brief
Overview
An online tool that lets SaaS founders simulate MRR, churn, and LTV under usage-based, tiered, and multi-currency pricing before launch, so they can compare pricing scenarios by revenue impact.
Pain Point
Under complex billing, revenue is hard to forecast and founders price by gut feel; enterprise tools like BillingPlatform can compute it but are heavy to deploy and expensive, unsuitable for early teams doing quick what-if analysis and comparison.
Target User
Early-to-growth SaaS founders, pricing/growth product and ops people, especially teams adopting usage-based pricing or planning a pricing change.
Market Opportunity
The source notes that manual management of complex pricing is error-prone and inefficient. Pricing is a key revenue lever, yet lightweight, paid simulation tools are scarce; most existing calculators are simple and free, with no saving or comparison.
Monetization
Inferred: freemium — basic simulation free; $9-19/mo unlocks multiple saved scenarios, comparison, export, and sharing.
Technical Complexity
Low. Pure frontend calculation + charts (Recharts), plus auth and saving. The main challenge is clean abstraction of pricing models and formula accuracy.
Competition
- Free MRR/pricing calculators: single-purpose, no saving or comparison.
- Baremetrics/ChartMogul: post-hoc revenue analytics, not pre-pricing simulation.
- BillingPlatform/Zuora: enterprise-grade, heavy and costly, not self-serve. Entry barrier: low — easy to copy; differentiate via richer models and UX.
GTM Strategy
- Primary channel: SEO ("saas pricing calculator," "usage-based pricing model") + content marketing.
- Cold-start: post "how we priced our SaaS" stories on r/SaaS and Indie Hackers.
- Content leverage: pricing guides, pricing-model comparisons, downloadable templates as email capture.
Execution Plan
- MVP features: (1) three or four pricing models (flat/tiered/usage), (2) MRR/churn/LTV charts, (3) scenario saving and shareable links.
- What NOT to build: real billing integration, invoicing, complex permissions.
- Tech stack: Next.js + Vercel + Recharts + Supabase.
- Estimated time: low, 1-2 weeks.