Subscription pricing change impact simulator
Pain Point
Founders cannot predict how price changes, upgrades, downgrades and trial conversions will affect MRR, proration and refunds until after launch.
Target User
SaaS founders and pricing or growth leads at small B2B/B2C SaaS
Keywords
Monetization
Free calculator for lead gen, then $19-39/mo team tier with saved scenarios, reporting and real Stripe distribution import.
Competition
BillingPlatform's billing engine handles complex pricing combinations, but configuration is heavy and enterprise-oriented — small teams cannot use it to quickly model how a price change affects revenue.
Project Brief
Overview
A web-based subscription pricing simulator: enter current plans, subscriber distribution and proposed price or upgrade/downgrade rules, and see the impact on MRR, proration, refunds and churn scenarios before changing anything.
Pain Point
BillingPlatform's engine can express complex pricing, but configuration is heavy and enterprise-oriented — no founder will spin up an environment just to model one price change. Today the fallback is Excel or intuition, so teams often see a short-term MRR bump followed by silent churn months later.
Target User
1-20 person SaaS founders and pricing/growth leads preparing a price increase or plan restructure; also consultants advising multiple SaaS clients on pricing.
Market Opportunity
Pricing is the highest-leverage variable in subscription business, yet tooling clusters around enterprise billing engines while the lightweight modeling layer is nearly empty. The source signal treats "handles complex pricing" as a selling point — real demand that has been over-engineered.
Monetization
A free calculator for SEO lead gen, then $19-39/mo for saved scenarios, comparison reports and Stripe subscriber-distribution import; consulting upsell possible.
Technical Complexity
Low. Mostly front-end computation with a light account layer. The real work is modeling proration, trials, annual discounts and upgrade/downgrade rules clearly and visualizing them understandably.
Competition
- Paddle / ProfitWell pricing services: consulting and research, no self-serve simulator
- Maxio, Chargebee, Zuora: quoting inside enterprise billing suites
- Excel templates: the most common substitute
- Entry barrier: low — easily copied, so the moat must be content and brand.
GTM Strategy
- Primary channel: SEO ("pricing change calculator", "proration calculator") plus Indie Hackers and r/SaaS content
- Cold-start tactic: publish "5 numbers to run before you change pricing" with the free calculator, seeded into r/SaaS and pricing Twitter circles
- Content leverage: pricing case teardowns and proration calculator long-tail terms (inferred)
Execution Plan
- MVP core features: plan input with subscriber distribution, MRR/proration comparison charts, shareable result links
- What NOT to build: direct billing-system integrations, automated price changes, complex usage-based modeling
- Tech stack suggestion: Next.js + Vercel, optionally Supabase for saved scenarios; ship front-end only first
- Estimated time to launch: 1-2 weeks (low)