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"Contact Sales" is annoying to see, but for a small company I think it's a good sign. It means they're focusing on their product, not the automation of sales. T

by gitgud 4y ago

"Contact Sales" is annoying to see, but for a small company I think it's a good sign. It means they're focusing on their product, not the automation of sales. They'd rather talk directly to interested customers, rather than scale and automate the sales pipeline for "mass-adoption". Think of the alternative, a startup focuses on scaling their signup/payment flow, and have to sacrifice time-to-market and reduce the amount of time they're actually talking to customers and working on the product...

carlosjobim 4y ago
> It means they're focusing on their product, not the automation of sales. To me it means they don't understand their own product or customers, since they can't list a price for the typical use case.
- jlbooker 4y ago
  I'm the CTO of a bootstrapped SaaS product targeting the higher education market. We don't list a price on the website because there are many variables that affect the final price. Every school has their single-sign-on system, for example. There are obviously several popular options, but there's also a whole host of obscure options. Every university IT department has their own preferences about how the integration will go. That very much changes how time-consuming the implementation will be for our company, and thus affects the price. There's no way to know this until we talk about what kind of integration the school wants. We also vary the price based on school size. Huge research-1 level schools pay more than tiny public liberal arts schools -- and rightly so. The big schools have more funding and more spare cash. They also have bigger, more complicated implementations since they have 50+ thousand students and hundreds of faculty. The size of the school also feeds into how expensive the customer is going to be to service, and thus affects our pricing. How do I put all that into a single price on the website?
  - carlosjobim 4y ago
    > The big schools have more funding and more spare cash. There you go. Honest businesses don't make their prices with regards to how much "spare cash" their client might have. > How do I put all that into a single price on the website? You divide it into parts that can be priced. If there is a bespoke part you put an hourly rate for that implementation, or daily rate, or any way of counting the rate that suits you. You can use the projects you have finished to publish examples for future potential clients, where they can compare a little bit and get a rough idea of what it would cost them. Just getting any kind of price information out there is much better than nothing, because then a potential client knows if it's within their range. You also avoid people who cannot afford your product.
    - satvikpendem 4y ago
      > Honest businesses don't make their prices with regards to how much "spare cash" their client might have. Yes they do. This is indeed how supply and demand works, companies price what the market is willing to pay, it's just that in this case, the market is a clientele of 1.
      - throwawaysalome 4y ago
        Most consumers agree price discrimination (charging two residents of the same town different prices) is dishonest.
        satvikpendem 4y ago
        Enterprise deals are not the same as consumer deals. Even with consumer deals, I wouldn't expect a consultant to charge a flat fee for someone, it all depends on their needs. If the customer needs more in depth support, it makes sense that the consultant charge more. So too with enterprise deals.
        throwawaysalome 4y ago
        You can come up with all manner of scenarios consistent with your business ethics. I'm sure I'd agree with them. I just wanted to back GGGP's judgment of vendors who adjust pricing according to customer pocket depth. While I'm at it, your claim that individuals are markets unto themselves is also risible.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  Or they perfectly do understand who their customers are, they're simply not you or me or really any other developer.
  - carlosjobim 4y ago
    Then put out some kind of price there, so that unworthy clients know it's out of their range! Then you don't have to waste your time with them.
    - satvikpendem 4y ago
      They already don't waste time with them, why do they have any need to do further?
      - carlosjobim 4y ago
        If a business doesn't publish a price, then people will have to contact them to find out they can't afford it. This wastes the time of the person having to tell this to the unwanted customers.
        satvikpendem 4y ago
        As OP notes, people who are not in their target market select themselves out since they do not see the value of contacting sales (while those who are enterprise are likely to be in the target market have no problem contacting sales). Thus no time is wasted. At worst, they have false negatives instead of false positives, but that can be ameliorate with outbound sales rather than waiting for people to contact them inbound.
        carlosjobim 4y ago
        How can we not understand each other? If a business doesn't put out a price, they will be contacted by people who can't afford the price - since you have to contact sales to get a clue. The wast majority of businesses who don't publish a price are not serving enterprise clients.
JohnFen 4y ago
> It means they're focusing on their product, not the automation of sales. I disagree. It makes me think that they're focusing on the hard sell rather than the quality of their product.

by gitgud 4y ago

carlosjobim 4y ago

> It means they're focusing on their product, not the automation of sales. To me it means they don't understand their own product or customers, since they can't list a price for the typical use case.

jlbooker 4y ago
I'm the CTO of a bootstrapped SaaS product targeting the higher education market. We don't list a price on the website because there are many variables that affect the final price. Every school has their single-sign-on system, for example. There are obviously several popular options, but there's also a whole host of obscure options. Every university IT department has their own preferences about how the integration will go. That very much changes how time-consuming the implementation will be for our company, and thus affects the price. There's no way to know this until we talk about what kind of integration the school wants. We also vary the price based on school size. Huge research-1 level schools pay more than tiny public liberal arts schools -- and rightly so. The big schools have more funding and more spare cash. They also have bigger, more complicated implementations since they have 50+ thousand students and hundreds of faculty. The size of the school also feeds into how expensive the customer is going to be to service, and thus affects our pricing. How do I put all that into a single price on the website?
- carlosjobim 4y ago
  > The big schools have more funding and more spare cash. There you go. Honest businesses don't make their prices with regards to how much "spare cash" their client might have. > How do I put all that into a single price on the website? You divide it into parts that can be priced. If there is a bespoke part you put an hourly rate for that implementation, or daily rate, or any way of counting the rate that suits you. You can use the projects you have finished to publish examples for future potential clients, where they can compare a little bit and get a rough idea of what it would cost them. Just getting any kind of price information out there is much better than nothing, because then a potential client knows if it's within their range. You also avoid people who cannot afford your product.
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    > Honest businesses don't make their prices with regards to how much "spare cash" their client might have. Yes they do. This is indeed how supply and demand works, companies price what the market is willing to pay, it's just that in this case, the market is a clientele of 1.
    - throwawaysalome 4y ago
      Most consumers agree price discrimination (charging two residents of the same town different prices) is dishonest.
      - satvikpendem 4y ago
        Enterprise deals are not the same as consumer deals. Even with consumer deals, I wouldn't expect a consultant to charge a flat fee for someone, it all depends on their needs. If the customer needs more in depth support, it makes sense that the consultant charge more. So too with enterprise deals.
        throwawaysalome 4y ago
        You can come up with all manner of scenarios consistent with your business ethics. I'm sure I'd agree with them. I just wanted to back GGGP's judgment of vendors who adjust pricing according to customer pocket depth. While I'm at it, your claim that individuals are markets unto themselves is also risible.
satvikpendem 4y ago
Or they perfectly do understand who their customers are, they're simply not you or me or really any other developer.
- carlosjobim 4y ago
  Then put out some kind of price there, so that unworthy clients know it's out of their range! Then you don't have to waste your time with them.
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    They already don't waste time with them, why do they have any need to do further?
    - carlosjobim 4y ago
      If a business doesn't publish a price, then people will have to contact them to find out they can't afford it. This wastes the time of the person having to tell this to the unwanted customers.
      - satvikpendem 4y ago
        As OP notes, people who are not in their target market select themselves out since they do not see the value of contacting sales (while those who are enterprise are likely to be in the target market have no problem contacting sales). Thus no time is wasted. At worst, they have false negatives instead of false positives, but that can be ameliorate with outbound sales rather than waiting for people to contact them inbound.
        carlosjobim 4y ago
        How can we not understand each other? If a business doesn't put out a price, they will be contacted by people who can't afford the price - since you have to contact sales to get a clue. The wast majority of businesses who don't publish a price are not serving enterprise clients.

JohnFen 4y ago

> It means they're focusing on their product, not the automation of sales. I disagree. It makes me think that they're focusing on the hard sell rather than the quality of their product.