# Design Three Pricing Tiers Around a Real Value Metric

> Design a three-tier pricing page from your real numbers: the value metric, tier limits, a gross-margin check per tier and risks to watch.

- **Author:** [Diya Patel (@diya_patel)](https://promptabide.com/diya_patel)
- **Tested on:** Claude · Opus 5.5
- **You fill in:** `product`, `customer_segments`, `current_pricing`, `variable_costs`
- **Published:** 2026-08-01
- **Updated:** 2026-09-24
- **Tags:** `startups`, `business-strategy`, `product-management`, `finance`
- **Keywords:** how to price saas tiers, saas pricing page design, choose a value metric for pricing, good better best pricing tiers, pricing tiers for small saas
- **Views:** 1142
- **Likes:** 33

**Best for:** SaaS founders moving from one flat price to tiers, or anyone whose bigger customers keep asking for a plan that doesn't exist yet.

## Prompt

```
Help me design the pricing page for my product. Don't guess at my business - work from these facts:

Product: {{product}}
Customers and how they differ in size or usage: {{customer_segments}}
Current price and what happens at it: {{current_pricing}}
Costs that scale with usage: {{variable_costs}}

Deliver:
1. The value metric: the one unit customers pay more for as they get more value (seats, projects, contacts, etc.). Give 2 candidates, pick one, and say why the other loses.
2. Three tiers in a table: name, monthly price, annual price, who it's for, the limit on the value metric, and the features that justify the jump from the tier below. Basics that should never be gated (security, exporting their own data) go in every tier.
3. Gross margin check: for a heavy user at the top of each tier, estimate cost to serve against price using my variable costs. Flag any tier below 70%.
4. One line of copy under each tier name (max 10 words, no "perfect for").
5. Two risks in this design and the metric that would reveal each within 60 days.

Stick to what I've told you, and state any assumption you make. Ask one question at the end if something critical is missing.
```

## Variables

- `{{product}}` — What the product does, in a sentence or two (e.g. Shotlist: questionnaires, shot lists and AI-drafted timelines for wedding photographers)
- `{{customer_segments}}` — Your main customer types and how their usage differs (e.g. Solo photographers (10-30 weddings/year) and studios with 2-6 shooters)
- `{{current_pricing}}` — Today's price, conversion and any complaints or requests (e.g. One plan at $19/month, 210 paying, studios asking for a team plan)
- `{{variable_costs}}` — Costs that grow with each customer's usage (e.g. AI drafts $0.04 each, storage $0.02/GB/month, 0.3 GB per event)

## Example input

```
product: Shotlist - a web app for wedding and event photographers: client questionnaires, shot lists, a day-of timeline, and an AI assistant that drafts the timeline from the questionnaire answers.
customer_segments: Solo photographers doing 10-30 weddings a year (about 80% of users); studios with 2-6 shooters doing 60-150 events a year.
current_pricing: One plan at $19/month. 1,400 signups, 210 paying. Studios complain about sharing one login; two studios asked for "a team plan" and said they'd pay more.
variable_costs: AI timeline drafts cost about $0.04 each. File storage about $0.02/GB/month; an average event uses 0.3 GB of mood-board uploads.
```

## Output

*Produced by Claude · Opus 5.5.*

```
**1. Value metric**
- *Events per year:* tracks value directly, since every wedding is income for the photographer, and it separates a 10-wedding solo from a 30-wedding one.
- *Seats:* matches the studios' request, but 80% of your users are solo and would never expand.

**Pick events per year**, and use seats as the fence for the studio tier.

**2. Tiers** (annual = 2 months free)

| Tier | Monthly | Annual | For | Limit | Why upgrade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $15 | $150 | Part-time solos | 15 events/yr, 1 seat | Questionnaires, shot lists, timelines, AI drafts |
| Pro | $29 | $290 | Full-time solos | Unlimited events, 1 seat | Custom-branded client questionnaires, reusable templates, priority support |
| Studio | $79 | $790 | Teams of 2-6 | Unlimited events, 6 seats | Separate logins, assign shooters to events, shared templates, team calendar |

Every tier includes two-factor login and full data export.

Keep your 210 current customers on $19 with Pro features for 12 months so the change doesn't read as a price cut for some and a rise for others.

**3. Gross margin** (my assumption: 5 AI drafts per event, including regenerations)
- Essentials, 15 events: AI $0.25/mo + storage 4.5 GB $0.09/mo = **$0.34 vs $15 (98%)**
- Pro, heavy user at 40 events: $0.67 + 12 GB $0.24 = **$0.91 vs $29 (97%)**
- Studio at 150 events: $2.50 + 45 GB $0.90 = **$3.40 vs $79 (96%)**

No tier falls below 70%. These figures leave out payment fees (roughly 3%), hosting and support. Storage builds up if you keep old events, but it stays small.

**4. Copy**
- Essentials: "For shooters booking about one wedding a month"
- Pro: "Every event you book, under your own brand"
- Studio: "One workspace for every shooter on your team"

**5. Risks**
1. **Solos move down to Essentials and revenue falls.** Watch the share of new paid signups picking Essentials and ARPU. If Essentials is over 60% and ARPU is under $19 by day 60, lower the cap to 12 events.
2. **Studios stay on Pro and keep sharing a login.** Watch Studio upgrades among accounts with more than 60 events a year. Fewer than 5 by day 60 means the team features aren't worth the jump.

**Question:** how many events did each paying account actually create in the last 12 months? That distribution should set the Essentials cap. I've guessed it.
```

## Why it works

Asking for **two value-metric candidates and why one loses** stops the model defaulting to per-seat pricing, which is often wrong for solo-heavy markets. The **"never gated" rule** prevents the common mistake of locking data export or security behind the top tier. The **gross-margin check at the top of each tier** matters now that many products carry AI costs per use: a flat price can quietly go negative for heavy users. Finally, the 60-day risk metrics turn a pricing change into an experiment with a readout date.

## When not to use it

This prompt is a starting design, not a substitute for talking to customers about what they'd pay. It works poorly for usage-based infrastructure products (APIs, compute) where metered pricing is the norm, and for enterprise sales where every deal is negotiated. If you have fewer than about 50 paying customers, fix conversion before adding tiers.

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