How can I design a funnel and sales process for self-service SaaS?

Do not consider this as a fixed and rigid decision. Consider this more like an opportunity to realize that you should test your pricing strategy as early as possible or at least now. Every pricing strategy you choose does work, the question is can you find your optimum? In your position, I'd recommend to make up your mind about your features first. Sit together and think about what features are necessary for which buying persona you are catering to. To simplify this, forget what I just wrote and think about the feature set for your MVP to make it work for your user. The minimum solution fit, a car can't drive without 4 tires - there you have your basic pricing model - features: 4 tires. Now common practice is offering a very low pricing model that is meant to nurture your leads to upsell them to the pricing you want, your basic pricing. This almost free or free pricing tier lacks a certain feature that is "almost crucial" - what this is in your case, I do not know, because I do not know who you are ;) Though, there is a third tier, the all feature tier which is the enterprise model. You most certainly know this, because you see this everywhere. You can read more about pricing pages here: http://conversionxl.com/10-principles-of-effective-pricing-pages/ The problem with making your pricing model highly flexible is that prospecting customers do not know what they want/need or what they are willing to pay for it as long as you do not give them a clear proposal. Though, your SaaS might have a value proposition that might be perfect for a dynamic pricing structure - I do not know that, because I do not know you ;) For example, there are relative pricing models like retargeter which pricing is based upon the number of impressions, instead of a feature set and on the use-case - off- or on-site. Keep in your mind, that constantly testing pricing models might be illegal in your region. Though, you can always conduct user interviews and simply ask about this issue. But be aware, do not make the mistake to lead an answer with a too pushing question. Do not ask blatant questions like "Does the pricing of 8$ appeal to you" "Would you buy the product with this functionality for 8$" instead ask for ranges. Ask for "Would you consider to pay a price between 5-9$", which also doubles as you already have insight in your customers potential maximal buying willingness. I'd also think about behavioural targeting - e.g. users of demographic x get displayed another price than y. This, as a matter of course, needs to be tackled very carefully and thorough. Experience helps ;) Pricing generally is a whole own universe of conversion rate tests and techniques based upon behavioural insight and cognitive analysis. Charm pricing, decoys, reframing the environment of your prices, even the size of the font of your pricing can have an impact. Heck, even just removing the currency sign can have an impact on your CR: http://isiarticles.com/bundles/Article/pre/pdf/1798.pdf In your case, one intuitive test I would drive would be bundles. Means offering separated tiers, but also a discount bundle (though the discount is still higher than the single prices you offer "right now" - reframed). I am a VP of growth and my focus is on UX and CRO and this is one of those field I am personally excited about. So, sorry for the long text ;)

Most Software as a service vendors generally don't book annual deals except in highly specialized cases. Most customers prefer to be able to cancel/change anytime they choose. Also, deals done "offline" end up actually often being more trouble than they are worth to administrate especially for a $2988 ticket. Generally, companies don't view prepaying for SaaS products a year in advance as a "convenience" (to them) so if the debate is internal (not customer driven), I'd set this debate aside until it's requested by the customer. Most customers will request a discount to pre-pay annual service. Happy to talk this through with you in a call, to work through the specifics of your situation in more detail.

What is the quality of that $140 per lead? Does that lead into a $1000 sale? We often think that a lead that costs $100+ or more is an expensive Cost per lead, but if it brings high quality leads that turns into a significant profit, I'll be happy to spend more $140 to get more of these types of leads. The next is to find optimize your working lead generation channel based on specific segments (is this segment get a better ROI).

Hello! My name is Humberto Valle, I'm the founder of Unthink Digital Marketing (www.Unthink.me) I have been helping new businesses and startups for the better part of 10 years. I have sold 2 companies as well as failed a few others and currently ran my agency for 7 years. To start I want to congratulate you for following a niche in a market that is poorly served. This will facilitate your go-to-market strategy. With that said, I do have to agree with the previous answer. You need to focus on only one channel, not necessarily a group but a distribution channel and method. For example, your lowest cost will always be direct to consumer through online sales. This means you need to have a website properly designed to funnel visitors, curious browsers and those with an actual search through the process of getting them exposed to the solution, interested in the product and brand, and wanting to try them. By leveraging digital media you can then attain other channels as they approach you versus you diluting your efforts trying to get to them. What I suggest you do is have a really good website flow designed (a funnel from visitor to subscriber or purchase) so that you have good SEO, good Calls To Action, good images, good offers and good content demonstrating what your product solves. Get into Amazon. Position yourself in the right social media channels and with the right sort of updates and shares. Get on Linkedin and build relationships with the Presidents, CEOs, Managers, Franchisees, etc. in charge of making purchase orders. Use social media, including Linkedin to promote your value proposition (not the product or its price). If you were to reach out to companies directly, is all about having a strategy. Send a few samples to a few strategic clients ( headquarters of franchises or companies with subsidiaries and retailers) Don't waste your time trying to get in with small companies which can be just as hard as any other company. If you would like some help creating a good marketing campaign and strategy for your product, please do consider us at www.Unthink.me - we have helped small businesses through the world, some universities and city level governments.

Hi there, I'm gonna tell you the truth: there's not any "proven well converting sales funnel" at all! Don't waste time on that question, is the wrong question you're asking yourself. As the founder of a Conversion Rate Optimization company, having worked on hundreds of different websites and e-commerce and having brought hundreds of millions of additional revenue optimizing checkout processes and conversion funnel .. Here's the delusion: what works on a website doesn't work on another website. Why? Because it's a different story and it should be treated accordingly. If you have the brand awareness of Amazon there are stuff and strategy that works there, that are not the same stuff and strategies that will work on your website. So the question you should ask yourself is: what would build so much-value for my customer and so much so that they will take the next step towards the funnel until they reach the macro-conversion I want them to take? Here a few hint to understand your customer mind and then translate those finding into actual concrete ideas that will lead your website to an increased conversion rate: 1. Use tools such as "qualaroo" to survey your customer on the funnel, especially the visitors that shows an exit intent; 2. Run an usability testing trough usertesting or similar to understand their thought and feeling while surfing your website; 3. Configure a funnel in google analytics and check which step of the funnel are loosing the most customer, then run a survey on that page and run ab test accordingly to your findings. A couple of advice for your website: 1. There's not a clear unique value proposition: why should I buy from you rather then the competition? 2. I can't see any reference to shipping cost and delivery estimates on the checkout, this is something your users want to now "upfront"; 3. Add a guest checkout feature, forcing a sign-up might prevent your customers to buy (check on analytics as well). Those ideas are the first one that came to my mind in 5 minutes ;) Good luck! Luca