Should I charge a lower rate when I don't have expertise in the subject?

As someone who has worked in pricing for almost 30 years, I know that one of the biggest myths of pricing is that you should only offer one pricing model. Offer two - both subscription & transactional. Customers will self-select &/or the market will segment, and you will quickly find out what is their preferred pricing model. As an aside, another pricing myth is that you can low-ball your pricing and raise prices later. Its successful in ~10% of attempts. By default, the choice of pricing models also states the obvious. Its not about what you want. Its about what the customer wants. And yes, you should have three choices. One choice gives you a 50:50 chance of closing the sale. Two choices forces the customer to make a price-based decision. Three choices, and the customer says "which one do I buy?" not "do I buy from this outfit?" and secondly they are forced to make a value-based decision. Also think about creating a decoy product, and on the pricing page on your website, lay the packages out dearest on the left, cheapest on the right. Happy to chat further about any of the above...or more!

Depending on what you need, you'll probably want to look at actual agencies. A single freelancer is unlikely to have the complete spectrum of skills you'll need, and unless you're looking to hire someone full-time, you'll probably have trouble retaining a single freelancer for a long period of time without conflicts. A mid-sized agency like the one I started (and later sold) specializes in designing and building sites. Their specialty is marketing and client acquisition, so they wouldn't be much help for the custom stuff later down the road — but that may not be an issue now. Another option may be to use a high-end development talent agency like http://www.10xmanagement.com/ — this company hires out very good developers, but you'll pay a premium. Like anything, you'll get what you pay for. Sometimes you'll get lucky on Elance, but you take on a lot of risk for the lower price. A mid-range agency has lower risk, but may lack full-stack capabilities. A high-range agency can solve all your problems, but you'll pay top dollar for it. I have a lot of experience screening and recruiting talent for projects in the mid-to-high range, so if you'd like to discuss strategies, let me know. Good luck!

For me personally, no. However, what you really need is a larger data set. Gumroad just did a post on prices ending in "9": http://blog.gumroad.com/post/64417917582/a-penny-saved-psychological-pricing 37signals started with prices that ended in 9: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1287-ask-37signals-how-did-you-come-up-with-pricing-for-your-products ... but they later did research and found it didn't matter (for them). The answer for YOU will likely be to test these things for yourself on your SaaS app.

Many well-known SaaS companies have doubled their prices. I've personally worked with a few that have gone through it. In most cases, your conversion rates stay the same and you see a huge jump in revenue. This is because people tend to under-price themselves. Also, your product improves over time so it provides more value and can support a higher price. But don't raise prices for old customers. Grandfather them in so their plans stay the same price. In the long run, it won't make a difference to your growth since most of them will churn out anyway. If you raise prices on current customers, you'll get a huge backlash. It gets nasty. I'm pretty sure that Zendesk tried it and had to reverse the price increase. I highly recommend raising your price by 100% for a month on new customers. Keep a close eye on your revenue and your conversion rates. If things don't go well, you can easily reverse it and discount everyone that paid for the more expensive plan. Either way, you'll know what your market will actually support.

You'll find that to be the case on any outsourcing site. Focus on the reviews and comments left on a designer's profile. This will give you an idea of the quality of their work before contacting them. Further, check out LinkedIn and search for "freelance designer" or "freelance graphic design" and sift through the results. Good luck! They're out there!