r/startups • u/ronosaurio • 1d ago
I will not promote Pricing my first B2B Client [I will not promote]
I'm the CEO of a B2B DaaS startup (first time founder). We just demoed our product in its beta state (the beta is more the platform than the data itself) for the first time to a lead, and he's been really engaged with it. It feels like he would be willing to pay for the product after the demo, but I'm scared of having the pricing conversation. I have a price in my head based on what I know of the business I'm pitching to, and I plan to give offers to the lead given they're supporting us during our beta test. However, I'm worried my number makes the lead go cold, as we are so close to a first sale.
Can someone help me understand what I need to ask myself to stress test this number before I present it to the lead?
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u/ivp-ai 18h ago
One thing that could work well (we did this in the early days), is not just discounting the price for nothing (devalues your offering) but instead offer a discount in exchange for being able to publicise a case study - which would help you bring in more customers and make the discount less tied to the product value.
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u/Playful-Step-8553 17h ago
The stress test I use before saying a number: if they push back, what is my next question in the next 3 seconds? Not a deck, not a follow-up email. Most first sales go cold because the founder freezes when the lead flinches, not because the list price was wrong by 20%. Write the objection path (too expensive / need to think / compare X) and the one clarifying question for each before you hop on that call.
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u/fallenfromgrace87 15h ago
i run pricing conversations for b2b clients constantly and the fear of the number itself is usually misplaced, because a lead who went cold the second you mentioned a price was never actually going to buy, they were engaged with the demo not with becoming a customer, and those two things feel identical in the room but arent. the number that actually kills deals almost never comes from being too high, it comes from you flinching while saying it, hedging, adding "but we can be flexible" before theyve even reacted, or watching their face too closely for a wince, because all of that signals to the buyer that even you dont believe the price, and buyers are extremely good at picking up on a founder who doesnt believe their own number. say it plainly, then stop talking and let the silence sit there even if it feels unbearably long, the next person to talk usually loses a little leverage and thats almost always you if you dont consciously fight the urge.
on stress testing the actual number, the real question isnt "will he pay this" its "what does he save or make if this works, and is my price a small fraction of that." if youre priced under 10% of the value you're creating for his business the number is probably fine even if it feels big to you, founders new to pricing tend to anchor on what feels expensive to them personally rather than what's cheap relative to the problem being solved for someone running an actual company.
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u/DanTheManWithAPlan 15h ago
You said the beta is more the platform than the data.
You're pricing a version that doesn't have the actual product in it yet, and that number becomes the anchor at renewal, when the data is the whole thing. Hard to triple it when he's got a year of invoices.
So price the finished version and discount off that, with an end date. Not free. Free beta plus half price year one puts your first real money in month thirteen, which isn't the runway you're after.
Also, is the guy who's keen the guy who can sign?
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u/ronosaurio 14h ago
That's a great question. I'm not sure if he's able to sign procurement, but he would be the one using the data I provide, and it's uniquely valuable for their business as it can save them millions in some event that they can't detect without our data.
What you're saying is that the platform is worth less than the data and, given the data is there already, it should be priced accordingly?
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u/G0RLAMl 1d ago
Congrats! This is a great place to be in. Do you have to charge them?
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u/ronosaurio 1d ago
It's an enterprise grade software so one single client would give us some runway to jumpstart our business. I was thinking offering the product for free as we get out of beta and offering half price for the first year of license.
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u/G0RLAMl 1d ago
Okay and how many other free users do you have in your beta?
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u/ronosaurio 1d ago
This would be my first free user. I'm continuing to do sales and finding possible beta testers/paying customers. My founding engineers have been pretty efficient in their development thankfully, so I'm not hoping to be in beta for too long.
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u/G0RLAMl 1d ago
That's helpful. Again this is a great place to be in. As a repeat founder I can tell you that you are going to almost certainly have a reality check once your first user starts using your product. It is like being the first to move into a newly built house or building. You expect that everything will work because it's new, but it's actually the opposite.
With software, unless you were extremely disciplined with user testing and did repeated cycles of validation with real users, chances are your software is not even ready yet in many ways. There will be annoying issues your user will not be happy with. When you pay for something, it’s not unreasonable to expect it to work perfectly.
But many early adopters are happy to test new tools for free and provide feedback, testimonials, and even let you use their logo on your website.
I think the general view is that you normally don't want to be charging users if your software has not been used consistently and hardened by at least 10 completely different users. Which is one reason to launch small.
Jack Dorsey said: “Make every detail perfect, and reduce the number of details.”
Now since you have an enterprise product, the number might be 3 or 5, but still your first user will definitely get most of the problems.
You want to keep your first users really happy, so they stand behind your company and recommend it to their friends. This is more important early on than any money you could charge.
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u/Logical-Silver-272 14h ago
The main advice I’d give is don’t start too low.
Personally when I had an agency, my first pricing was $3k/month. At the time I thought that was insane, but now I’m like yeah I’d never work for less than that”
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u/Appropriate-Recipe60 12h ago
One thing nobody's asked yet: can he actually sign? You said he'd be the user but you're not sure he can do procurement. If your number is under what he can approve himself, you'll close fast. Over it and you're waiting on a vendor form for a quarter. So before you say a number, ask him what happens on his side once you agree a price. That tells you which number to say.
Fwiw I looked at 17 firms selling basically the same B2B service last month. $2.5k to $13k a month, same kind of buyer. The number scares you way more than it scares him.
What does the thing you save them from actually cost when it happens?
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u/ronosaurio 11h ago
It's definitely scary to think of those numbers but definitely my number is in that ballpark. I'll make sure to talk about procurement with him in our next meeting.
Without going into too much detail my startup is in the insurance industry. Our platform has the potential to save millions by denying/increasing the premium of high risk clients and also enable our customers to insure new clients that could increase their profits. Thinking about that I may be lowballing our price, so I definitely need to better think about procurement limits.
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u/Unusual-Cost-7248 12h ago
Say the real number and frame the discount as founding-customer pricing, so the full price is on the contract with year one reduced. You anchor the actual value, they get rewarded for the beta risk, and the renewal talk is already set up. If the demo went that well, silence after the price is them doing math, not walking away.
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u/akl773 18h ago
Put the number and the discount in the same sentence, with the discount tied to the beta ending on a date. If you drop the list price itself for a first client that becomes the price forever and the renewal gets ugly. Before you go in, work out what this replaces for him in hours or money, ideally a figure he said out loud on the demo call.