1. Configurable Event IDs

Configurable Event ID enables you to derive event ID directly from the event request payload, providing a flexible and efficient approach to handling data within the Togai system. These event IDs act as the idempotency key, ensuring that each event is unique and processed correctly without duplication. 

With this, businesses can now send raw usage data to Togai and configure their own de-duplication logic for pricing, significantly simplifying the data processing workflow. Let’s see how it works in detail below:

How It Works?

• The event ID is derived from the request payload. Every piece of raw data sent to Togai includes a unique identifier, ensuring that it can be tracked and managed efficiently.

• Togai's system is designed to recognize and de-duplicate events based on the configured logic. For instance, you can set up rules to consider only one event per specific period (e.g., per hour) for pricing purposes, while retaining all other events for record-keeping.

• By streaming raw usage data or heartbeat check responses directly to Togai (even if they occur every second or minute), businesses can avoid the need for pre-aggregation. Togai will process these events according to the configured de-duplication rules, ensuring accurate pricing calculations without additional overhead.

Let’s look at an example, a Platform as a Service (PaaS) company charges customers based on their instance usage on an hourly basis. Traditionally, the company would need to aggregate usage data over an hour and send a single event to Togai for pricing. This approach can be cumbersome and resource-intensive.

With Configurable Event IDs, the PaaS company can instead stream raw usage data or heartbeat check responses directly to Togai in real time. Togai's system will then:

• Derive a unique event ID from each event request payload.

• Apply the de-duplication logic configured by the business, which might specify that only one usage event per hour is considered for pricing.

• Retain all events in the system, but ignore redundant ones for pricing purposes.

This streamlined approach not only simplifies data handling but also ensures that the pricing calculations are accurate and efficient, reducing the need for complex aggregation logic on the business side.

2. Revenue Simulator 

The Revenue Simulator is designed to help businesses compare and analyze different pricing strategies using actual customer usage data. This feature allows you to model various pricing scenarios, enabling you to refine and enhance your pricing strategies to better meet your revenue goals and operational limitations. 

By simulating different pricing models, you can identify the most effective approach for both your business and your customers, making informed decisions.

The simulator presents a detailed comparison of the different strategies, allowing you to see which model performs best in terms of revenue generation, customer satisfaction, and other key metrics. You can explore various scenarios, such as changes in usage patterns or customer behavior, to understand how different factors influence the outcomes.

Read more about Togai’s Revenue Simulator here >>

3. Config Visualizer 

The Config Visualizer is designed to provide a clear and intuitive view of all your price-related configurations within the Togai platform. This feature offers a graphical representation of the relationships between usage meters, price plans, and customer overrides, making it easier to manage and understand the complex interactions that define your pricing strategies.

This includes usage meters (which track customer usage), price plans (which define the pricing rules), and customer overrides (which apply specific conditions to individual customers).

The tool allows you to interact with the visual elements, providing detailed information on each component. You can click on usage meters, price plans, or customer overrides to view their specific configurations and how they relate to each other.

The Visualizer can show you the potential impact of changes in real time. For example, if you adjust a price plan or modify a usage meter, the tool will update the graphical representation to reflect these changes, allowing you to see the immediate effects on your pricing model.

4. Alerts 

Alerts help businesses to create real-time notifications for themselves or their customers based on defined thresholds. This feature helps you stay informed and take timely action, ensuring that you and your customers are always aware of critical changes or issues. 

With a range of pre-defined alert templates and customizable options, Togai makes it easy to set up and manage alerts tailored to your specific needs.

 Currently, Togai has many pre-defined alert templates created (like alerts based on usage limit, entitlement limit, and credit/wallet balance-related alerts), and businesses can use these templates and configure the alerts at a customer level or an organization level. 

Additionally, Togai provides flexibility in choosing the notification channels that best suit your needs. Alerts can be sent via:

1. Webhook Endpoints: Integrate alerts with other systems or applications.

2. Slack Channels: Receive real-time notifications in your team's Slack workspace.

3. Email: Get alerts delivered directly to your inbox.

4. Other Preferred Channels: Customize the notification delivery to fit your business requirements.

Watch how Togai solves your use cases!

1. We configured Copy.ai’s pricing within 5 minutes in Togai! Watch the video »

2. Watch how we solved a usage-billing problem for an Authentication Company! View the entire breakdown of our solution »

We can't wait for you to dive in and start exploring these features. Want to get a peek at how these features work? Schedule a call with us, and we’ll take you through everything new and upcoming releases too!

Let’s speak over coffee about your billing needs!
Book your slot →

We are committed to keeping you fully informed, so you can expect further communications over the next two weeks as we proceed with this transition.

Thank you for your continued partnership. Looking forward to you being a part of us during this journey. If you have any questions, please reach out via email or you can book a time with us here.

With Regards,
Abhishek

Zapier is a web-based service that allows users to integrate the web applications they use, automating workflows and enabling data transfer between these apps without the need for manual intervention. 

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Zapier's shift towards usage-based billing, specifically its pay-per-task model, was largely driven by a need to offer greater flexibility and better scalability to accommodate the diverse needs of its user base, from small businesses to large enterprises.

Identifying their Value Metric: 

Zapier is an application layer where a usage metric showcases its true value - say the amount of automation done (usage and amount of work done) over the number of seats (traditional subscription models). Additionally, as an organization scales, the need for Zapier within the company scales as they might need multiple integrations with their product. 

Not only does Zapier’s pricing showcase its value but it also lowers the barrier to entry. It’s a low-cost adoption for many companies with scaling ticket sizes. This way, they can capture all the different segments of the market as opposed to just one! 

Integration into the Product Ecosystem: 

The pay-per-task model can lead to higher user engagement, as there is a direct cost incentive associated with increased usage, which can translate into deeper user integration into Zapier's ecosystem

Moreover, the pay-per-task model is part of a broader trend in software as a service (SaaS) that includes various forms of usage-based pricing strategies. These strategies are generally linked to higher retention rates and revenue growth compared to traditional flat-rate pricing models​ 

What does their revenue look like? 

Source

In 2023, Zapier’s revenue hit a $250.7M. Its growth stands at 26.12% YoY since its time of inception. Not just that, the company is valued at $5 billion without relying on further VC funding. 

Zapier’s usage-based billing system not only offers flexibility and scalability to its users but also promotes growth and profitability by encouraging active use and allowing costs to scale with customer needs. This approach, characterized by a focus on customer engagement and retention, underscores a significant shift in how companies are structuring their pricing strategies to better meet the needs of their users.

It’s a no-brainer that when a company implements usage-based billing, its growth increases over time leading to sustained revenue.

Catch up on this month’s must-reads! 

1. We’ve broken down all the must-haves in your billing system! Read about credits and entitlements and what they do! Read here >> 

2. Are you evaluating usage billing tools? We’ve listed the top 5 tools you must take a look at. Check it out here >> 

3. Did you check out our latest product update? If not have a look at what we’re rolling out >> 

Pricing Rules
Pricing rules give you the power to create flexible and unique pricing structures for your products or services. Think of pricing rules as a set of instructions that tell the billing system how to calculate charges based on various factors. This gives you the power to create sophisticated pricing logic that fits your unique business model.

To see how pricing rules apply, let’s look at a complex billing scenario of an IoT connectivity provider: 

1. Shared Data Allowance Across SIMs: Pricing Rules enable the creation of a shared data allowance for customers with multiple SIMs on the same data plan.

Total pooled allowance = number of active SIMs x Inclusive volume per SIM

If a customer has 20 active SIMs with a 10MB inclusive volume each, the total pooled allowance would be 200MB, which can be consumed across all SIMs. Overage charges are applied only when the allowance is exhausted. 

2. Differentiated Data Pools for SIMs: Pricing Rules allow customers to have different data plans for various SIMs within their accounts. Separate data pools are created for each plan, and overage charges are applied when a pool is exhausted. 

- 5MB in Europe (GPS tracker) with 200 active SIMs

- 1000MB in Europe (Dashcam) with 10 active SIMs

- 5MB in Mexico (Dashcam) with 10 active SIMs

Pricing Rules enable the creation of separate data pools for each plan (1000MB, 10000MB, and 50MB, respectively). Pricing Rules can seamlessly handle SIM movements between data plans, adjusting the affected pools.

3. Location-Based Data Pools per SIM: Pricing Rules can create multiple inclusive volume pools per SIM based on geographic location. A single data pool is created for all active SIMs, deducting usage from different locations while ensuring usage from a specific location (e.g., Canada) doesn't exceed a predefined percentage of the pool

For instance, a customer might deploy 80% of their SIMs in the US and 20% in Canada, with a plan that includes 100MB for $5. If the customer uses more than 20% in Canada, Pricing Rules can automatically apply surcharges per MB.

Let’s look at another example, Consider a payment processing platform similar to Stripe, which charges a standard fee of 3% per transaction. They have entered into a custom contract with a large enterprise client that includes the following pricing terms:

• 2.75% for credit card transactions

• 1.5% for debit card transactions

• $0.50 per ACH or Wire transaction

If the total processed amount across all payment methods exceeds $2 million in a given month, apply a 15% discount on the overall invoice. To implement this pricing model using Togai's Pricing Rules, we can set up the following:

Create separate usage meters and rate cards for each payment method, Credit Card: 2.75% per transaction, Debit Card: 1.5% per transaction, ACH/Wire: $0.50 per transaction. The Pricing Rule will be triggered when the total processed amount across all payment methods surpasses the $2 million threshold. It will calculate the 15% discount based on the total invoice value and apply it as a separate line item, reducing the overall amount owed by the enterprise client.

Pricing Rules support a wide range of JavaScript operators, including logical and mathematical operations, string manipulation, grouping, and array operations. You can use various variables from your price plan to create conditions and computations, such as fixed fees, usage fees, license fees, entitlement fees, overage fees, credit grants, tags, and more. 

Interested in learning more about Pricing Rules? Read our product docs → 

Watch how Togai solves your use cases!

1. Watch how we configured Observe Point’s pricing model. Watch here →

2. Watch our Whiteboard video to see how we solved a very unique use-case for a payment processing company! Click here →

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More Exciting Product Updates:

1. Wallet Management with Automatic Recharge
   Customers can now easily manage their wallet balance right from the dashboard!  Simply set your desired recharge amount and threshold, and Togai takes care of the rest.

2. Visualize your data with Custom Dashboard Widgets 

   With pivot table widgets, you can now slice and dice your data. Choose row fields, column fields, and value aggregation fields to create custom views. 

3. Invoicing with Wallet Balance Netting
   You can now automatically apply your wallet balance to any custom ad-hoc invoice. When you create a custom invoice, simply choose to net off the amount against your wallet balance. Any remaining balance will be automatically calculated and reflected on the invoice

We can't wait for you to dive in and start exploring these features. Want to get a peek at how these features work? Schedule a call with us, and we’ll take you through everything new!

Let’s speak over coffee about your billing needs!
Book your slot →

Twilio has enabled businesses to integrate various communication functionalities into their applications with ease. However, what set Twilio apart  was its adoption of usage-based billing from the start! 

The decision to transition to a usage-based billing model was a response to the growing demand for scalable and flexible communication solutions. Regardless of their size, businesses sought the ability to adapt their communication capabilities in real-time, scaling up during peak periods and scaling down when necessary, without the constraints of flat-rate pricing.

And guess what? Usage-based pricing rewarded Twilio with exponential growth throughout the years! Here are Twilio’s earnings from the fourth quarter!

• Fourth Quarter Revenue of $1.08 billion, up 5% reported and 8% organic year-over-year

• Full Year Revenue of $4.15 billion, up 9% reported and 10% organic year-over-year

Source: Twilio

How did Twilio succeed with Usage-Based Pricing?
According to Chee Chew, Chief Product Officer at Twilio, "With subscription-based pricing, there's a mismatch between usage and what customers pay...We wanted to create a pricing model that aligns with usage."

In 2020, Twilio introduced usage-based billing for its messaging APIs to align pricing with customer value. After the shift, Twilio saw a 50% increase in messaging revenue and a 70% increase in the number of messaging customers. The company also reported a 46% increase in revenue.

Startups found this model advantageous, providing access to communication tools without significant initial expenses. It allowed these entities to compete with larger corporations, supporting innovation and growth across sectors.

Want to learn everything about usage billing? We’ve created the first usage-based billing information hub, breaking down every byte to the last bit!

Check out 8-bits!

Larger organizations too benefited from the scalability provided by Twilio's pricing based on usage. They could expand their communication infrastructure in line with their growth, ensuring they were not paying for unused capacity. This scalability meant that Twilio could serve a range of industries and applications, from e-commerce to emergency services, where communication needs can differ.

The impact of this strategic pricing model was evident in Twilio's financial performance and market presence. And guess what? Twilio’s organic revenue growth in Q1, FY24 is 5-6%. 

The company saw a notable increase in adoption rates, customer retention, and overall satisfaction. The flexibility of usage-based billing encouraged businesses to experiment with new communication features and integrate them more deeply into their workflows, driving higher usage and, consequently, higher revenues for Twilio.

Must Watch Before Anyone Else Does! 

1. Tune into our breakdown on usage-based billing for CPaaS companies. Watch here >> 

2. We’ve also given important tips about how to implement usage-based pricing for bootstrapped vs funded companies. View it now >>

Catch up on this month’s must-reads! 

1. Are you an AI company and looking to bill your product effectively? We’ve listed 6 must-have features for your billing tool! Take a look >>

2. If you’re a CPaaS company, looking to increase your revenue from your existing offerings, you read this Forbes piece. Read now >>

Snowflake employs a usage-based pricing model, meaning customers pay for the amount of storage and computing resources they use, rather than a fixed monthly fee. This model includes charges for data storage, data transfer, and the computing power used to query data. Snowflake's flexibility allows companies to optimize their spending based on current needs. 

What does Snowflake’s revenue look like today?

Snowflake's revenue has been on a rapid growth trajectory, driven by the adoption of its cloud-based data warehousing services. The company's performance in the third quarter of 2023, for instance, exceeded investor expectations with product revenue of $698 million, up 34% year-over-year, and adjusted earnings per share of 25 cents, up 127%. The net revenue retention rate stood at 135%, highlighting strong customer loyalty and increased spending. Snowflake's guidance for the fourth quarter revenue was between $716 million and $721 million, indicating continued growth.

Snowflake's strategy of evolving its platform to support applications and providing APIs for developers to build and deploy apps directly on its platform represents a significant expansion of its market opportunity. This move not only increases the utility of its core services but also encourages more extensive use of its platform, further driving revenue growth.

The recipe for Snowflake’s growth is simple and has several factors working in its favor, which are: 

1. Increase spending on Snowflake’s services 

2. High returns on customer investments 

3. New services to cater to customer needs, which in turn will make customers use Snowflake more, getting in more revenue. 

Not just that, in Q3 436 companies had more than $1 million in revenue indicating that people were growing by using the platform. 

The usage-based pricing model is key to Snowflake's success. It allows for a lower barrier to entry for new customers, making it easier for them to start using Snowflake's services without a significant initial investment. As customers' needs grow, they naturally consume more resources, which translates to increased revenue for Snowflake. This model aligns the cost directly with the value customers receive, leading to higher satisfaction and retention rates. It also accommodates fluctuating demand, providing flexibility that traditional pricing models can't match.

Get started on usage billing today!

Catch up on this month’s must-reads! 

1. Learn everything about usage-based pricing and also look at Togai’s latest content and product updates. Head over to 8-bits - we’ve curated everything bespoke on usage billing to help you get started! 

2. Are you a CPaaS provider and unsure of how billing can help you unlock revenue? Read this piece on Forbes today, where we dive into how you can make the billing pivot. 

What’s brewing with the product?

📜 The all-new visualizer: Togai’s new visualizer option provides a comprehensive view of all price-related configurations. It helps in understanding usage meters, associated price plans, and their connections which involves navigating multiple components. Togai’s visualizers offer an effortless way to visualize the impact of price configurations on customers.

💸 Custom Reports & Dashboards: Togai’s extensive reporting capabilities allow businesses to create reports and templates. These templates can be used to generate ad-hoc extensive and detailed reports, which can be downloaded or pushed to your preferred external data source. Did you know? You can now auto-generate your reports either hourly, daily, or monthly. 

⏰ Create Alerts for every Parameter: Alerts are designed to give you control over monitoring usage thresholds and important account metrics. Easily set up alerts to notify you or your customers whenever a defined threshold is met. Whether it's usage limits, entitlement thresholds, or credit/wallet balance notifications. Additionally, Togai has crafted a variety of pre-defined alert templates. These templates are designed to meet common monitoring needs, saving you time and effort in setting up alerts from scratch.

The company has developed a range of communication APIs that enable businesses to connect with customers directly and quickly across various devices and channels, including SMS, chat, and voice. Its approach to facilitating direct and speedy communication between businesses and customers has been a key factor in its growth.

MessageBird's global presence has expanded with offices in nine countries, and it boasts a strong customer base of 15,000 global clients, including well-known brands like Uber, Lufthansa, Domino's, and Levi's. 

 However rigid legacy carriers using outdated protocols struggled to offer the omnichannel capabilities demanded in the mobile-first era. 

Sensing this unmet need, MessageBird launched in 2011 as a cloud communications platform integrating messaging, voice, and video built for the age of apps and AI.

With cutting-edge omnichannel technology, MessageBird gained strong initial traction. However, the company noticed smaller online merchants and digital native verticals were hesitant to commit to expensive monthly contracts designed for enterprises. 

The turning point was the launch of their usage plan in 2019, pioneering a prepaid billing model allowing pay-as-you-go consumption. This disruptive approach appealed to the value consciousness of eCommerce brands while offering enterprise-grade global scale.

This billing democratized access to sophisticated cloud communications infrastructure for early-stage online merchants. It enabled eCommerce customers to easily automate conversations across platforms and scale dynamically with usage. Not just that, it also enabled businesses to grow with Messagebird. 

MessageBird realized that usage-based billing also aligned perfectly with enterprise priorities. Large customers wanted cloud communication capabilities but without predictable volumes required long-term commitments. Organizations could flexibly scale communication volumes on-demand whether responding to urgent customer issues, new product launches, or seasonal traffic spikes. Usage pricing gave enterprises an onramp to next-gen cloud contact centers without disrupting existing IT budgets focused on business continuity. The ability to only pay for what they use provided financial guardrails to incrementally shift communication workloads to the MessageBird platform. 

As businesses saw increased efficiencies and cost savings from consolidating on MessageBird, they eagerly expanded usage further accelerating adoption inside large enterprises.

For digital retailers experiencing rapid growth, these plans prevented surprise overage fees while increasing loyalty. Customers could align seasonal traffic spikes like Black Friday promotions to communication budgets.

Today, MessageBird powers products that facilitate billions of customer interactions for over 15,000 customers globally.

The market validated the success of their billing transformation with the 2021 Series C funding round valuing MessageBird over $3 billion. The prepaid plans were instrumental in cementing domination in the rapidly growing eCommerce CPaaS vertical. 

This shows how MessageBird by making billing and pricing changes and matching them to modern eComm needs, carved a path to lead CPaaS market growth into the era of digital business.

This Month's Must-Watch Before Everyone Else Does!

1. Yellow.ai's Pricing & Monetization Journey: Listen to Gulshan Dhanani, Chief of Staff at Yellow.ai talk about moving to a usage-based pricing model for their conversational AI company! 

Put Your Reading Glasses On: 

1. Top 5 Must-have Features Your CPaaS Billing Tool Needs in 2024: Confused on what to look for in your billing tool? Don’t worry! We’ve got you covered! This is the most important checklist you need to narrow down on your billing provider. 

2. AI Billing Platform: Read about this  AI copywriting company that implemented usage-based billing for their unique requirements! 

What’s brewing with the product?

💰The all-new wallet management: Now businesses using Togai can create and manage wallets for their customers. Companies can record payments received from customers through different modes like cards, cash, and cheques and automatically balance the wallet amount with the pending invoices.

📜It’s raining Invoice Customizations: Companies can personalize their invoices by adding logos and also deciding the items to be shown in the invoice (for example, skip 0$ line items from invoices). Not just that, you can also group your line items in your invoice instead of having pages of items spill over! It’s not over yet, you can also configure your invoice sequence numbers to comply with government regulations. 

💸 Create Account Alias: Let’s explain it with an example if you’re a CPaaS provider and want to associate phone numbers to customer 1 for the first month and customer 2 for the second month - it has become very easy with Togai! Using the account alias expiry feature, you can charge customer 1 and 2 for their usage during their respective usage periods.  

🔌 New Integrations Coming Your Way: We have SMTP integrations for sending emails, attaching invoices, notifications, and other updates. Not just that, we now have a native integration with Slack to provide customer updates! 

The game-changer for MongoDB was the adoption of Usage-Based Pricing (UBP). By revamping their billing structure to focus on customer usage and value, MongoDB shattered the myth that UBP is unsuitable for enterprise-level customers. This shift was not just about changing the billing model but aligning value with cost, a crucial aspect for enterprise customers who demand scalability and flexibility.

MongoDB's Atlas platform epitomizes this approach. Its billing is based on the selected cluster tier, ranging from M0 to M700, each tier designed for specific needs and performance levels. This granular approach allowed MongoDB to cater to a broad spectrum of users. The M0 clusters offer a free entry point, ideal for beginners or small-scale applications, while higher tiers like M30 cater to heavy loads and large datasets, providing full Atlas functionality.

This customer-centric approach powered growth by:

1. Flexible Value Mapping

Precise usage tracking enabled right-sized pricing tiers to capture value across the spectrum - affordable developer onboarding, and profitable large customer workloads.

2. Expansion from Metric Visibility

Granular consumption data identifies growing usage trends guiding targeted upsells and pricing optimizations leveraging willingness to pay.

Bill like MongoDB! Explore Togai Today!

A key factor powering this flywheel effect is MongoDB's incredibly high customer retention - almost 75% of enterprise accounts exceed 4+ years of tenure. Top customers have remained for over 5+ years, steadily expanding usage and spending within MongoDB's consumption-aligned pricing spectrum.

MongoDB, as a NoSQL database, is particularly well-suited for data-intensive applications.

The more data a customer stores and processes, the more they utilize MongoDB's capabilities, directly correlating to the value they receive. This pricing model effectively turns MongoDB's data handling prowess into a revenue-generating feature, ensuring that as customers' data needs grow, so does MongoDB’s revenue.

In FY22, they recorded a 4.5x expansion YoY to $873M ARR and a 466% increase in just four years. The year 2023 continues to see 29% growth on a $1.5B base, marking a 37% year-over-year increase.

The most recent quarter of Q2 FY23 saw MongoDB's quarterly revenue hit $424 million, a 40% increase from the previous year, underscoring the sustained momentum from their customer-centric pricing strategy.

MongoDB basin broke their monetization potential wide open - easy onboarding to penetrate segments while maximizing revenue as accounts use more over time. Their billing infrastructure, capable of precisely tracking usage metrics across their product suite, facilitates continuous optimization of their pricing model.

Track all your billing parameters!

MongoDB's ability to offer flexible pricing without cumbersome migrations has created a flywheel effect, attracting new users and seamlessly transitioning them to higher-value contracts.

Importantly, MongoDB’s UBP approach has not only scaled revenues but also enabled deeper penetration into diverse market segments, including large enterprises such as NASA, T-Mobile, and Daimler. 

Your billing platform should be flexible enough to provide these essential building blocks for the next wave of usage and outcome-based monetization - flexible rating configurations, granular tracking of business metric consumption, automated billing workflows, and analytics mapping spending to value.

Explore the best usage billing tool!

By making its billing platform reflect usage value, MongoDB was able to architect a billion-dollar revenue engine powering its category leadership. And behind their massive success was the backbone and a silent spectator - their billing stack! 

📖 Put your reading glasses on 👓

What is feature gating? How is it a key revenue driver in 2024? You don’t need new pricing tiers, a completely new packaging or sales strategy to generate new revenue. Explore the realm of feature gating, where you can monetize your existing features and generate new monetization opportunities. 

What’s brewing with the product? 🍺

📜 Custom invoicing: Are you looking to set up your brand’s invoice template? Play around with Togai’s invoice editor and change the look and feel of your invoice using a friendly “what you see is what you get”. If you already have custom templates, simply upload them and create invoices of similar look and feel on Togai. We also provide support for downloading the invoices from UI or API. 

🔌 New and exciting integrations:  We have now increased our integration spread and expanded our offerings by integrating with Salesforce, Tally solutions. Now our quickbooks integration also supports updating Togai invoice line items directly to Quickbooks chart of accounts. Did we also mention this earlier? We also do custom integrations with the solutions you already have, be it on-premise or other tools!!

🧾 Create ad-hoc invoices: Say bye to creating manual invoices for every additional service you provide. With Togai, you can now create ad-hoc invoices for one-time purchases, services and paid support you offer your customers. 

💸 Togai provides the billing cycle modeling flexibility: Let me explain this with an example. For instance, you may want to bill some larger accounts on a quarterly schedule starting from when they initially signed on. Others may prefer simple monthly subscriptions that charge on the 1st of each month. With customizable anniversary cycles, you can set billing to align precisely with the onboarding date for each client. Whether you offer weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual billing, our system supports associating unique price plans and schedules to each customer as desired.

If you’ve reached this far, do like, share and subscribe to our newsletter and catchup on all the latest news in billing!

The company embarked on a journey to redefine its pricing and packaging strategy, aligning it more closely with the value it delivers to its customers. It was time to jettison the 'one-size-fits-all' approach and embrace a model that resonates with the modern-day ethos of personalization and value-based engagement.

Drawing inspiration from the consumption-based pricing models that were gaining traction in the SaaS universe, New Relic introduced a flexible pricing model. This model was not just a facelift but a deep-rooted transformation aimed at providing an integrated, value-driven platform tailored to modern engineering requisites.

The numbers from their Q2 fiscal '23 are a testament to the efficacy of this transition. With a revenue surge to $226.9 million, marking a robust 16% YoY growth, and an increase in active customer accounts from 14,300 to 15,300, the narrative was clear. 

New Relic had not just hit the right chord but played a melody that resonated across the market spectrum.

The customer-centric pricing model distinguished New Relic in a crowded marketplace, like a lighthouse guiding ships amidst a stormy night.

In Q1, a whopping 88% of New Relic's total revenue was attributed to consumption, painting a vivid picture of how aligning pricing with customer usage and perceived value can unlock new revenue vistas. 

Change your Pricing Philosophy Today!

The New Relic narrative elucidates that when you have the prowess to tailor your pricing with precision, you don’t just stay in the game, you set the rules.

The underlying message is unmistakable: In today’s technology landscape, a flexible billing platform is not a luxury, but a necessity. It's about having a tool that allows for seamless blending of various pricing components, enabling companies to test, learn, and iterate their pricing strategies to meet consumer demands better and drive demand.

The Most Flexible Tool for Your Business

In this edition of our newsletter, let’s dissect how evolving your billing system with Togai can be your catalyst in building a sustainable, customer-centric, and growth-oriented business. 

Put your reading glasses on: 

Top 5 Pricing Features you must look out for in your Billing Tool: Evaluating a billing tool this year? Nothing could be more timed and perfect than our findings on all the features your ideal billing tool should have. Read it till the end, as we unfold the chapters of dynamic billing, where every tweak and turn can lead to a treasure trove of opportunities.

What’s brewing with the product? 

🔌 It’s raining new Integrations: Togai now offers instantaneous synchronization of customer accounts from NetSuite and Salesforce to Togai. The two-way sync between the platforms ensures that customer accounts are synced automatically between Togai and Netsuite/Salesforce, invoices generated within Togai are automatically updated, ensures that payment statuses are reflected accurately across systems.

🚀Increase Revenue by Monetizing your Features:  Customers can now enhance their plans on the fly by purchasing additional features or add-ons. This flexibility not only improves customer satisfaction but also opens new revenue streams for your business.

🔀 Event Correction Mechanism: In the case of any erroneous event ingestion, our system allows for the deletion and re-ingestion of events, ensuring data integrity and accuracy in event tracking and billing. 

Once in the 1920s, he was called upon to solve a problem plaguing the newly built RKO theatre in Queens, NY. Despite its modern amenities and glamorous design, it struggled to attract an audience—passersby didn’t even cast a glance in its direction!! 

To uncover the root of the problem, Dreyfuss collaborated with the theatre administration and staff. They experimented with lowering ticket prices and offering free popcorn but to no avail. They tried everything but the townspeople would always prefer the rundown theatre downtown. What was more confusing? Meticulously designed and decorated, the theatre had all the modern amenities known in the day, royal carpets, and tapestries, this place was magic! But what went wrong? 

Dreyfuss engaged with the community to understand why they preferred the older, run-down theatre. The revelation was simple: the workers of the town, after a long day, had muddy shoes and didn’t want to dirty the new theatre’s pristine red carpets. They felt out of place!

Upon this discovery, Dreyfuss acted swiftly to replace the plush carpets, and soon, the crowd started pouring in.  

Did you like our newsletter? Do like, share, and let us know your thoughts in the comments below…

A Lesson in Pricing

This story illustrates a prevalent issue in the SaaS world—setting prices and creating packages without considering the real needs and preferences of the end-users. Often, we adhere to old pricing models and force-fit new features into existing tiers without experimentation or user feedback, limiting growth and revenue generation opportunities.

This year, inflation and shifts in the economy are pushing SaaS companies to change their prices. These changes are causing layoffs across the tech industry. 

At the same time, companies are cutting budgets, making B2B SaaS businesses search for more affordable solutions to fit their now smaller teams. Therefore, the way a business packages and prices its products will be a deal breaker in signing the next deal! 

Understanding customer needs and showing value is paramount. It’s crucial to keep product offerings fresh and exciting to catch and maintain customer interest.

What does a Billing Platform have to offer you? 

Adapting swiftly to the evolving needs in today's SaaS landscape is critical. Imagine making packaging changes in the backend without your billing tool supporting it. It would be chaotic and instead of generating revenue, it would hamper it.

A flexible billing system is crucial—it should cater seamlessly to all business modifications and enhancements. This is why we built Togai, to help you determine the pricing that is right for your business.

Put your reading glasses on! 

1. Three Ways To Revitalize Your SaaS Business With Your Billing Tool: This piece from Forbes contains tips and real-world examples that will inspire you to give your billing a fresh air of profitability. 

Subscribe now

This Month’s Must-Hear Before Everyone Else Does!

1. Why Punish Your Most Powerful Users?: Our customer Appsmith takes you on their journey of choosing usage-based pricing, benefits and how they’re reaping the benefits! Listen before someone else does! 

Start Billing for Profitability Today!

What’s brewing with the product?

🔀 Invoice Grouping: We heard your request and we’ve done it. With invoice grouping you can consolidate invoices across multiple accounts for a single customer now! Also, you can have a single billing Email address for all the accounts! Bid bye to all the confusion and multiple mails you need to communicate with! 

📜Track revenue at an event level: Get granular data into your billing metrics and see how much each event fetches you $$ in revenue. This helps you audit better and also provides you with a clear view into your overall billing metrics helping you make changes along the way!  

🚀License Proration: Now you can ensure all refunds are fed back as credits. Let’s say your customer buys licenses for $20 but downgrades midway to $15, you can now grant those $5 as prorated currency credits back into their account. 

Pony Express, the mail service in the 19th-century American West could deliver a letter across half the continent in just ten days. Speed was its hallmark, but so was its pricing strategy: you paid more for faster delivery and less for standard service.

Datadog is known for its cloud-scale monitoring and analytics, it charges based on the number of hosts you're monitoring. Simple enough, right? But hold your horses!

Datadog knew that not all data is created equal. Some metrics are more critical and need to be monitored in real time, while others might not require such frequent checking. So, what did they do? They introduced different pricing tiers based on the granularity of data monitoring. 

If you need real-time updates, you pay a premium. If you're okay with less frequent data pulls, you pay less. 

By doing so, Datadog managed to serve both ends of the market spectrum. Smaller companies could afford the basic tier, while larger enterprises who needed more granular data could opt for the higher tiers. 

This tiered, usage-based billing model maximized their market reach, much like how the Pony Express was accessible to anyone willing to pay for speed.

And here's a kicker: Datadog also offers a "Free Forever" tier for those who want to dip their toes into the data lake. This is akin to how the Pony Express would sometimes carry personal messages for soldiers free of charge, building goodwill and brand recognition.

From the dusty trails of the American West to the high-speed lanes of the internet, the essence of billing has remained the same: adaptability and a keen understanding of customer needs can take you a long way. Whether it's delivering letters across rugged terrains or crunching complex data sets, a flexible billing strategy can make you a legend in your field.

To be flexible with your business offering in today’s SaaS one should have a flexible billing system as well that can accommodate all business changes and improvements. That’s why we have Togai. It’s the most flexible billing software ever, and with the newest launch of entitlements, you can create new pricing tiers, experiment (multiple ones, really!!), and bundle them as your product and business needs scale. 

Put your reading glasses on: 

In this series on how to effectively bundle and price your offerings, are you puzzled about how to package and price your product right? Here are some reads that’ll answer your burning questions and help 2x your revenue:  

1. How to monetize my APIs? - If you’re breaking your head to look at the monetizable features in your product with a fresh perspective, this is the one you should peer into! 

2. Should I gate some of my features? - Well, as the saying goes, don’t reveal all your cards at once, feature gating helps create intrigue. If you’re thinking about whether to go all-in with your software features or keep some behind the velvet rope, this is the read that'll clear the fog.

3. What type of trial should I give? Long or short? - In the Game of SaaS, timing is the deal breaker. If you're torn between offering a sprint or a marathon trial, we hope this article will help you cross the finish line! 

Did you like our newsletter? Don’t forget to like, comment, and share with your network!

What’s brewing with the product?

🚀 Recurring Entitlements & Credit Grant Rate Cards: Just like your favorite subscription box, Togai now supports recurring entitlements and credit grant rate cards, flexibility in billing is the name of the game.

📜 Proposal Power-ups: You can now send proposals from Togai to your potential customers. Businesses can not only create proposals but when your customers accept them, a purchase flow is created automatically on Togai! Super easy right? 

🔀 Clone & Collaborate: Clone price plans in a jiffy. We've got multi-user support with customizable roles and permissions. Collaboration is now made easy! 

🔌 Integration Galore: We've been busy shaking hands digitally with some of the big players out there. Welcome on board: Paystack for seamless African transactions, Docusign for crucial e-signatures, Quickbooks for the accountants in the house, and Victoria metrics & Prometheus for the data enthusiasts. And here's the cherry on top: our conditional workflow step execution. Configure use cases with ease—like invoicing US clients via Stripe, delighting African customers with Paystack, or reaching out to Indian patrons through RazorPay.

Want to explore more of what Togai can do? Get a Walkthrough Today!

Why?

Because companies shouldn’t have to choose between pricing that truly captures the value they create and pricing that is operationally feasible.

At every stage of your company, your billing needs will be different.

• As you build new features, your pricing models and monetization strategy will change to accommodate your new product offering.

• As you grow, you’ll invariably tweak your GTM motion -

  • you’ll start with founder led sales,

  • then create a self-serve motion for smaller customers

  • and then set up a sales-led motion when you move upmarket to get enterprise customers.

Legacy billing solutions that are available today cater to seat based, prepaid subscriptions and don’t give you the flexibility to price the way that makes sense for your business.

• Want to set up feature limits and automate upgrades and downgrades? Sure, sit down and build a solution yourself.

• Want to sell to enterprise? Well too bad - you’ll have to create a separate price plan for every customer to accommodate their customizations.

• Want to try a usage based pricing for a new feature/product you’re launching? Don’t even think about it.

None of this is anecdotal. We felt this pain ourselves when we were building our previous company. And that’s why we set out to build a robust billing system that works no matter what you throw at it. No matter how complex/unique your pricing and processes are.

A system that fits you just right today. And will be able to support any complexity that arises tomorrow.

Today I can confidently say that Togai gives you the flexibility to choose any - pricing model, payment term, and GTM motion. And I’m so proud of our team for that.

So this month, when I sat down to write the Product newsletter, I had one thing in mind. To make the reader understand why every company needs a flexible billing system and to show that Togai is exactly that.

To start with, I grabbed a hot cup of White Chocolate Latte, went to ChatGPT and said:

and one of the answers it spit out was this

Damn.

Now that’s an image I can’t get out of my head.

(yeppp, I used Midjourney to create this)

Sure enough, I went into a rabbit hole.

About Octopuses (Yes, that’s the plural form).

Did you know that these creatures are -

• the most flexible animals out there

• super smart (as evidenced by all the jar opening videos)

• stressed when they get bored (sometimes this leads them to eat their own arms)

• masters of camouflage and

• super playful

The rabbit hole only got deeper as I started imaging a very Pixar-like story introduction:

There was once a lively little octopus-child called Squishana. As a kid, everyone was amazed at how flexible she was. But as she grew up and went to school, she was bullied a lot for being different from all the other human kids. She had no friends to support her and quickly developed anxiety. Putting 2 and 2 together, her mom decided to send her to yoga classes - to calm her anxiety and work on her flexibility. She immediately caught on, got damn good at it and dropped out of school. Why?

To start a yoga studio. She calls it OctoPose.

I then went to Runway to try and actually make this video 😂 when I got a rude slack notification.

Ummm, oops.

I guess that’s it about octopuses 😬 (at least for this edition of the newsletter 😉)

Let’s get into the actual product updates now, yeah?

July Updates:

The new tentacles/features that were added last month significantly improve the flexibility of the platform, giving you the ability to price and bill in any way that makes sense for your business.

Want to try them out yourself?

Just sign up for free and give it a test drive 🏎️

Try Togai for Free

But read on for the low-down:

1. Entitlements/Feature Limits: In June we released v1 of Entitlements. Very quickly, we were flooded with feature requests that were Entitlements-related. So we doubled down on it this month and released some really massive improvements:

   1. You can now set up tiered or volume pricing models for Entitlements

   2. Want to grant feature credits on a recurring basis? yep, that’s possible now with Recurring Entitlements. You can even set up your own custom cycle to define the actual frequency.

   3. Enriched values are now supported for Entitlements. This means you can apply custom formulas and calculations on the incoming feature usage data within the events.

   4. Idempotency checks are now enabled for Entitlement events. This means you can rest assured that there won’t be any double-counting while calculating usage.

      

2. Price Plan Overrides: When you’re selling to enterprise or when you’re very early stage - you need to have flexibility in your pricing. Each customer is going to have a different price plan. And there’s going to be a bunch of customization required. The issue is, if you don’t have a structured way to handle this, you’ll be forced to create a separate price plan for every single customer you acquire. What a mess!

   This is exactly why we built Price Plan Overrides. With Overrides, you create one master price plan and create customizations within that plan as and when they’re needed. Togai lets you customize every single part of a price plan - start and end dates, grace period, pricing cycle, the actual price of the different rate cards. You can now also add or delete fixed fees and license fees to the price plan.

3. Adyen integration: Certain billing systems (like Stripe Billing) lock you in with specific payment platforms and don’t let you work with others. Not Togai. We’re integrating with various payment platforms so you can choose from an array of options. Adyen was just added to that list!

4. Recurring fixed fee: As the name suggests, you now have the option of having one-time fixed fees (say, you want to charge an implementation fee) or fixed fees that repeat in a specific frequency (say, recurring add-ons).

If any of these capabilities interested you, and you’d like a detailed walkthrough - we’re just one call away.

Get on a 30-min call

Some super cool stuff in the pipeline are being built as you’re reading this. Here’s a sneak peek:

• Docusign and Quickbooks integrations,

• Recurring credits,

• Webhooks, and

• an option to purchase one-time credits and fixed fees.

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It’s me again. Here to give you some crazy good updates and goodies!

June was a whirlwind of a month at Togai ⚡

We built two major, game changing features from scratch and pushed it live to customers - all in just one month. Here’s a quick sneak peek:

1. Entitlements aka Feature limits: Allow or deny access to features based on their tiers and enable auto-upgrades. This is a way to implement your packaging without writing code.

2. Seat based subscriptions: Implement your seat based pricing model, no matter how complex, with just a few clicks

If you want a detailed walkthrough, we’re always just one click away

Get on a call

But read on for the low-down and some goodies.

June product updates:

1. Entitlements : These are your control switches. Entitlements in Togai let you define what your users can do inside your product - what features they can use and how much. Without any code. Set up feature gates or usage limits for features and build different flows for what happens when a user reaches these limits, with just a few clicks.

   

   For example, let’s take a whiteboarding software like Miro or Figjam. Say a customer is on their basic plan which allows for 3 whiteboards and 4 editors. What do you do when this customer goes over this limit? You can provide different options: purchase additional editors or whiteboards for a certain fee, or you may want to deny access while alerting your CS team about this so they can have an upsell conversation. With Togai you can implement all this and more!

2. Seat based pricing: If your pricing involves a “charge per user” component, you’ll love this! Togai now has advanced support for seat based subscriptions. Specify how many licenses are allowed for each plan and provide your users flows to add, edit or delete seats using Togai. We also support in-advance and in-arrears invoicing of licenses when there is a change in the number of licenses in the middle of the billing cycle. Want to only charge your customers for their licenses on a daily granularity? You can do that too, with Proration!

If these sound exciting, maybe give it a test drive yourself?

Try for free

Anyway, remember when I said I had some goodies?

Here’s the first one 🎁

A short primer on all things packaging.

We just saw how entitlements help you implement you packaging. But how do you go about packaging in the first place?

Is your packaging setting you up for success? What are some other packaging options you can consider? The next time engineering releases a feature, how do you determine which bundle it goes into?

Answers to all these questions are waiting for you ⬇️

Question 1: Is my packaging working well? OR should I take a second look?

If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then its worth re-considering your packaging:

1. Are you facing difficulty to upsell or cross sell?

2. Are your feature and product usage going up but your bill size remains the same?

3. Are you having to give increasingly large discounts to convert specific customer groups?

4. Are your win rates dwindling?

5. Have you just been giving away every new feature for free and not thinking if you should monetize it?

If your answer is yes, don’t worry - a good rule of thumb is to reconsider your pricing and packaging every month. Read on to see how exactly you can go about tweaking your packaging.

Question 2: Okay looks like I should change my packaging. Where do I start?

Start with your ICP.

In the initial stages, companies sell their products to anyone who is willing to buy. This lack of focus leads to 3 things:

• high CAC

• low win rate

• ineffective pricing

To build a compelling product proposition, you need to know who you're building it for. So you need to have well-defined ICPs to target profitable segments and adapt their products to fit these customers' needs through flexible offerings. It's important to understand the unique behaviours of each customer group. You can do this by analyzing data on feature usage or contract specifics. These variations form the basis for crafting different pricing and packaging strategies.

Question 3: Are there like, different packaging options? That I can consider and choose from?

Yep. There are 5! But most companies go for the Good/Better/Best model.

The first two are simple to implement. As you go to the right, it gets more difficult to set up and implement.

• A good example of Segment/role/use case structure is Gitlab. Gitlab has a buyer based pricing model - free was for individual developers, Premium for team leads and Ultimate for executives.

Whenever the product team built something new, we’d ask ourselves “who cares about this the most?” If it was the executive, it should go on the Ultimate tier. If it was the individual developer, it should go in the Free tier. Considering that the GitLab product org was shipping an average of 50 new enhancements or features each month, having this framework helped us make good packaging decisions at scale and across a large team.

-Scott Williamson, former CPO of Gitlab

• Good/Better/Best is a tiered model that provides

  • a basic/pared-down offering at a competitive price (Good) to attract a new customer,

  • essential/curated features to keep the existing customer satisfied (Better) and,

  • a feature-laden premium version to increase spending by customers who want more (Best), as highlighted in this HBR article.

• With the Modular structure, you need to beware. ‘Build-your-own’-models are most flexible but also very complex for prospects to understand. They can sometimes be seen as nickle-and-diming by the customer, can lengthen sales cycles, and put immense pressure on the sales team. Success hinges on customers and sales staff having a good understanding of the product to navigate its complexities, or on a customer base with very specific requirements. This model usually fits well to established firms in the enterprise segment, because the needs of enterprise customers differ greatly from one another. Two companies that did well with this packaging structure include Twilio and Medallia.

Question 4: How do I know which feature goes in which bundle? Or if it shouldn’t be in a bundle in the first place and become an add-on?

preached by Pricing consultancy Simon-Kucher & partners is to categorize features into “leaders”, “fillers” and “bundle killers” .

"Leaders" are the must-haves, like a hamburger in a McDonald’s, attracting customers and essential for all packages.

"Fillers" are the extras, akin to fries and coke, adding bonus value to a deal. Bundling these boosts customer uptake and increases the average revenue per user (ARPU) as they'd otherwise be cherry-picked a la carte.

The “bundle killers”, are the coffee of your value meal. Very few people want burger, fries, coke AND a coffee. Adding coffee to the value meal might even turn people off from buying entirely because they’d end up with more than they need. Sure, there will be a handful of caffeine-starved customers who do want the coffee. But they can be set up as add-ons that can be bought in addition to the main bundle.

Yep. That’s the end of the Primer.

Hope that was useful!

Moving on to Goodie No.2 🍪

This is for you if you are thinking about adding a usage based component in your pricing. Or wanting to completely move into usage based pricing model.

So last month we wrote a handbook - a strategic AND tactical guide on usage based pricing. It has everything you need to know to create and implement a usage based pricing motion for your products.

Here's a sneak peek of what you'll find inside:

⚡ Is usage based pricing the right fit for your product? What are the benefits? How do different categories and industries use usage based pricing for their products?

⚡The 3 step process to designing the right usage based pricing strategy for you - how to pick the right value metric, the pricing model and the pricing structure.

⚡Implementation checklist for GTM teams. What needs to change in your Sales, support and customer success teams when you're implementing a usage based component?

⚡Technical implementation - what does that look like? What are factors you need to consider before starting the implementation?

Give me the book!

Last but definitely not the least is Goodie No.3 🧁

We just introduced a FREE TIER in Togai!

If you’ve been having problems with the way your current billing system and processes work -

• maybe you’re having to constantly create workarounds and build internal tooling to make your billing system work for you,

• maybe everything is manual and you’re thinking “There must be a better way!”,

• maybe your current tool is way too big of a menace to work with and the support from your billing provider isn’t cutting it either.

  

Worry no more.

Togai is here for you.

Play around with the free tier yourself and if you ever need anything, we’re here to help!

Try Togai

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The year is 2050.
Human are on Mars and AI rules Earth.

Everything is different - the jobs, the economy, lifestyle, pricing…

Life as we know it has completely changed.

Wondering what this looks like?

Check out the comic book below for our fun take on how everything looks like in 2050.

Across the Spiderverse wasn't the only hit comic this week :)

Read Comic Book

2. How did Docker go from $54M to $135M ARR in just one year?

Despite being one of the most important companies in modern-day development, Docker was written off by many because they weren’t able to convert the value they were providing into revenue.

Competitors had come in and were chipping away at their market share. Their GTM strategy wasn’t working out and they were on a down trend.

But in 2019, everything changed.

They completely revamped their GTM direction and Pricing strategy.

The result? Their ARR jumped from $54M to $135M.

Thats a 150% increase in just a year!

Docker was back in the game stronger than ever and has only been growing since.

If you are wondering how Docker achieved this dramatic turnaround, here’s the scoop.

3. Togai updates

We are excited to announce that we raised our seed funding of $3.1M! 🎉

Read our Forbes feature here.

We are in a new era of software, powered by AI. Traditional billing systems from a previous bygone era are just not cut out to solve for the pricing & billing needs of an AI-first SaaS product. The vision for Togai is help the new age SaaS companies leverage pricing to power their growth, and to see billing as a strategic step in unlocking their revenue potential. By reducing the time to launch any pricing model from months to minutes, through our metering and billing platform, we enable companies to rethink pricing from the ground up and with negligible engineering effort.

We’ve also been busy rolling out some exciting features:

💵 Price plan versioning, scheduling, migration, overrides and archival: Togai now has extensive support for all the lifecycle stages of a price plan. Want to migrate customers across price plans? Maybe you want to edit your current price plan and move over a specific segment of customers today while scheduling the change to others? Do all this and more with just a few clicks.

🏖️Togai sandbox: Take a tour of Togai using our no-login public sandbox. The whole experience is tailored to your role and industry and can give you an idea about what you can achieve with Togai. Check it out!

💰Add custom charges: You can now add miscellaneous charges to an upcoming (one-off) or ongoing invoice.

Some really cool stuff like advanced seat based subscription management capabilities and entitlements are in the pipeline as well!

Want to watch it as a short video instead? Click on below!

When the pandemic disrupted our normal, it changed how we do business. However, Shopify experienced accelerated adoption (for obvious reasons). But when the pandemic slowed, the world was ready to return back to the old normal. That meant shoppers preferred to shop in stores, thus slowing the growth of digital retailers like Shopify. That’s when Shopify announced that they are hiking their prices for the first time in 12 years. Is it a genius move? Or one made out of desperation? I did a bit of digging around and here’s what I found about why they made such a pricing change and how it might impact them and their customers.

The first question that came to my mind “Why did they wait for 12 years to iterate with their pricing”. Followed up with “Should they have experimented with pricing and made small changes along the way?” 

Why did they make these changes now?

Here are my findings:

• Current changes in consumer behavior (After the pandemic, people preferred to go out rather than order online)

• When Covid disrupted everyone's normal, it positively impacted Shopify. They had to keep up the growth trajectory 

• Proactively prepare for the recession 

• Revenues need to keep up with the innovation brought to the table by the Shopify team.

The only way Shopify could keep this momentum is by activating a growth lever that makes an impact immediately. “Pricing” as a growth lever (4Ps of Marketing, remember?) has been untouched by Shopify. Not a single change in 12 years, remember? 

*Turns on*

Shopify's new pricing 

Monthly plan changes: 

• Basic plan -- increasing from $29 per month to $39 per month -- up 34%

• Shopify plan -- increasing from $79 per month to $105 per month -- up 33%

• Advanced plan -- increasing from $299 per month to $399 per month -- up 33%

Yearly plan changes:

• Basic plan -- increasing from $14.44 per month to $29 per month

• Shopify plan -- increasing from $39.44 per month to $79 per month

• Advanced plan -- increasing from $147.78 per month to $299 per month

Shopify+ plan remains unchanged at $2000 (Fun fact: Shopify Plus stores account for 3% of the top one million internet sites)

Inevitably, all hell broke loose after these changes were announced. 

Considering Shopify is a publicly traded company,  I looked into the balance sheet of Shopify for the last 6 years. This is what it looked like:

Also, I took a look into the annual report and found this! 

Only 26.6% of Shopify’s revenue comes from subscription services! 

and

73.4% of their revenue comes from Merchant Solutions! 

(Annual report of Shopify 22)

And Shopify is not making any changes to the pricing of its Merchant Solution services.

What can you learn from this pricing change? 

• Shopify cleverly nudges its current users to upgrade to a yearly plan (helping them save them a bunch of $). Thus, it increases retention and goodwill. 

• They didn’t make changes to Shopify+ as their biggest customers were there. 

• Clarity in communicating to their users via a blog post explaining the reason for the increase + emphasizing the fact that they have not made a change in the last 12 years. Read the blog here

Putting it into perspective

• The bottom 20% of the merchants use 80% of the support resources. If the prices were increased, they could churn. Or Shopify will now be able to allocate necessary resources for support. 

• It was no longer about how many companies used the platform. What mattered was the $ value processed via Shopify stores. 

• Shopify is way ahead of its competitors with the integrations, ease of use, free tools, and apps that they offer. With a $10 increase in their basic plan, they would still be one of the best tools out there at the said price. 

Why I think this price increase is justified

• They need to prepare for inflation

• They would need to keep the momentum up

• Big commerce is their biggest competition But Big-commerce is now more focused on mid-level to enterprise customers. They are not targeting small-size companies. Ultimately, there are no direct alternatives at the said price. 

While I empathize with small businesses who may feel the pinch, I believe Shopify needs to do what’s best for them. 

When you look at this from a value perspective—users will still be “willing to pay" to use Shopify. 

I predict churn will be minimal and so will new customer acquisitions. 

But who am I to make such predictions!? I will add to this article after the next quarter's results are out.

What do you think? How do YOU think they should have gone about this? 

Let me start with a stat - In Q1 of 2023, only a measly 2.3% B2B SaaS companies(with a public pricing page) made any change on their pricing. And I'm not talking about the monetary price changes alone. I'm talking marketing copy changes, changes in packages or bundling - just any tiny change in their pricing page at all.

Now, you might be wondering, "What's the big deal?"

Well, with the tech downturn and the freezing of buyers’ budgets, focussing only on acquisition, just won’t cut it anymore. Open up Linkedin and you'll see "do more with less" plastered everywhere(maybe not as much as ChatGPT, but it’s close for sure). Gone are the days where growth was mainly about cranking up that ad spend.Despite seeing your numerous ads, the reality is that your (very interested) buyer won't buy your product if they don't have the budget to buy more software.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. Did you know that your pricing growth lever is actually 7.5 times more powerful for driving growth compared to acquisition? And that's a big deal! The time is here for you to start paying closer attention to your pricing strategy.

But when should you focus on iterating your pricing?

And most importantly, how do you go about doing that?

In this edition of the newsletter, we go deep into these 2 questions. We’ll see how others have done it and provide you with a handy framework to apply to your own products.

Why aren't price changes as common as we might expect?

According to Ajit Ghuman(Head of Pricing at Twilio and author of Price To Scale), it's due to a variety of factors,

• A lack of understanding about how to approach pricing changes. It can be a daunting task, and many companies simply don't know where to begin.

• Nobody wants to rock the boat and risk driving away valuable customers by tweaking the prices. It's a delicate balancing act between maximizing revenue and maintaining customer loyalty.

• No dedicated pricing owner within organizations. Without someone taking charge and championing the cause, pricing tends to fall by the wayside, remaining stagnant and untouched.

• Pricing changes can be time-consuming and costly. “This is at least a year long project if you're overhauling your pricing” says Ajit. Natalie Louie from Zuora and Oracle echoes this sentiment, stating, "That's the hard thing with pricing. You can come up with all these great ideas, but it gets hard to actually build and implement them."

Now, here comes a shameless plug (we can't resist!)—this is precisely where Togai comes to the rescue. With Togai, you can make pricing changes and launch any pricing model without engineering effort, 10x faster.

Anyway, let’s get back to the article.

So When Should You Invest in Price Optimization?

This begs the question, “should I invest in optimizing my pricing now?”

John Kotowski(Founder of Buyerson Inc - a pricing consulting agency and PricingSaaS) has an excellent framework for how he looks at pricing iterations.

He says that every quarter, orgs should take a look at their product and see what they can do to improve revenue. “What's the one feature that will help us generate more MRR?" is the question one should be asking.

He recommends taking a look at your pricing and packaging to ensure you're not giving away valuable features for free, especially new ones. Consider segmenting your customers or bundling things differently to maximize your pricing potential.

Here's exactly what he told us:

Additionally, there are two other scenarios when companies should consider investing in price optimization and experimentation.

• The first is when external circumstances change, such as the economy turning and causing a significant decrease in revenue. You know, like now.

• The second is when customers hint at specific use cases directly or indirectly.

Now, onto another critical question!

How exactly do you go about implementing a price change?

Well, instead of bombarding you with a lengthy quote, I've got something even better for you—a concise 4-minute video. In this video, John outlines a step-by-step framework that provides clear guidance on how to optimize and increase your prices.

Well, that's the end of the guide. But before we end the newsletter, I would like to share some exciting news from our end.

Togai's integrations

In other news, I am PUMPED to announce that we're introducing integrations! We've spoken with 100+ companies and we've clearly seen that pricing (especially the internal workflows) looks different in every company. Most of these are manual, clunky and error prone processes leading to hours of manual effort, billing errors and angry customers.

This is why we decided to build integrations. We actually went one step ahead to build a marketplace which means that you'll be able to create automated workflows on your own but that's coming soon.

Today, we have tight two way native integrations with Zuora, Stripe, Zohobooks and Razorpay!

This means you can automate all your internal workflows and not just save time but also ensure that there are no more billing disputes.

I hope you found this guide was useful. Just remember that pricing is not a set and forget exercise. It’s a powerful lever that you can use to maximise not just revenue but also margins and profits.

OpenView reported that seven out of nine companies that went IPO with the best net dollar retention had a usage-based model. Nowadays, not only infrastructure companies but also API-based products and application software like Hubspot and Slack have adopted usage-based pricing. This model is particularly suitable for product-led growth companies as it focuses on delivering value to customers through its products, creating a sustainable revenue model.

In this article , we take a look at several successful companies that have implemented the consumption-based pricing model and how it happened.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) 

AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a cloud computing platform that provides a variety of services such as storage, computing power, and databases. Previously, AWS used a traditional pricing model where customers paid upfront for a certain amount of computing power. 

In 2006, AWS introduced usage-based pricing. Now, customers could pay only for the amount of computing resources they used and could scale up or down as needed. This made it more accessible and affordable for customers.

When it comes to pricing, Amazon has a Free Tier, which enables businesses to use a variety of services with certain restrictions for the first year. It also offers an Always Free tier with limited services. Although all Amazon services are priced on demand, discounts are available in several cases such as reserving services for 1 or 3 years, bidding on Amazon's Spot Instance market for spare computing capacity, or making a commitment to purchase a certain quantity of Amazon resources for the entire organization. 

UBP helped AWS significantly increase its market share and grow its customer base. It has made it easier for small businesses and startups to access AWS's services, which were previously out of reach due to high upfront costs. AWS has been able to reach traditionally cost-conscious SMB and middle-market with >1M customers to date. The flexibility of UBP also allows larger enterprises to better manage their computing resources and control costs.

Overall, AWS's transition to usage-based pricing was a game-changer in the cloud computing industry and helped establish AWS as a market leader.

Snowflake

It is a data warehousing platform that operates on cloud computing and provides storage, analysis, and data processing solutions. 

Before transitioning to usage-based pricing, Snowflake had a traditional pricing model forcing customers to estimate their storage needs in advance and pay upfront for a fixed amount of storage.

In 2018, Snowflake introduced usage-based pricing which is based on two consumption metrics: compute usage and data storage. The cost of computing is determined by the number of credits required to execute queries or perform a service. And the pricing rate for credits varies depending on the edition used: standard, enterprise, or business-critical. Likewise, the charge for storage is calculated based on the amount of data stored per month in bytes, along with the cost of transferring data between regions. The total compressed file size is utilized to calculate the storage bill for a given account.

It allowed them to differentiate itself from competitors and appeal to a wider range of customers, including smaller businesses and those with fluctuating data needs. By eliminating the need for upfront commitments and allowing customers to pay for only what they use, Snowflake was able to reduce barriers to adoption and increase customer satisfaction.

Also, as customers used more of the Snowflake platform, they would naturally pay more, creating a direct relationship between usage and revenue. This allowed Snowflake to capture more of the value it created for customers, leading to increased revenue and profitability. 

Algolia

A search-as-a-service platform that enables businesses to create fast, relevant, and personalized user search and discovery experiences. Algolia provides a suite of developer tools, including search APIs, search UI libraries, and analytics, that allow businesses to implement highly customizable search features on their websites, mobile apps, and other digital platforms.

Before transitioning to a usage-based pricing model, Algolia had a traditional pricing model based on the number of records indexed and the number of queries performed. This model was complex and often created friction with customers who found it difficult to predict their monthly costs.

With the UBP model, Algolia simplified its pricing by charging customers based on their usage of search features, such as indexing, query processing, and user analytics. This model allowed customers to pay only for what they use, eliminating the unpredictability and complexity of the previous pricing model.

UBP also helped Algolia grow and succeed by aligning its revenue with customer value. As customers used more search features and generated more value from the platform, Algolia's revenue increased accordingly. This incentivized Algolia to focus on delivering high-quality search experiences that drive customer success, leading to higher customer retention and revenue growth.

Algolia successfully transitioned to a usage-based pricing model by ensuring the following steps:

• They realized that pursuing growth without considering long-term implications could lead to poor decision-making. They shifted away from a sales-led growth model and embraced a product-led growth approach.

• The transition to the new pricing model took almost a year, during which they made significant changes such as modifying the service order, billing system, and pricing page, as well as training the support and sales teams. This investment of time was worthwhile.

• Nudged everyone to foster a PLG (product-led growth) mindset and adjust their approach to work. 

Datadog

Datadog is a cloud-based monitoring and analytics platform that provides businesses with real-time insights into their IT infrastructure and applications. They help customers monitor server and application performance, logs, and metrics, as well as provide infrastructure-as-code and security solutions.

Before transitioning to a usage-based pricing model, Datadog had a tiered pricing model based on the number of hosts or servers being monitored. It had limited flexibility and made it difficult for customers to adjust to changing needs.

Datadog's made the transition to a usage-based pricing model so they can increase the value they delivered to customers while also increasing their revenue. Here is an interesting fact: Datadog’s customers who spend $100k+ represent 72% of revenue, but only 6.7% of customers.

Further, by simplifying its pricing and offering more flexible payment options, Datadog was able to appeal to a wider range of customers.

Azure

Azure is a cloud computing platform offered by Microsoft. Previously, it had adopted a traditional pricing model based on a combination of upfront commitments and pay-as-you-go pricing. However, in 2012, Azure began offering a usage-based pricing model, similar to AWS and Google Cloud, where customers only pay for the resources they use.

Azure's services such as Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Backup, and Azure Logic Apps have shown remarkable growth due to their consumption-based pricing model. For Azure Virtual Machines, customers are charged for the time that the VM instance is in use, with the pay-as-you-go model being ideal for unpredictable workloads. Azure also offers reserved instances, where customers pay upfront for a fixed period of VM run time, and spot VMs, which provide deep discounts but customers lack control over when the VM runs. Their Azure Logic Apps uses a graduated tier pricing model, where the cost per unit decreases with increased consumption.

UBP allowed Azure to become a more customer-focused and agile company, and better compete with other cloud providers who were already offering usage-based pricing. Secondly, it enabled Azure to attract more customers who were looking for a more flexible and scalable pricing model. Further, it allowed customers to try Azure's services without having to make a large upfront commitment, which made it easier for smaller businesses to adopt Azure.

Stripe

Stripe is a payment infrastructure designed for businesses to accept payments and send payouts with ease. Their previous flat-rate pricing model was based on the transaction volume. However, in 2019, they introduced a new pricing model which allows their users to only pay for the services they use, based on the number of API requests made by their customers.The value proposition for customers lies in the per-transaction pricing, which remains constant irrespective of the transaction size, card type, or card-issuing network. Every customer is charged a fixed rate for each successful card charge, simplifying the payment process.

A consumption-based pricing strategy set them apart from the competition and helped them to attract more users, particularly startups and small businesses. It also helped them better monetize their platform by charging for additional services beyond payment processing. 

Twilio

It provides web service APIs that enable users to engage in communication functions such as making and receiving phone calls, and sending and receiving text messages. 

Twilio offered a more traditional pricing model based on per-user, per-month pricing, with different tiers for different levels of usage. Today, customers have the flexibility to choose from various pricing options, such as pay-as-you-go, volume discounts, committed use discounts, or a combination of these. Twilio's pricing model for its SMS product is based on a per-SMS basis, which effectively captures the value delivered to the customers.

Customers can experiment with Twilio's services without making a long-term commitment, and could easily scale their usage up or down depending on their needs. It improved the adoption and usage of Twilio's services, leading to significant revenue growth for the company.

Clearbit

Clearbit is an API-driven solution that enriches real-time data for businesses, providing enhanced market intelligence into prospects. The product integrates with various tools, such as Salesforce, G Suite, Outlook, HubSpot, Marketo, Zapier, Segment, and Tray. 

In 2018, Clearbit shifted to a usage-based pricing model from its traditional subscription-based pricing model. Instead of having to pay a fixed fee for access to the company's tools, customers can now only pay for what they use. The pricing model is based on the number of API requests made. This move enabled Clearbit to capture revenue from larger enterprise customers who were using the company's tools at scale and improve its customer retention rates. 

Zapier

Zapier is a productivity tool that streamlines repetitive tasks by automating workflows between different web applications. Previously,  Zapier offered tiered plans based on the number of zaps (automated workflows) and the features offered in each plan.

In 2020, Zapier announced a major shift in its pricing model, moving towards usage-based pricing where customers are charged based on the number of tasks performed instead of the number of zaps created or the features included in each plan. It provides a free version with certain limitations where customers can perform up to 100 tasks per month and have up to 5 Zaps active at a time. The free version also includes a 14-day trial of premium features.

For its professional and team-based plans (Zapier Pro, Team, Company, or higher), Zapier uses a usage-based pricing model. If customers exceed the task limit, they will be charged an overage rate per task. It is worth noting that Zapier recently achieved an Annual Recurring Revenue of $140 million.

This pricing model allows for greater transparency and predictability in customers’ billing. So it’s no wonder customers love it! 

Mailchimp

Mailchimp provides businesses with email marketing and automation software that facilitates customer communication and management. It also provides several audience engagement tools within its platform.

Earlier, it offered a tiered pricing model that charged customers based on the number of subscribers on their email list. The more subscribers a customer had, the higher their monthly fee would be, making it difficult for small businesses to afford the platform.

In 2019, Mailchimp introduced usage-based pricing for its email marketing service, allowing customers to pay based on the number of emails they send per month, rather than the size of their subscriber list. Users can opt for this pay-as-you-go model, which is ideal for infrequent senders. With this model, each email sent consumes one credit, and users can purchase credits as needed.Moreover, Mailchimp provides a free plan that permits up to 500 contacts and 2,500 monthly sends.

Slack

Many businesses today depend on Slack to effectively communicate and collaborate across teams. Before Slack transitioned to usage-based pricing in 2021, they had a tiered pricing model based on the number of features and amount of storage included. Customers were charged a fixed price per user per month, regardless of how much they used the platform.

Today, Slack charges customers based on the actual usage of the platform, measured in terms of the number of messages sent and calls made. Customers can choose from a range of pricing plans based on the number of active users and the expected usage levels.

The new pricing model allows customers to start small and only pay for what they use, while also providing flexibility to scale up as their usage increases. This has helped to drive adoption and usage of the platform, while also increasing customer satisfaction and retention.

Cypress

Cypress is a JavaScript end-to-end testing framework that is used for testing web applications. It allows developers to write automated tests that simulate user behavior, interact with web elements, and ensure that their applications are working as expected.

Before transitioning to usage-based pricing, Cypress had a traditional pricing model with a free plan and several paid plans with additional features. The paid plans ranged from $99/month to $299/month, depending on the number of parallel test runs and other features.

With the new consumption-based pricing model, Cypress offers four tiers tailored to different types of users: Free, Team, Business, and Enterprise. Each tier offers more features than the free open-source (Test Runner) product and caters to different sizes of teams and use cases. 

The new pricing model offers more affordable starting prices (the paid plan's price has been reduced from $100/month to $75/month). Customers can now pay for their exact usage starting at $6 per 1,000 test results. Cypress has also introduced two new plans, Business and Enterprise, that include access to features such as single sign-on, premium support, and complex integrations. The Enterprise plan comes with unlimited users, which is a first for the company and allows larger organizations to open up the product to their entire engineering team. The new pricing model has encouraged customers to proactively upgrade, and unlimited users have been a strong catalyst for expansion.

Even traditional subscription companies adopt hybrid pricing

In recent years, there has been a shift towards incorporating usage-based pricing models even by these traditional subscription-based companies like Salesforce, Zoom, and Box. Usage is a fence between their pricing packages.

Salesforce, a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform offers plans for a monthly fee, But it also offers usage-based pricing through add-ons such as Salesforce Inbox and Salesforce CPQ. These add-ons are priced per user per month. And usage is based on the number of actions taken within the add-on, such as the number of emails sent or quotes generated.

Similarly, Zoom, the popular video conferencing and web conferencing platform that grew popular during the pandemic, offers usage-based pricing through its Zoom Meetings platform. While Zoom Meetings is primarily sold as a subscription, customers can purchase add-ons such as Zoom Video Webinars and Zoom Rooms where usage is based on the number of attendees or the number of rooms, respectively.

Box, a cloud content management and file-sharing service offers both subscription and usage-based pricing through their Box Platform product. Box Platform allows developers to integrate Box's services into their applications, and pricing is based on the number of API requests made by the application. 

The incorporation of usage-based pricing by traditional subscription-based companies is a reflection of the changing landscape of SaaS pricing models. These examples stand by what we believe: Usage-based pricing is the future of pricing. 

Everyone in the developer fraternity would know of Docker! Docker is the most popular container platform. In fact, Docker has become synonymous with “containers.” 

Despite being one of the most important companies in modern-day development, the company was written off by many as they were unable to convert the value they were providing into $. 

Before Docker was Docker, it was DotCloud. It was 

• Founded in 2010

• Raised seed capital from Trinity; Series A ($12M) from Benchmark Capital

• Positioned as a PaaS (Platform as a service) company—basically could run programs in any programming language. 

Unfortunately, the market did not develop as anticipated, and the momentum was declining. Solemn, the founder, suggested outsourcing the container technology that they had created for DotCloud.

(Wait...what?) 

He believed that the developer community required the container technology developed for DotCloud. However, the board instructed Soloman to search for a merger or acquisition deal to sell the company. After consulting with several individuals, Soloman reaffirmed his intuition and decided to pursue the development of what we now know as Docker.

What does Docker do?

Docker is a tool that makes it easy to create and run small, isolated environments called containers, which can hold individual software applications and their dependencies. Think of it like a virtual box where your application can live and run without interfering with other applications on your computer. Docker provides a version of this tool, called Docker Desktop, for both Mac and Windows users, enabling them to use containers on their personal computers. Additionally, Docker offers a service that acts as a storage hub for these containers, similar to how Google Drive stores files. They also provide a security scanning feature to ensure that the containers are safe from potential security threats.

[Insert picture explaining what they do]

What was Docker’s Monetisation strategy?

Docker become viral among the developer fraternity! As of 2018, they had 37 billion containerized applications downloaded. With this, it should have been quite easy to monetize, right? 

Wrong! 

They went the Redhat way. 

Approach?Top-down sales

Who did they sell to? Operations

Who used their product? Developers

Who did they want to sell to? Enterprises 

How did they productize their product? They helped IT manage new container workloads. 

Unfortunately, this did not work. It hardly drove any revenue. 

Why didn’t their monetization strategy work?

• Docker's initial monetization strategy failed primarily due to the misalignment between its target audience and its sales approach. By opting for a top-down sales strategy and targeting operations and enterprises, they overlooked the developers who were their core users and most passionate advocates. This disconnect meant that they struggled to gain traction with their offerings, as the ones using the product were not the decision-makers in the buying process. 

• Additionally, they were late to the market in monetizing their product, which allowed competitors like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM to position their Kubernetes-based services as alternatives. 

This combination of misaligned audience targeting and strong competition from industry giants resulted in Docker's initial monetization strategy falling short of expectations.

However, were they too late?

The big guns in the technology world began to monetize!

Google open-sourced Kubernetes. 

Kubernetes is a tool that helps manage and organize multiple containers, like those created using Docker, across several computers or servers. Imagine it as a conductor in an orchestra, coordinating the performance of various musicians, ensuring they play in harmony. In this analogy, the musicians are the computers or servers, and the music they play represents the applications running inside the containers. Kubernetes makes sure that these containers work together seamlessly, automatically handling tasks like scaling the number of containers up or down based on demand, distributing the workload evenly, and recovering from failures. It ensures that your applications run smoothly and efficiently, even when spread across multiple machines.

The likes of Google Cloud, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM positioned Kubernetes as a managed service. 

Docker was on the brink of failure!

• Despite raising over $200M, they didn’t have a substantial ARR 

• They sold its enterprise and swarm business to Mirantis. 

• They downsized their team from 420 to 60

Docker wanted to re-focus its efforts and build for developers (something they knew best)!

Have to say, Docker was written off at this point. 

But it wasn't the end.

2019—a turning point for Docker

The New Stack from May 2019 cited the following in an article: 

"Docker had a bit of a rough patch last year, but it seems that the container darling is getting back on track. The company is starting to make some important changes that could see it become a more viable business. In fact, some experts predict that 2019 could be a turning point for Docker."

Here are some changes they implemented: 

• raised another $35M in funding

• changed their GTM Strategy (since they wanted to build and sell to developers, similar to Github & MongoDB)

• made changes to its pricing and included Docker desktop in all its plans. At this juncture, the company had 5 million users in total. 

• introduced three paid subscription tiers: Personal, Pro, Team, and Business

• continued to provide “free plans for personal use” and “non-commercial open source projects," categorizing some users into the “personal” category, and some into the ‘pro’ category 

• introduced a commercial Docker license for ‘For-profit organizations with more than 250 employees and more than $10 million in annual revenue’ 

And the need for introducing the new pricing strategy: “reflect our need to scale our business sustainably and enable us to continue shipping new value in all Docker subscriptions”. 

You can read the pricing announcement change written by Scott Johnson here.

How did this change affect revenues? 

source:https://prismic-io.s3.amazonaws.com/sacra/89a8abd4-5a25-4ac7-90ad-92d6453bb0d6_Docker+rev+growth.jpg

• People were willing to pay—Docker has over 1 Million paid subscriptions (7-10% of Docker’s 15M users have upgraded to paid tiers)

• Revenues skyrocketed to around $135M (22)

• Over 70% of the Fortune 100 companies are its customers

• Added 2 Million users in one year (21-22)

• Raised $23M at a valuation of $2.1B

• Growing at around 170% YoY

• Currently, Revenue stands at around $135M

The pricing change worked for Docker because it addressed market needs, increased the value proposition, provided a clear and tiered pricing structure, captured existing demand, retained a free option, focused on sustainable growth, and strengthened Docker's market position.

As Tribe Capital put it, Docker’s story is definitely the Phoenix Saga. Also, the story lays out six things for me: 

• Importance of knowing when to pivot

• Doubling down on gut as opposed to consensus 

• Building a product loved by the end user

• Building a community early on 

• Having a well-laid-out monetization strategy (and knowing when to monetize). One single pricing change in 2021 - increased Dockers revenue from $54M to $135M in 1 year. 

This is the prime example of using pricing as a growth lever, don't you think?