Business

SaaS Pricing Calculator

Price your SaaS product right — compare cost-plus and value-based approaches, see gross margin at every price point, and model MRR at different customer counts.

Monthly Infrastructure Cost per Customer ($) Hosting, database, CDN, API costs allocated per customer

Support Cost per Customer ($/month) Support tickets, CS time — amortized per customer per month

Customer Success Cost per Customer ($/month) Onboarding, account management time allocated per customer

Target Gross Margin (%) SaaS benchmark: 70–80% gross margin

Value Delivered to Customer ($/month) Economic value customer gets: time saved × rate, revenue generated, cost avoided

Pricing Model

Competitor Price — Low ($)

Competitor Price — High ($)

COGS per Customer/Month

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Cost-Plus Minimum Price

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Value-Based Suggested Price

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Recommended Price Range

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Gross Margin at Suggested Price

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SaaS Pricing Strategy: Cost-Plus vs Value-Based

Cost-plus pricing sets a floor — the minimum you can charge and still make money. Value-based pricing sets a ceiling — the maximum customers will pay. The right price lives between these two numbers, anchored closer to value than cost.

COGS per Customer = Infrastructure + Support + Customer Success
Cost-Plus Price = COGS ÷ (1 − Target Gross Margin %)
Value-Based Price = Customer Monthly Value × Value Capture Rate (10–30%)
Gross Margin = (Price − COGS) ÷ Price
MRR = Price × Active Customers

Value Capture Rates by Market Segment

SMB tools (productivity, project management): Capture 5–15% of delivered value
Mid-market (analytics, automation): Capture 10–20% of delivered value
Enterprise (security, compliance, ERP): Capture 15–30% of delivered value
Infrastructure/developer tools: Often usage-based, price on consumption

Should I use cost-plus or value-based pricing for SaaS?

Always anchor on value-based pricing — cost-plus is a floor check, not a pricing strategy. The most common SaaS pricing mistake is charging what it costs to build rather than what it's worth to the customer. If your COGS is $17/month and you price at $29 (just above cost-plus), you're leaving enormous money on the table when the customer is saving $500/month in value. Price at 10–20% of delivered value. Run regular pricing experiments — most SaaS companies that raise prices lose fewer customers than they fear and gain significantly more revenue.

What gross margin should SaaS aim for?

Venture-backed SaaS benchmarks: 70–80% gross margin is considered healthy; 80%+ is excellent; below 60% raises concern and suggests either high infrastructure costs or heavy service components. Rule of thumb: if your gross margin is under 60%, investigate whether you're including all COGS correctly (support, CS, hosting) and whether your pricing reflects the value delivered. Public SaaS companies like Salesforce run ~75–77%; pure infrastructure-as-code companies like HashiCorp ~80%; cloud infrastructure providers like Snowflake ~65–70% due to hosting costs.