Price and package a product

Inkwell Pricing and Packaging Proposal

Recommendation

Don't move everyone to a flat $19. Our customers aren't one market.

• Freelancers are 53% of accounts but only 10% of revenue, and they already find $15 expensive.
• Agencies are 13% of accounts and 56% of revenue, and they consider $15 cheap.

A flat $19 overcharges the first group and still undercharges the second. I propose three plans priced by segment, with a staged move for existing customers. Before churn, this delivers about +44% MRR in year one and +95% once fully migrated, compared with +27% for a flat $19.

What the data says

Revenue concentration (150-account sample, $11,805 MRR)

Freelancers are price-sensitive and short-lived. - 50 of 60 freelancer survey respondents put "getting expensive" below $19. For 35 of 60, $15 is already at or past that point. - 5 of the 6 price objections in win/loss came from freelancers. - Freelancers lose to "Google Docs and a free e-signature tool" (12 of 70 deals), not to PandaDoc. - Their trial conversion is 9%, and 38% cancel in month two. - No freelancer in the sample has been a customer longer than 9 months. - They mostly use one template and e-signature.

Agencies are underpriced. - Every agency respondent's "bargain" price is $20 or higher. - 7 of 20 put "too cheap to trust" at $14–15. - Agencies never raised price in win/loss. Their losses to PandaDoc were about product. - They had 0% early churn and use the features freelancers don't: shared library, approvals and CRM sync. - At $35, every sampled agency would pay under 0.5% of the contract value it signs through Inkwell.

Small agencies have room. - Every respondent's "getting expensive" point is $26 or higher. - Trial conversion is 31%, with 6% early churn.

Plans

The 14-day free trial stays on all plans.

Why these prices: - $12 Solo sits below "getting expensive" for 56 of 60 freelancers. It costs about 2% of total MRR to cut existing freelancers from $15. - $25 Team is below every small-agency respondent's "getting expensive" point. - $35 Agency is below every agency respondent's "getting expensive" point (lowest is $42) and well under "too expensive" (lowest is $60).

Plan fences: - The seat cap (Solo = 1, Team ≤ 10) is the main fence. It maps onto the segments the data already uses. - Agency features are deliberately the ones a larger team needs to manage people, not new product promises.

Moving existing customers

How to run it: - Notice. Give at least 60 days' notice to anyone whose price rises. If January is closer than that, launch new prices for new customers in January and move existing customers in February or March. - Lead with what's included. Existing teams keep every feature they use today. The message is "you're on the plan built for teams," not "the price went up." - Annual lock. Offer annual prepay at the year-1 rate, locked for 12 months. This converts the increase into commitment. - At-risk agencies. Have someone call the top agencies by MRR personally before the email goes out. - Your $19 still appears. It becomes the year-1 rate for existing small agencies.

Revenue impact (sample MRR, before churn)

What this means: - The flat $19 figure assumes zero churn and no drag on new sales. Most of the churn risk sits with freelancers, the segment that pays the least. - Year 1 beats flat $19 unless we lose about 12% of MRR. That's roughly 1 in 5 agency seats, in a segment with 0% early churn and no price objections. - The real risk is concentrated. Agency seats carry most of the upside, so agency retention through migration is the thing to watch. Freelancer churn barely moves the total.

Risks and checks before announcing

1. The survey is stated willingness to pay, not behaviour. We don't know whether respondents are customers or prospects. To limit the risk: - Launch new-customer prices first and watch trial conversion by segment for 4–6 weeks before existing customers move. - Keep the agency year-1 rate at $25. 2. Check CRM sync usage before finalising Team. CRM sync is in Team so small agencies lose nothing. If heavy CRM-sync users are mostly 11+ seat accounts, it could move to Agency instead. I need feature usage by account size to confirm. 3. Agencies near the 10/11 seat boundary may resist the jump. Allow a 12-seat grace period on Team for existing customers in year 1. 4. Freelancer losses to free tools aren't solved by a cheaper Solo plan alone. A free tier (e.g., 2 sends a month) is worth testing separately on new trials. It isn't part of this launch because it could cannibalise paying freelancers, who send about 3 proposals a month. 5. Metrics to track monthly: - Trial-to-paid conversion by plan - Month-two cancellations for Solo - Agency logo and seat churn through each migration step - Win rate against PandaDoc

Decision needed from Priya: approve the three plans and the staged migration, and confirm the existing-customer timing (January if 60 days' notice is possible, otherwise February/March).

Pricing and packaging proposal

Recommendation: Don't move everyone to $19. Price by segment, and keep freelancers at $15. A single $19 price fits none of the segments well. It is too high for freelancers, who are already churning and losing to free tools, and far too low for agencies, who will pay more and use the most features.

What the data says

• Freelancers are most of our accounts but little of our revenue. They are 81 of the 150 sampled accounts but only $1,215 of $11,670 MRR (10%). A move to $19 adds about $324 MRR here. Meanwhile 38% of paying freelancers cancel in their second month, and 12 of 18 lost deals went to Google Docs and a free e-signature tool. In the survey, freelancers' median "getting expensive" price is about $15, and roughly one in six put it at $19 or higher. $19 puts them in the zone where they start shopping.
• Small agencies (2–10) can absorb more. Their second-month cancellation is 6% and trial conversion is 31%. Their median "getting expensive" price is about $37, and "too expensive" is about $50. $19 leaves most of that headroom unused.
• Agencies (11–50) are the most underpriced at $19. They show 0% second-month cancellation and 37% trial conversion. Their median "getting expensive" price is about $55, and "too expensive" is about $80. They use the features that justify a higher price: shared content library, approval workflows, and CRM sync.
• Price is a smaller loss driver than it looks. Only 4 of 12 lost freelancer deals raised a price objection. None of the 6 lost small-agency deals went to a free tool. Losses are mostly about competitors and "no decision," not price alone.

Proposed plans

Every plan keeps the 14-day free trial.

Existing customers

• Solo (freelancers): No change, no migration, no notice needed.
• Team: 60 days' written notice. Move to $20 at the January renewal, then $25 at the first renewal after July.
• Business: 60 days' notice. Move to $24 at the January renewal, then $32 at the first renewal after July.
• New customers: List prices from January.

The two-step migration caps the first-year increase at about 33% for Team and 60% for Business. Anyone who objects gets a conversation with sales before renewal, not an automatic downgrade.

Revenue (150-account sample: 778 seats, $11,670 MRR)

The 27% is simply $19 ÷ $15. It assumes no churn and no change in mix. The proposal's gain comes mostly from agencies, not freelancers.

Risks and what to validate first

1. Survey data is stated preference. Willingness-to-pay surveys usually overstate what people will actually pay. The Team and Business numbers are plausible but unproven.
2. The sample is small. It is 150 accounts, and the file doesn't show annual versus monthly billing, so I can't tell how many renewals each price change will hit.
3. Business vs. Team gap. The gap is only $7. If Business customers mostly use shared library and approvals and rarely CRM sync, they may trade down.
4. Freelancer conversion. If Solo stays at $15, the funnel is protected, but we give up the small freelancer upside. I'd accept that trade.

Before the January announcement: run a four-to-six-week test on new small-agency and agency trials at the Team and Business prices. Track trial conversion, second-month cancellation, and win rate against PandaDoc. If the test holds, announce the tiered plans. If conversion drops sharply, adjust Team first, since it has the most accounts.

Decision needed from Priya: approve tiered pricing in place of the flat $19, and approve the 4–6 week test on new trials.

Inkwell pricing proposal

Recommendation: Don't move everyone to $19. Move to three plans priced by segment: hold freelancers at $15, raise small agencies modestly, and raise agencies substantially. Priya's $19 is right for only one of the three segments.

What the data says

• Revenue is concentrated in agencies. In the sample, 20 agencies (13% of accounts) are 56% of MRR ($6,645 of $11,805). The 80 freelancers (53% of accounts) are 10%.
• Agencies are underpriced. $15 sits below their "bargain" point (median about $24). Their "getting expensive" threshold starts at $42, with a median of about $51. They signed $27.4M in 90 days against roughly $20k in fees, so the fee is under 0.1% of the value they close. No agency deal had a price objection, and agency month-2 churn is 0%. They use the shared library, approvals and CRM sync, which are features worth charging for.
• Freelancers are already at their limit. Their median "getting expensive" is about $15, today's price, and nearly all of them hit that threshold by $19. Trial-to-paid is 9% (171 of 1,900), and 38% cancel in month two. Of 160 deals, 12 freelancer deals were lost to free tools, 4 of them citing price. Five of the six price objections in the file came from freelancers. They use one template and e-signature, which free tools approximate.
• Small agencies have headroom. Their "getting expensive" starts at $26, trial-to-paid is 31%, and month-2 churn is 6%. Their losses went to PandaDoc, and none cited price.

Plans

All three price points sit below the lowest "getting expensive" answer in their segment: Team $22 against a $26 minimum, Business $39 against $42. Solo is capped at one user, and adding a second user moves the account to Team.

Revenue (sample MRR, before churn)

The arithmetic behind Priya's 27% is right, but it assumes zero churn and no effect on new sign-ups. Under this plan, agencies could lose 48% of seats at the $29 rate and we'd still match today's revenue from them. At $39 they could lose 61%. Freelancers, the segment most likely to leave, are only 10% of MRR, so holding them at $15 costs little and protects the top of a funnel that is already weak.

Moving existing customers

1. By late October: pull per-account feature usage and check contract and notice terms. I don't have usage data by feature for small agencies. If many use approvals or CRM sync, they'd see the move to Team as a feature loss. Any account actively using those features gets the Business transition rate of $29 rather than a downgrade.
2. Notice: at least 60 days before January 1, in plain language, with a named account owner for agencies with 10 or more seats. If we can't give that notice, existing customers move in February. New-customer pricing can still start January 1.
3. Transition rates: a "founding customer" rate one step below list for 12 months, then a second notice. This avoids a +160% overnight jump for agencies, who are our most valuable and most notice-sensitive accounts.
4. Freelancers: nothing changes in price. The separate problem is 9% trial conversion and 38% month-2 churn. I'd test annual billing at about $12/month-equivalent and better onboarding to the first signed document.

Guardrails

Review at 30, 60 and 90 days. I'd pause or revisit if any of these happen:

• Agency cancellations exceed 10% of agency accounts in the first 90 days.
• Business trial-to-paid falls well below today's 37% (22 of 60).
• Team trial-to-paid falls well below 31%.
• Solo conversion drops, which would point to side effects of the new packaging.

Caveats

• Survey answers are stated preferences and typically overstate what people will pay. Agency evidence is thin, with 20 sample accounts, about 20 survey respondents and 60 trials a quarter.
• The sample is 150 accounts, so scale the dollar figures to the full base before quoting them externally.
• The 14-day trial and free-tool competition for freelancers mean Solo should stay simple.
• To de-risk Business, launch $39 to new agencies on January 1. That gives us two months of real conversion data before existing agencies step up.