Pricing TransformationOct 04, 2023
How m3ter supports Saas businesses at every stage of the pricing journey
In our last blog, written by Griffin Parry, co-founder of m3ter, we discussed alignment during pricing transformation. Here, Griffin explains how m3ter facilitates this process with common data, shared tools, and support throughout the process.
Pricing, in almost every industry, is ever-evolving. And it should be; products change, economies go through cycles and customers alter their demands. (Even retail brands built on specific pricing – like Dollar Tree in the US – had to increase prices during the latest inflation spikes.)
But pricing and packaging transformations, combined with the process of implementing the changes, in SaaS are especially complex. It’s a huge undertaking with many teams who need to be aligned to ensure the updated pricing is successful.
In a previous blog, we covered the importance of alignment and what each team cares about during a pricing transformation. We showed why having the right platform to enable this process is so crucial.
Today, I’d like to illustrate how m3ter is that platform, helping businesses during a pricing transformation and during the operationalization of that pricing – with common data, shared tools and industry-leading support across all teams.
Deciding your pricing model with m3ter
Pricing transformations are intimidating. First, there is fear about changing the pricing itself, given the risks around how existing and prospective customers will respond to it. If changes are poorly researched, designed, or introduced, it could have a negative impact and hurt sales or retention. But it’s also intimidating due to the organizational aspects, tooling and workflow changes required, particularly if your company is adopting usage-based strategies for the first time, or ‘upgrading’ pricing operations capabilities as the business scales.
This topic isn’t applicable to everyone; just those businesses who are adjusting pricing or undergoing a full pricing transformation. Most companies have limited experience with these projects, which adds further levels of anxiety and risk. But at m3ter, this is what we do every day – we don’t just provide a transformational platform built exactly for this use case, we also provide reassuring support and guidance.
Who’s involved on the customer side in a pricing transformation?
Pricing and packaging transformation projects are a significant undertaking and require a range of departments and stakeholders to collaborate, work toward an improved pricing model and unlock more growth. Core teams that are typically involved in a transformation project include Product, Engineering, Sales, Finance and Customer Success.
In our guide to pricing and packaging transformation alignment, we did a deep dive on each of these teams and what they care about – that way colleagues on other teams know how to align and work together. Read it here →
How does m3ter support teams during a pricing transformation?
With m3ter, you can have a high degree of confidence about both 1) the efficacy of new tools with our proven solution, and 2) the availability of support and guidance, either directly through m3ter or through an external partner.
We can support teams through a pricing transformation in two main ways:
Pricing strategy advisory
Occasionally, businesses are convinced they need to make changes but are unsure about what those changes should be. This could relate to the design of the pricing model, how to run a transformation project, or something else. In these circumstances, m3ter can offer tailored advice from industry-leading pricing experts with decades of experience, or introduce you to the right external consulting partner for deeper questions.
Pricing iteration
Within m3ter, you can experiment with various pricing models before going live to customers. Because m3ter ingests and retains raw usage data, you have lots of flexibility with what you can then do with this data.
Companies like ClickHouse are using the platform to build mock pricing plans and run real product consumption data through them to see the various results. Their team then combined real results in m3ter and customer feedback to narrow down the potential pricing models, all ahead of launching their new product. This allows quick and easy iteration and the ability to launch new pricing with confidence, knowing that your decisions are grounded in real data.
How m3ter helps you operationalize pricing
m3ter is also here to support once your pricing model has been decided, or for those businesses who already have a pricing model in place and need a better way to operationalize it – to actually bill your customers, capture revenue and leverage analytics to make business decisions.
Operationalizing pricing with the m3ter platform
All your teams are better aligned throughout the pricing journey when using m3ter. Your entire business will benefit from having common data (usage, spend, pricing) and common tools for pricing changes.
The m3ter platform itself is designed to make internal team alignment easier by being the common tool that unites all pricing and billing data for the company. m3ter typically partners closely with two key teams during implementation of usage-based pricing: Engineering and Ops, who have the particular responsibility to implement and manage the billing platform, to the benefit of all other stakeholders once live:
Engineers
Engineering teams are the ones who actually have to implement m3ter, as well as any changes to pricing that may be decided during a pricing transformation.
| What you care about | How m3ter delivers |
|---|---|
| To work with a well-documented API-first platform that allows for significant automation. | m3ter is built on a robust architecture and designed for reliability, scalability and security. It can process hundreds of millions of measurements per month. Anything you can do in the UI, you can also do via the API. |
| A developer friendly platform. | We default to using open standards so it’s easy for you to integrate with, such as JSON. |
| Tools that remove complexity, but not at the expense of control. | Our native integrations with common quote-to-cash tooling (e.g. Salesforce, Netsuite, Chargebee, Stripe, QuickBooks, etc.) are low/no-code, but they still allow engineers to look under the hood to diagnose where data flow issues and failures occur. |
| Easy data ingestion and less wasted time. | It’s extremely simple to bring your data into m3ter with our easy-to-use ingest API, designed to handle high volumes of data in a flexible format. Don’t worry about aggregating data or adding pricing and billing logic ahead of ingestion – save your engineers valuable time and apply that flexibly in m3ter later. |
| Confidence about data security and retention. | At m3ter, we take your security seriously. Our commitment to safeguarding your data and ensuring the utmost protection is at the core of our platform. We follow the rule of “least privilege”, which means our staff do not have direct access to any customer data and only persist data for as long as is required to provide the m3ter service. |
Ops users
There are various types of ops users, including SalesOps, FinOps, BillingOps, RevOps, MarketingOps, BusOps, etc. What they all have in common is that they manage recurring operational workflows.
| What you care about | How m3ter delivers |
|---|---|
| An easy-to-use user interface (UI). | The m3ter Console, where Ops manages billing and configures how m3ter interacts with other parts of the org, is usable for any level of knowledge. For customers using other systems, we surface key data from m3ter where you’re already working. |
| What you care about | How m3ter delivers |
|---|---|
| Easy integrations that can be managed without Engineering. | m3ter’s integrations with common quote-to-cash tooling (Salesforce, Netsuite, Chargebee, Stripe, QuickBooks, etc.) are low-code or no-code and allow Ops users significant autonomy to set and manage object mappings. |
| What you care about | How m3ter delivers |
|---|---|
| Flexible, highly configurable pricing, calculated all in one place. | m3ter handles subscription pricing, pure usage-based pricing and everything in between. From standing charges to credits, bundling, minimums, commitments and more, m3ter supports every pricing vector – no matter what your pricing transformation requires.Maintain all your pricing in one platform (in the m3ter Console or your CPQ system) and ensure all enriched data automatically flows throughout your systems so teams don’t have to update data in multiple places. |
| What you care about | How m3ter delivers |
|---|---|
| Automated, flexible billing with no errors. | With m3ter, bills can be set up to be calculated automatically, with any billing logic (e.g. intervals, currencies, advance/arrears, etc) and sent seamlessly to invoicing systems on approval. Ops users retain control with approvals and oversight, and running totals can be shared with customers or Sales mid-billing cycle.Teams can also close the books in hours instead of weeks each month using m3ter’s streamlined end-to-end workflow. With our native integrations, this data is pushed into the invoicing and bookings process – totally automatic & error-free for these teams. |
| What you care about | How m3ter delivers |
|---|---|
| Better reporting to manage pricing and billing. | m3ter provides a robust set of data analysis and reporting features, enabling teams to collect, analyze and visualize key data in m3ter or by sending the data where needed across your tech stack for further analysis. We're also building data science-driven analytics including a cost allocation tool, pricing experimenter, robust forecasting, month over month reporting and more. |
| What you care about | How m3ter delivers |
|---|---|
| The ability to support deals in the pipeline. | With m3ter, you can easily create custom plans and attach them automatically to individual Accounts without making billing any more complex. This enables users to support Sales teams in their negotiations. |
Operationalizing pricing with m3ter support
When you partner with us to operationalize pricing, there are three main areas our Sales and Customer Success teams support on:
Solutions Architects
A Solutions Architect (‘SA’) will be involved alongside our Sales team from the first conversation. These are pre-sales engineers with deep experience of the problem space, whose responsibility is to understand your needs and co-create a solution that solves for them, including integrations with other systems and business process re-architecture. An early step, for example, will involve creating a bespoke demo where your current (or planned) pricing is configured with m3ter.
Onboarding
Every m3ter deal includes an implementation package that delivers support from our onboarding team. They provide guidance on how to integrate and configure m3ter to deliver initial pricing and billing designs and ongoing flexibility. In some cases, we can perform these tasks on your behalf for a fee, or we can introduce you to the right external consulting partner.
Just as importantly, the onboarding team also offers implementation frameworks and project management artifacts to help you identify all tasks and responsibilities, organize and align internal teams and establish the right sequencing and review points.
Ongoing support
When you sign the contract, an account manager will be assigned as your ongoing point-of-contact who ensures you achieve your desired impact – not just at initial implementation but on an ongoing basis. This person will have deep experience of the problem space and help keep you briefed on best practices as they evolve.
Using m3ter vs. self-built solutions in a pricing transformation
There’s plenty of sources for advice about pricing strategy out there. What’s less available is advice about best practices for pricing operations and the business transformations and systems required to enable it.
With m3ter, you’ll get the best of both sides: A powerful platform to transform and operationalize pricing paired with reassuring support and guidance from our experts. Engineers are empowered to use the full power of the platform and reallocate time they would have spent on a self-built solution to other high-value, business-critical tasks. All teams can be aligned and have a high degree of confidence both in the power and reliability of m3ter and the ongoing support offered by our Customer Success team.
Pricing transformation projects start with a recommendation about strategy. Without m3ter, you might be on your own to work out something new; i.e. how to implement and operationalise that strategy. You would conclude that you need new tooling, and likely decide that your only option to meet their business-specific complexity is to build this internally, which has a number of drawbacks:
- It’s costly, both upfront and to maintain on an ongoing basis.
- It’s time-intensive and comes with a high risk that it won’t work out.
- It’s likely to be inflexible longer term, because you don’t know what you don’t know about your future pricing and packaging changes.
- The implementation is generally more risky, because these are complex transformation projects.
At our previous startup, and later at Amazon after selling that business to AWS, we experienced firsthand the GTM and operational challenges associated with complex pricing transformations and strategies around usage-based pricing – particularly as businesses started to scale. We’ve done the self-build route with internal tools meant to address these same challenges discussed above, and we saw what best-in-class UBP and billing looked like at AWS.
We built m3ter to take this burden off of SaaS businesses and make it easier to intelligently deploy and manage pricing with usage-based elements. So go ahead and align all your teams, run that pricing transformation project, automate billing operations, and decide how you want to scale next. m3ter is built to support your next phase of growth.
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