Following are a few examples of real life SaaS business models. Current as of 2020-02
OnShape: Annual subscription
As of February 2020: OnShape.com, a cloud mechanical CAD provider and competitor to Solidworks, starts at $1500 per user per year. There was a modest price increase from 2017 to 2020.
https://www.onshape.com/cad-pricing
Solidworks: Choice of one time fee versus annual subscription
Onshape competes head to head with Solidworks, which is a desktop app for mechical CAD. As of February 2020, CATI, a Solidworks reseller, provides a quote for Solidworks Standard at either $3995 one-time cost per named license, or $5290 for the same product with one year subscription.
That's one way to help customers who are used to one kind of pricing transition to another kind of pricing. "your software would be obsolete by the time you end up paying more via subscription anyways - and you get instant upgrades and you don't have to worry about maintenance in the cloud! What a GREAT deal!"
Atlassian Jira cloud: Metered by user count
As of February 2020: Atlassian Jira Cloud pricing is metered by user count with floor.
https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/pricing
- 10-100: $7 per user per month
- 100-5000: $14 per user per month
- 5000+: Call them
Gerber Technology: Metered by user count with volume discount as well as discount for longer term subscriptions with upsell option for additional module
As of February 2020: Gerber Technology's YuniquePLM Cloud has a SaaS model for the baseline product that is offered with an introductory price with a one year subscription. Higher priced bundles are also available. The baseline prices have stayed the same from 2017 to 2020.
https://gerbersoftware.com/try-buy/choose-your-subscription/
Salesforce: Pricing tiers based on functionality:
No scaling by user count, but different pricing tier based on functionality / modules. These prices have stayed the same from 2017 to 2020. Fees are billed annually.
https://www.salesforce.com/editions-pricing/sales-cloud/
- Starter: $25/user/m
- Professional $75/user/m
- Enterprise (“Most popular”) $150/user/m
- Unlimited $300/user/m
This article builds on content developed by the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship for MIT's Orbit Knowledgebase and is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.