You built something. You open the pricing page and freeze. There is no rival grid to copy. No “Industry standard: $49.” So you type $9 because that is what indie tools look like in your feed, or you leave the price off and hope a launch will decide for you.
That freeze is common. It is also the wrong problem. A missing competitor is not a pricing crisis. Copying someone else’s number was never research. It was a shortcut that only felt rigorous because a table had three columns. Indiecity is for one person or a team under twenty. You do not need a pricing committee. You need a number a real buyer will pay for a real outcome.
Competitors never set your price
Even when a competitor exists, their price is their guess under their costs, their funding, and their panic. When no competitor exists, founders invent a “market rate” anyway. They average Product Hunt screenshots. They match a consumer app they pay for with their own debit card. They pick a round number that feels polite.
None of that is tied to the buyer. Your buyer is not shopping a category report. They are living with a mess: hours lost, tools stacked, a person who owns the spreadsheet, a missed appointment, a deal that slipped. Your price belongs next to that mess, not next to a competitor you invented.
Charge more than your engineer brain wants
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) wrote in 2006 that you can probably stand to charge more. The essay still holds. Founders undervalue software because they see every wart. Customers do not price your regret. They price whether the problem gets smaller when they pay you.
In his SaaS pricing notes, McKenzie is blunt about the $9 and $19 habit. Technical founders extrapolate from “code is free to me,” so the business ends up near free. A $9 plan only works if you have Netflix-scale distribution. You do not. He walked Visual Website Optimizer away from competing with Google’s free tool on price, toward numbers marketers could pay without blinking. He anchored Appointment Reminder to the cost of one missed appointment, not to what a developer would pay for a side utility.
Charging more is not a slogan about greed. Higher prices pull in buyers who treat the product like work, not a toy. Cheap buyers write more support mail for less money. McKenzie has said that for years. You feel it the first month a cheap plan fills the inbox.
Price against time and tools they already spend
When there is no competitor, write the substitute. What do they do today?
- Hours each week on the manual version of your product
- Money on tools that almost work, stacked together
- A contractor, VA, junior hire, or agency slice that owns the mess
- Mistakes: no-shows, rework, lost leads, late reports, compliance scares
- Their own attention: the founder still doing the task at 11pm
That list is your real competition. Ask for it in plain words. “What did you do last time this broke?” “What do you pay for tools that touch this?” “How many hours a week does someone spend on it?” You want numbers they already live with, not compliments about your demo.
Then put your price next to that cost. If the mess costs them a person-day a week, your monthly fee should look small beside that day and still large enough that you can answer their email. If they already spend on three tools that almost cover it, your price should feel like replacing those tools, not adding a fourth one. You are not inventing a number from a blog chart. You are showing that the old way costs more than paying you.
You can probably stand to charge more.
How to pick a number without a rival grid
Do this on one page this week. No pricing consultant.
- Name the buyer in one line (job + situation), not “anyone who hates spreadsheets.”
- Write the substitute cost: time, tools, people, mistakes. Use their words where you can.
- Write the outcome you sell in one sentence. Outcome, not feature list.
- Pick a monthly (or yearly) number you can say on a call without wincing. If you whisper it, it is too high for you, or you do not believe the outcome yet.
- Check the number against the substitute: is it obviously smaller than the mess, and large enough that a serious buyer still respects the work?
- Put the number on the page and in the first outreach note. A price you only keep in a doc is not a price.
If you cannot fill the substitute line, you do not have a pricing problem yet. You have a customer problem. Go talk before you decorate a grid.
It is [price] per [month/seat/project]. Most people I talk to already spend more than that in [time / tools / the person who owns this] trying to get [outcome]. If that is still a pain for you, we can start this week.
Fair. What are you spending now to deal with [problem in their words]? Time counts. Tools count. If my number is still high next to that, tell me which part does not match, and we will see if I am talking to the wrong person.
The price only gets real when someone can pay
A number in a Notion doc is a hypothesis. A number on a page, in a note, and on a call is a test. Getting your first 10 paying customers without ads is where pricing stops being theory. You put the price in the message. You say it out loud. You take the money the same day if they say yes.
Watch what happens. If people reply, book, and pay, the price is good enough to keep selling. If they love the problem and vanish at the number, either the buyer is wrong or the number is above the value they feel today. If they pay and then treat you like free labor, the price may be too low for the support load. Do not fix that with another feature. Fix the number or the segment. Once you have ten who paid, price from those ten, not from a new spreadsheet. When the number needs to move, raise it in the open.
What counts as a pricing signal
- They ask the price before you finish the demo: good. The problem is real.
- They negotiate every dollar and demand a free pilot with full support: wrong segment or wrong packaging.
- They pay and never open the product: you sold a nice story, not a job they do this week.
- They pay, use it, and introduce a peer: price and outcome both work. Ask for another intro.
- Nobody flinches and support is drowning you: charge more for new customers.
Ignore “interesting” and “maybe later” as pricing data. Payment and usage are data. Polite praise is not.
What to stop doing
- Copying a $9 plan because “that is what SaaS costs.”
- Anchoring B2B software to Netflix, Spotify, or a prosumer tool you like.
- Publishing three tiers before you have sold one offer.
- Hiding the price until after a 40-minute demo.
- Inventing a market average from five landing pages you admire.
- Waiting for a competitor to appear so you can finally decide.
- Dropping to free when someone hesitates, instead of checking the substitute cost.
A one-week pricing pass
- Day 1. Write buyer, outcome, and substitute cost on one page. Pick a number. Put it on the site.
- Days 2 to 5. Send personal notes that include the price. Track sent, replied, booked, paid.
- On every call, say the number and stop talking. Take payment while they care.
- Day 6. Rewrite the page with their words for the problem and the cost of the old way.
- Day 7. Keep the price if people paid. Raise it for new buyers if nobody flinched and you are underwater on support. Change the buyer if everyone flinches and nobody feels the pain.
You still will not get a formula that always works. You will get a number that has met reality. That is more than a copied grid ever gave you.
Then say it out loud
No competitor to copy means you price the mess they already live with. Charge more than your fear wants. Let the first buyers correct you. When someone pays and you will put your name on how the number worked, send us the story. When the product is real, put it on the map. You can join Indiecity while you run the week. That gives you people to talk to. It does not pick the price for you.
Write the substitute. Pick the number. Say it on the next call.
FAQ
Questions people get stuck on
What if I truly have zero competitors?
You still have substitutes. Spreadsheets, a contractor, a messy process, doing nothing. Price against what those cost in time, money, and stress. A blank competitor grid does not mean a blank market. It means you cannot hide behind someone else’s number.
Should I start cheap and raise prices later?
Cheap trains people to treat you like a cheap vendor. Patrick McKenzie has been saying charge more for years for that reason. Pick a number you can say without wincing, put it on the page, and let real buyers push back. Raising later is fine. Starting at a joke price to feel safe is not a strategy.
Is there a formula like “charge X% of the value”?
No fixed percentage ships as truth here. What you can do is write down what the problem already costs them (hours, tools, a person, a missed sale), then charge a number that is small next to that cost and large enough that you can answer email and keep building. If you cannot name their cost, you are not ready to invent a percentage.
What if they say it is too expensive?
Ask what they spend now on the same mess: time, tools, freelancers, overtime. Stay on your price unless you learn you picked the wrong buyer. A “too expensive” from someone who does not feel the pain is not a pricing signal. It is a buyer signal.
Should I match consumer apps like Netflix or Notion?
No. Those products buy attention with brand and ads you do not have. McKenzie’s point is blunt: do not anchor a B2B tool to a consumer subscription you pay from your personal card. Price next to the business cost you remove, not next to entertainment or prosumer defaults.
Do I need three tiers on day one?
You need one clear offer and one number you will say out loud. Tiers can wait until you know who overbuys, who underbuys, and what feature actually splits plans. A pretty grid with three invented columns is not research.
What if I sell to consumers, not businesses?
The same idea holds, but the “already spend” line is thinner. Look at what they already buy or waste time on for this job. Consumer sales are slower and more sensitive to price. You still put a real number on the page. You still do not invent a market average from Product Hunt screenshots.
When do I raise the price?
When people buy without flinching, when support is heavy relative to what they pay, or when a new customer type gets far more value than your early buyers. Grandfather early customers if you want. New signups get the new number. Do not wait for a competitor to show up before you move.
How does this connect to getting the first ten customers?
You cannot learn if the price is wrong until someone can pay it. Put the number in the note and on the call. [The first ten paying customers](/stories/first-10-paying-customers-without-ads) are where the price gets tested for real, not in a spreadsheet alone.
