Alexander Estner

I help early-stage SaaS founders build & execute their Go-to-market foundation to grow from €0 to €1 million ARR 🚀

3 WAYS I CAN HELP YOU 👇
1️⃣ GTM Advisory - Work 1-on-1 with me in bi-weekly GTM sprints
2️⃣ GTM Audit - Get a 360° assessment of your current GTM status quo + custom action plan
3️⃣ GTM Content - Bi-weekly newsletter +  Daily LinkedIn posts + Free GTM Library

P.S. You will find the links to all 3 in the featured section.

Among other things, I help you with:
👉 Creating your early/ideal customer profile (ICP)
👉 Working on positioning, messaging & value proposition 
👉 Choosing the right pricing for your business (pricing model, value metric & packaging)
👉 Implementing the right sales strategy (sales-led vs. product-led)
👉 Mastering 2-3 growth channels to continuously generate new deals/trials
👉 Setting up the right tech stack in sales, marketing & customer success
👉 Building your commercial teams.

Send me a DM on LinkedIn or book a free 15-minute intro call to learn more about my offering.

Startup Consultant for B2B SaaS

As a freelance startup consultant, I help early-stage B2B SaaS Startups quickly grow their business with a powerful Growth Strategy 🚀


I work on both, strategic and operational, levels and help you with the following topics.

► For Founders (Launch to Seed Stage):
- Clarify, validate and stress test your business idea
- Win first paying customers and kickstart growth for your SaaS
- Develop and implement a powerful B2B SaaS Growth strategy
- Find product-market fit and close your first funding (business angels & seed)

► For Startups (Seed to Series A Stage):
- Accelerate your growth to 5M€+ ARR
- Review or implement a powerful B2B SaaS growth strategy
- Optimization of direct & indirect growth channels
- Create a growth team mentality, track the right KPIs, and set OKRs

► For more information:
- check out my website (www.alexestner.com)
- subscribe to my FREE weekly newsletter for founders & early-stage startups (https://startupbusinesstips.substack.com/)

► Interested?
- Send me a DM on Linkedin

Fundraising still costs founders 15–20 hours every week.
I partnered with Notion to drop the AI Fundraising Kit - a free stack to help startup founders raise with clarity and confidence.

After working with 30+ founders over the last 3 years, I kept hearing the same questions:

→ Which investors should we actually talk to?
→ What does a “good” pitch deck really look like?
→ How do we structure a proper data room?
→ How do we track investor conversations without chaos?

All this is covered in the AI Fundraising Kit.

What's inside 👇

1️⃣ Investor Database (10k+ profiles)
--> including 2000+ early-stage VCs, incubators, and accelerators

2️⃣ 50 real pitch decks
--> From YC, a16z, and Sequoia-backed startups

3️⃣ AI agents for fundraising
--> Ready-to-use Notion agent prompts for:
- creating pitch docs
- logging investor emails
- building a data room

4️⃣ Notion Data room template
→ A clean, investor-ready setup you can use instantly

Plus a big Bonus 💰

$50K+ in free AI tools (Notion, v0, Supabase...):
▫️ 1 Year Framer
▫️ $60 in v0 by Vercel (frontend)
▫️ $300 from Supabase (backend)
▫️ Up to 6 months of Notion Business with AI (run your startup)

If you’re fundraising now, or planning to soon, this saves weeks of work.

👉 You can access your AI Fundraising Kit here: https://lnkd.in/e4zYDVCe

(It’s free — and yes, I’d grab it before that changes.)

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Newsletter

Join 4500+ SaaS Leaders and get actionable content in your inbox: https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/saas-gtm-foundation

GTM Foundation

Build your GTM foundation: https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/saas-gtm-foundation

Listen to Podcast

Listen to the podcast episode on the 3 stages to 1€ million ARR: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s6e18-the-3-step-gtm-playbook-to-grow-your-saas-from/id1670431932?i=1000713247114

Sales Deck

Build your sales deck with my free sales deck template: https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/high-converting-sales-deck

Vetted Tools

Vetted Partners

SaaS GTM Guides

https://www.alexestner.com/#Best-SaaS-GTM-Guides

14 actionable CRM tactics

SaaS Homepage

https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/saas-homepage-copywriting-guide

Founder Brand on LinkedIn

https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/founder-led-linkedin-guide

Customer Success into Referrals

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alexander-estner_how-moritz-weiss-turned-customer-success-activity-7327573567070420992-DkSk?

GTM Audit

https://alexander-estner.webflow.io/services/gtm-advisory#Pricing-Table

ECP to ICP Guide

https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/analyze-your-icp

SaaS Vetted Tools

👇GTM templates: https://www.alexestner.com/gtm-templates

360 GTM Audit

https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/360-saas-gtm-audit

SaaS Pricing Page Guide

Ultimate SaaS Pricing Page Guide: https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/saas-pricing-page

Nocodefounders Newsletter

Read the full article on: https://nocodefounders.beehiiv.com/p/how-to-build-a-strong-gtm-foundation-0-to-1m-arr

6 founders sharing insights

Hear all 6 founders sharing their tips & mistakes: https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/6-founders-insights

Experts Tips

📌 From 0 to €1M ARR: 17 Expert Tips Every Founder Should Know: https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/17-experts-best-tips

MRRUnlocked Signup

Sign up on mrrunlocked.com to get all tips delivered in your inbox (+ 50+ GTM infographics for free).

LinkedIn Playbook

📌 Get the Founder + Team LinkedIn Playbook for free: https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/founder-linkedin-playbook

6 GTM problems

📌 Full breakdown of the 6 GTM problems that keep repeating: https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/the-6-gtm-problems

Homepage Teardown

📌 Homepage Teardown of 6 Top SaaS/AI companies: https://www.mrrunlocked.com/p/homepage-teardowns-what-6-top-saas

Digital Nudging: User Experience positiv beeinflussen

Climate Change, Risks and Challenges

Digital Advertising

The Complete Digital Marketing Course

'Hands-on’ GTM Advisor || I help SaaS founders build & execute their Go-to-market and go from €0 to €1 million ARR with less trial & error || Join 4000+ SaaS leaders & get my free SaaS GTM tactics in your inbox👇

I help early-stage SaaS founders build & execute their Go-to-market and quickly go from €0 to €1 million ARR 🚀

3 WAYS I CAN HELP YOU
1️⃣ GTM advisory - Work with me 1-on-1 in weekly or bi-weekly deep-dive working sessions to build and execute your powerful GTM strategy.
2️⃣ List of 90+ actionable SaaS Growth Tactics and Free SaaS Growth Strategy Worksheet (Links are in the Highlight section).
3️⃣ Free actionable SaaS growth tips: Daily on LinkedIn and bi-weekly in my newsletter (read by 2300+ SaaS leaders)

Bonus: Sponsor my newsletter & reach 2300+ early-stage SaaS founders/leaders/decision makers.

Among other things, I help you with:
- Creating your ideal customer profile (ICP)
- Working on positioning, messaging & value proposition 
- Choosing the right pricing for your business (pricing model, value metric & packaging)
- Implementing the right sales strategy (sales-led vs. product-led)
- Mastering 2-3 growth channels to continuously generate new deals or/and trials
- Setting up the right tech stack in sales, marketing & customer success
- Building your commercial teams.

Send me a DM on Linkedin or book a free 15min virtual coffee to learn more about my offering.

------------
ABOUT ME:

Hi, I'm Alexander Estner - but please just call me Alex.

I'm based in Munich, Germany 🇩🇪 and I've spent my whole career in the startup environment with now more than 10 years of experience in SaaS and marketplaces from being the first commercial employee of a fast-growing SaaS-enabled-marketplace to being a Co-founder of a SaaS startup and now supporting other early-stage founders on their journey from pre-revenue to the first €1 million ARR.

Over the last 2 years, I've helped 25+ SaaS companies grow their business faster with a powerful GTM strategy - as a growth advisor, consultant, or interim manager.

What I care about: 

- Brainstorming new business ideas 💡
- Sustainability, healthy food, and barista coffee ☕.
- Traveling, well-being, and all kinds of sports like skiing, beach volleyball, yoga, and fitness 🧘‍♂️
- Books & podcasts about startups, leadership, personal development, & positive mindset 📚

------------
💡 Currently getting inspired for a new startup

Go-to-market in 2024 is tough.

My best SaaS GTM Guides help you master GTM in 2024.

1️⃣ The Ultimate Ideal Customer Profile Framework
2️⃣ The Ultimate SaaS Messaging Framework
3️⃣ High-converting SaaS Homepage template
4️⃣ The perfect Sales Deck template
5️⃣ The Ultimate SaaS Pricing Guide
6️⃣ The Best Outbound Tech Stack for SaaS
7️⃣ The Ultimate Content Marketing Guide for SaaS

The 7 Best SaaS GTM Guides 2024

The free Workbook helped 3000+ SaaS leaders build their SaaS GTM Strategy.

The Ultimate SaaS GTM Strategy Workbook [Free]

Grow faster from 0€ to 3€ million ARR with 100+ actionable & proven SaaS Growth Tactics (helped 200+ SaaS leaders)

100+ actionable SaaS growth tactics

Get weekly 3 actionable SaaS GTM strategies and tactics to grow your B2B SaaS business from €0 to €1 million ARR 🚀.

MRR Unlocked 🚀 | Alexander Estner | Substack

RevGenius is a group of revenue-generating sales and marketing professionals brought together to learn, share, support, and grow with each other. You can consider us your alt work family!

The Mentoring Club is a pro bono platform where mentors and mentees meet and can schedule mentoring sessions. You can schedule a free mentoring session with me here: https://www.mentoring-club.com/the-mentors/alexander-estner

Notion

Helping SaaS & AI founders build and execute their GTM foundation to grow from €0 to €1 million ARR with less trial and error | ‘Hands-on’ GTM Advisor👇

Tactics are great, but only if you have a strong GTM foundation.

When I work with founders on their way to 1€ million ARR,

we usually start building the foundation.

This includes:

Clarity...

1️⃣ on who you target (ICP)

Focus is key here. You can't afford having 2+ ICPs.

Every segment requires a different motion.

2️⃣ on what your product is and how it's different

This is your positioning anchor.

You can lead with a product category (e.g. CRM tool) or a usecase (sending SMS to clients).

This helps prospets to understand for what they need your product.

Once this is clear, you can add your differentiator (against the dominant status quo).

This might be: niche, unique feature, lite, premium...

3️⃣ on how to communicate this

This is your messaging. Your words need to resonate with your buyer.

Your website, demos, emails, sales decks, case studies all need to be aligned.

They become your core GTM assets that align your ICP, positioning & messaging.

4️⃣ on your GTM motion

Are you self-service / product-led or grow via demos (sales led).

You can't run both in parallel (too early). 

So your market, ICP and pricing defines your GTM motion. 

5️⃣ Pricing

In this phase, pricing is less about 'profit hacking' and more about willigness to pay.

You should treat pricing iterative. Key is to find the right value metric.

Build your pricing tiers (packaging).

The more clarity you have on these, the easier becomes the execution.

This includes choosing the right GTM channels.

👉 Which part needs most of your attention?

📌 P.S. Send me a DM if you want the full GTM foundation guide.

I’ve done 15+ GTM audits across:

different markets
different ACVs
different stages (0€–1M ARR)

The problems repeat.

The 6 repeating GTM problems I see.

1️⃣ ICP is defined, but not enforced

2️⃣ Positioning lacks a clear anchor

3️⃣ Sales demos are product tours

4️⃣ No clearly defined sales process

5️⃣ GTM assets are too generic

6️⃣ Content without strategy

Not because founders don’t work hard.
But because GTM is treated as disconnected tasks.

Not as a system.

👇 Which GTM area feels most fragmented for you right now? 

--- 
📌 Full breakdown of The 6 GTM Problems That Keep Repeating in the latest MRR Unlocked newsletter (link in comments).

No alternative text description for this image

I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as GTM Advisor!

I'm deeply impressed what Yanick Frehner Ingmar Feldhoff Ramon Vorich Otto Attila Jonathan V. and the team achieved within a few months.

In November, I did a GTM audit for them.

They were doing already quite good.

But I uncovered a few areas that need their attention.
Since then, they executed crazy fast 🔥 

And now we decided to work together for the next months.

Excited about what the next months will bring together.

Co-Founder & CEO @ Leto GmbH | AI-Powered Automation | Zukunft der Arbeit gestalten

Vertriebsleiter | Leto AI | KI-gestützte Automatisierung für mehr Produktivität & Wachstum

CMO @ Leto AI

AI driven - PHP & Laravel Developer | Fullstack

I believe every B2B SaaS company has its own 'sales process'
So it's not about copying THE one.

But what you need to do is define your 'sales process'.

If you don't know what your sales process looks like,
you can't guide your prospects from first touchpoint to closing.

No need to overengineer too early.

Define:

✅ What is your primary CTA

--> Do you want them to book a call? Or do a free trial?

✅ What happens in the first call?

--> Is is a short discovery call? or already a demo?

✅ What defines a qualified lead?

--> What are your criteria for a MQL and SQL.

✅ When do you open a deal in your CRM?

--> Clear entry criteria

✅ What are the next steps after the call?

--> Do you do a technical deep dive? or a trial phase?

✅ What happens after closed won?

--> How do you handle the onboarding?

✅ How do you work with existing customers?

--> Monitor churn alerts? Identify expansion potential? 

Write down the steps your ICP take. 

👇 How is your sales process?

Over the last few months, I’ve done over 15 GTM audits across various B2B SaaS companies.

Different markets.
Different ACVs.
Different stages (all between 0€ and 1€ million ARR).

Yet the same GTM problems keep showing up.

Not because founders are sloppy.
Not because the product is bad.
Not because they don’t execute fast enough.

But because GTM is treated as a collection of independent activities, not a system.

Which is why many founders feel busy, ship constantly, and still struggle to create momentum.

Here are the 6 GTM mistakes I see over and over again.

👇 What GTM problem do you see?

---
📌 Yesterday, the first mrrunlocked.com newsletter episode went live, where we deep-dived into these 6 GTM problems. Link to the episode is in the comments.

I teamed up with web-design expert Maximilian Fleitmann for a teardown of  6 fast-growing SaaS and AI companies.

We reviewed Attio, Clay, Jimo, Fin AI, Sastrify, and introw.io.

We broke down
✅ what works
⛔ what doesn’t, 
🔥 and what we’d change immediately, 

turning all insights into a practical Figma file with concrete comments you can directly apply to your own homepage.

Comment 'teardown' to get the homepage teardown.

One of those bittersweet solopreneur moments today.

After 12 months of working closely together, my content freelancer Himani Sheth decided to take a full-time role.

And honestly?
I’m very happy for her.
And also... a little sad.

Over the last year, she helped me with:

--> My LinkedIn content

--> The mrrunlocked newsletter episodes

--> Getting sponsors

--> And a lot of behind-the-scenes work that most people never see

What I loved most about our journey:

In September 2024, she just reached out.
No pitch deck. No fancy intro.

She said:

“I’ve learned a lot from your content and would love to work with you.”

I checked her grid.
It impressed me.

We jumped on a few calls, aligned on expectations, and decided it was a good fit.

The rest is history.

This is also a reminder:
👉 Sometimes the best collaborations don’t come from job posts
👉 They come from people who already care about your work

Now, I’m looking for someone who can replace her.

Which, of course, is not really possible 🙂

But if you:

--> Love writing (LinkedIn + long form guides)

--> Care deeply about quality

--> And enjoy working closely with a solopreneur

Feel free to reach out (or tag someone great).

And to Himani:
Thank you for everything and good luck in your next chapter. 
You’ve earned it ❤️

Content marketing for B2B founders and solopreneurs | Influencer Marketing | Ex- VC

We all know competitor comparison pages, but CloudTalk is the only one I saw doing this on their homepage.

In crowded markets, Buyers evaluate different vendors.
You will NOT be the only one they check out.

So this is your chance to add your POV.

If you don't, someone else will do it.

And a very common way to do so is to have dedicated landing pages for competitor comparisons.

Either visible on the website footer.
Or completely hidden.

But I think if you know that buyers anyway compare you against your biggest competitors.

You can add them to your homepage.

I've seen Cloudtalk doing this.

And I think it's smart.

👇 What's your take?

P.S. If you want to learn how to position yourself against your competitors, send me a DM and I'll give you access to my new positioning&messaging framework.

graphical user interface, text, application, email

If you're SaaS/AI founder planning to launch new product pages on your website, we have something for you 👇

Quick reminder.

Your homepage is

❌ NOT a detailed page about how your product works.

❌ NOT a page purely on 1 specific use case or 1 specific feature.

Instead,

✅ That’s the job of product pages

Compared to your homepage, they come with a few benefits:

1️⃣ Homepage visitors find information that matches their specific needs quickly

2️⃣ Sales and support teams share more information about a specific feature in a snackable format

3️⃣ Search engines and LLMs understand the core capabilities of your product and recommend your tool in their answers.

You can have 3 different types of product pages:

1️⃣ Feature pages

2️⃣ Use-case pages

3️⃣ Customer segment pages (Persona/Teams, Company type, Industry pages)

Each of these pages has a slightly different focus.

✅ Feature pages and Use-case pages focus on ‘how it works’.

✅ Persona/Teams, company type, and industry pages focus on ‘Who it’s for and how this type of audience benefits from using the product’.

What are the best product pages you know?

---
P.S. If you want the 'Perfect Product Pages Guide', send me DM.

Everyone says you can't run a sales-led motion with <10k€ ACV

Unless you...

If you're a founder on the way from 0€ to your first 1-3€ million ARR, it can be fine to be sales-led. 

Because ACV alone is not an indicator if your motion is healthy or not.

At the end, you need to look at:

1️⃣ CAC payback period (fully loaded)

How long does it take you to make money (and recover your CACs).

At the early stage, I would say
🟠 Everything below 12 months is acceptable
🟢 Below 6 months is great.

This might look a bit different if you're bootstrapped.

2️⃣ ARR signed per AE

If you set healthy quotas (e.g. 4-6x on OTE), it can be fine to scale with 'more humans' - at least for the first 2-3 reps.

All this, of course, requires an efficient sales motion.

Win rates over 20%.
Sales cycles < 90 days
Mostly inbound-driven demos.

I'm not saying that PLG or sales-assisted PLG is wrong.

I just say that sales-led can still be okay if you're early.

What do you think?

If your GTM isn’t working, this might be why:

You never made a real positioning decision.

No clear:
• ICP
• category
• competitor set

And without that:
→ your content lacks edge
→ your LinkedIn profile is vague
→ your outreach doesn’t convert

Founders often say:
“I don’t want to be boxed in.”

Reality:
You’re already boxed in by indecision.

Positioning is a bet.
Execution is how you validate it.

Take the bet.
Then improve it.

P.S. I'm launching soon my new ICP & Positioning Framework. Want early access? Drop me a DM.

If you already know how to reach your first 1€ million ARR, these slides are NOT for you ⛔

GTM Foundation Infographics

Sometimes the best planning happens away from the laptop.
I unplugged for 2 weeks.
And it gave me absolute clarity on 2026.

I spent unplugged,
in nature, hiking, slowing down, and being fully present with my wife.

No notifications.
No endless tabs.
Just long walks and clear thoughts.

And while I disconnected from work...
I reconnected with direction.

I used that time to plan my 2026.

And one thing became very clear:

I don't want to add more.

But rather less. More focus.

👉 I’m doubling down on GTM Foundations for AI & SaaS founders.

Not hacks.
Not shiny growth tactics.
But the fundamentals that actually compound.

This means a stronger focus on:

--> Defining who your product is really for

--> Sharpening positioning & messaging that cuts through noise

--> Designing a GTM motion that fits your stage

A few things that are coming soon:

--> ICP Framework V2
--> Sales Demo Blueprint
--> Positioning Framework

More on this soon.

👇 What topics should I cover in 2026?

If you're doing product demos for your SaaS/AI, this one is for you.

Most B2B demos fail not because of the product,
but because the structure is weak.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been building something to fix exactly that:

👉 The B2B SaaS Sales Demo Toolbox

It includes:

1️⃣ Demo Structure (1-pager)
A clear, repeatable flow for strong demos:
Intro → Time Check → Agenda → Discovery → Buy-In Summary → Tailored Demo → Recap → Next Steps

2️⃣ Sales Demo Script
Ready-to-use blurbs for every step of the demo
(no more “uhm... so yeah” moments)

3️⃣ Demo Coaching Feedback Template
A simple way to give (or receive) structured, actionable feedback

4️⃣ 2-Minute Demo Video Script
Perfect if you want a short sales/demo video without overthinking it

I’ve already tested this with 10 SaaS & AI founders over the last weeks.

Right now, I’m opening early access:
✅ Free
🔒 In exchange for qualified feedback

Heads-up:
I plan to turn this into a €50+ product soon once it’s polished.

So this is likely the only time it’ll be available for free.

👉 Want early access?
Comment “Demo Toolbox” and I’ll send it over.
,

One of the biggest GTM mistakes I see founders make:

They wait for perfect data before positioning.

But positioning creates the data.

The moment you decide:
• “We help X”
• “With problem Y”
• “Instead of solution Z”

Suddenly:
→ lead lists get easier
→ your website writes itself
→ content ideas appear
→ competitor research makes sense

Yes, it’s a bet.
Yes, it might be wrong.

If your GTM feels stuck, ask yourself:
👉 “Where am I avoiding a clear bet?”

P.S. Drop me a DM if you want my new Positioning Framework.

Me: "We're working in 2-week GTM sprints"
Founder: "Okay, but what does that look like practically?"

Below you see a real example of a GTM sprint board with one of my clients (Thomas Moussafer  Andy M. ).

We usually use Notion for sprint planning.

And a very simple Kanban board.

To keep things organized, we use:
--> Backlog
--> Ideas for next sprint
--> This sprint planned
(here we add all the initiatives that we want to focus on in the next 2 weeks)
--> In progress
--> Done this sprint

Each Initiative comes with an owner, deadline and related topic cluster.

Within a card, we share:
- templates & best practices
- updates & drafts
- reviews

It's 100% not the most sophisticated project management ever.

But I am 100% convinced.
Keep things simple.
Clarity wins.

👇Let me know. Do you like more 'behind the scenes' content?

---
P.S. Want to improve your user onboarding? Check out Jimo

graphical user interface, text, application

I’ve asked GTM advisor Björn W. Schäfer what founders misunderstand about ICP. Let’s hear his advice 👇

ICP clarity is not a workshop. It’s a discipline.

Most founders think they know their ICP once they hit early traction. They don’t. They just have a few happy customers.

Segment by outcome:
Who gets the fastest and most measurable ROI?

Look where deals close fastest, with the lowest discount and fastest time-to-value. That’s your real ICP.

Build an Anti-ICP list. Knowing who not to sell to saves massive effort.

👉 Want to hear 15 more expert tips. Read the latest MRR Unlocked episode. Link is in the comments.

One sprint item last week:

Launching evergreen signal-based outbound for my client Jimo

In 2026, I want to share more content about the actual work I do with the founders in my GTM advisory.

The core concept:
--> 2 week GTM sprints
--> Each sprint comes with 3-5 initiatives 

So one sprint item last week was to launch signal-based outreach campaigns.

Step 1 was to decide on the relevant signals.

In our case, we decided on 4 key signals:

--> Negative reviews on competitor tools
(they operate in a highly crowded red ocean)

--> Lookalike of happy customers
(reaching out to companies very similar to their happy customers)

--> Champion getting hired
(We know if they are hiring 'the champion role' the topic the tool helps fix is hot)

--> Website visitors
(proactively reaching out to ICP contacts that are visiting their website)

Step 2

Setting up the tracking of these signals. And pushing relevant leads to the outreach tool (this time GetSales.io - most of the time I recommend lemlist)

--> Snitcher for website visitor

--> manual g2, capterra research for negative reviews (any good tips to track these signals?)

--> LinkedIn job search for hiring (and using Cargo 🧱 to automate this)

--> Ocean.io for lookalike

Step 3 

Building a LinkedIn DM campaign with (2-4 DM) for each signal.

---
Evergreen signal-based outbound is one of 4 key initiatives that we bet on in Q1. 

👇What are your best signal-based outreach campaigns?

I like being a solopreneur.
I really do.

But liking it doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Content, client work, sales calls, finance, launching new products...

Most days, it’s all on my plate.
You switch contexts constantly.
You make decisions alone.

And sometimes you just want to talk to someone who gets it.
That’s why I’m genuinely excited about the solopreneur event on May 8th.

A room full of people wearing the same hats,
dealing with similar challenges.

It's the first time this year. And I'm sure Stephanie Sgura and Christiana Kunzner-Brand will host a master event 🥳 

I’ll be there and share a lot of my learnings.

Who's joining me?

Marcos Rivera

Most B2B SaaS leaders build value.
But forget to capture it.

Let me guess:

- You’re guessing your price
- You’re losing revenue
- Scaling feels stuck

What if pricing could drive growth?

Here’s what I help you do:

→ Capture more value
→ Make pricing your edge
→ Build pricing confidence

Why should you trust me?

- 25+ years in tech pricing
- Ex–Head of Pricing at Vista Equity
- Priced 400+ SaaS products
- Author of *Street Pricing*
- Trusted by MBAs and SaaS CEOs

Beyond coaching, 

I’m an:

→ Investor 
→ Speaker
→ Entrepreneur 

passionate about helping businesses unlock their full revenue potential.

Ready to take control of your most powerful growth lever—pricing?

Checkout my featured section.

Founder and CEO

We help growth-stage B2B SaaS companies design the right pricing model to scale up

Ready to shift your pricing from guesswork to framework?

Most pricing consultancies hire from McKinsey or Simon-Kucher.
We hired Emily Sanz from American Airlines and British Airways.

When I was building out the Pricing I/O team, I had a choice. 
I could hire the typical profile: ex-consultants who'd spent their careers making slide decks about pricing but never actually owned a P&L.

Or I could find people who'd lived pricing in industries that do it better than almost anyone.

Emily had spent years in airline pricing. The joint business between them. 
She'd done consumer pricing, B2B pricing, and everything in between.

Airlines invented revenue management. 
They've been optimizing for 50+ years. 

They deal with infinite data points, razor-thin margins, and customers who compare prices obsessively. If you can do pricing there, you can do it anywhere.

What Emily brought to Pricing I/O that we couldn't have gotten from a traditional consultant:

→ An obsession with customer segmentation. 
Airlines don't have "3 tiers." They have hundreds of price points for the same seat, because different customers have different willingness to pay.

→ The concept of "quality of revenue." 
Not just how much you closed, but what kind of revenue it is. A discounted seat to fill the plane is not the same as a full-fare business traveler. Same applies to SaaS.

→ A data-first mindset. 
In aviation, you don't guess. You measure, test, and iterate constantly.

When she joined back in 2023, I asked her what surprised her most about SaaS pricing.

Her answer was about how little data most companies actually use. 
They have it. They just don't look at it.

We don't hire career consultants who've never operated.
We hire people who've lived pricing in industries that do it better than anyone, and bring those lessons to SaaS.

That's how we work in the trenches differently.

CEO of Pricing I/O • Award-Winning Author • Sought after Slayer of Bad Pricing

Four years ago, it was just me and a laptop.
This room held 25 people last meeting.

We gathered the Pricing I/O team for our end-of-year off-site, and something hit me during the planning session.

We're not just growing. 
We're building something that compounds.

→ 30% revenue growth year over year.
→ Pipeline doubled since Ali joined in Q3.
→ Client satisfaction scores hitting 10 out of 10.

But here's what really gets me: the debates in that room.

Some of them going back and forth on engagement models. Others challenging assumptions. 

The whole team leaning into problems that didn't exist when we were a team of four.

I used to think scaling a consulting firm meant losing the magic.
Turns out, with the right people, the magic multiplies.

2026 is going to be even better. 

We're cooking up something new, can't share details yet, but let's just say it involves working code and a launch window in Q1/Q2.

Stay tuned.

The best hires don't just check boxes, they make you rethink what the boxes should be.

Lauren DeGirolamo, MBA, CPP joined us as a Pricing Strategist back in December.

Before Pricing I/O, she was Director of Strategic Pricing at Baker Distributing, leading a team of 9. Before that, she spent nearly three years at Resideo navigating pricing through supply chain chaos.

One thing from her background that stuck with me: she restructured a pricing matrix from over 1,400 customer conditions down to 7.

That's not optimization. That's the kind of simplify-the-complex thinking that separates good pricing people from great ones.

When I asked her what surprised her most about joining us, she didn't mention the work or the clients.

She mentioned our offsite.
"This was the first time I had ever seen a CEO involving his entire team in high-level strategic decisions, listening with open ears to hear all perspectives."

That one got me.

Because that's exactly the culture we're building. 
Not top-down mandates. Real debate. Real input. Real ownership.

Lauren called it "the secret weapon behind Pricing I/O's success."
I'd have to agree.

Her spiciest pricing take?
"Lowering prices too much can actually hurt market share, it signals to enterprise buyers that your product is less capable."

Strong opinions backed by experience. That's what we look for.

Oh, and her karaoke song is "Remember the Name" by Fort Minor. 
If you know, you know.

Welcome to the team, Lauren. 
Love seeing you win already.

25 people. $10M bootstrapped. Zero outside funding.
And the culture is the best I've ever been a part of.

I'm not saying this to brag. 
I'm saying it because it almost didn't happen this way.

The original plan was me, myself, and I.

But here's what I've learned building Pricing I/O:
The company you build reflects the problems you solve.

We help companies capture value. 
So we had to build a company that captures its own value, through people, not just process.

We teach teams to own pricing long-term. 
So we had to build a team that owns their work, not just executes tasks.

We work in the trenches with clients. 
So we had to hire people who want to get their hands dirty, not just advise from a distance.

Every value we preach to clients, we had to live internally first.

That's what makes the culture real. It's not a poster on a wall. 
It's the business model.

We're still figuring it out. Still learning. Still making mistakes.

But building in public means being honest about the journey, not just the wins.

Clio scaled from 250 to 1,000+ employees.
Their pricing strategy? "Sporadic" and "on a needs basis."

Here's the thing most people miss about hyper-growth: 
the faster you scale, the more your pricing cracks show.

When we started working with Clio, they had a cultural resistance to monetization. 

The team genuinely wanted to deliver "outsized value" to customers, which sounds noble until you realize it was capping their ability to reinvest in the very innovation customers were asking for.

So we ran a full revision of all their products and service offerings.

The foundation? Their own "law firm maturity model", a blueprint that let us design pricing and packaging that grows alongside their customers, not against them.

The results hit across the board: NRR improved. ARPA improved. LTV improved.

But here's what changed the game long-term:
Pricing is now part of every single new product launch and release at Clio.

Not an afterthought. Not a "we'll figure it out later." A strategic lever from day one.
That's the shift. 

→ From reactive to proactive. 
→ From sporadic to systematic.

And it doesn't happen by accident, it happens when you treat pricing like the growth engine it actually is.

Me and Min S. FitzGerald talked about it on my podcast.
You can watch the full episode on Pricing IO Youtube channel.

Most pricing projects start with excitement and end with a deck nobody opens.
I've seen it happen dozens of times.

Great research. 
Solid recommendations. 
And then... nothing changes.

Why?

Sometimes it's because nobody owned the implementation.
Sometimes it's because the company wasn't ready, they didn't have a clear product strategy, and pricing can't fix that.

But when the foundation is solid, and you have a partner who works in the trenches with your team?

That's when pricing goes from "expense" to "investment."
Swipe through for what actually works, and what doesn't.

Failure

How long does it take your company to launch a new pricing model?

If the answer is "we'd need to check with engineering" or "probably a quarter," you have an infrastructure problem.

Most billing systems were architected when pricing was three simple tiers and annual contracts. 

Adding each new capability felt manageable, usage tracking here, credits there, custom packages for enterprise.

But step back and look at what you've built right now. It's infrastructure. 
Complex, mission-critical infrastructure that nobody planned for.

Now there's a gap opening up. 
Some companies can test new pricing in days. 
Others need months for basic changes.

Some can close deals with flexible packages. 
Others lose deals because their system literally can't support what the customer needs.

That gap isn't about engineering talent. 
It's about whether your monetization infrastructure was designed for the world we're in now or the world we left behind.

Tomorrow, Manish Choudhary from Flexprice and I are walking through how this shift happened, why it caught everyone off guard, and what separates companies that can move fast from companies that are stuck.

How Monetization Became Infrastructure and No One Noticed
January 15, 10:00 AM EST
Register here ↓
https://skd.so/LBzBi3

Vibe coding is going to kill more B2B SaaS companies than AI competition will.
Here's why ↓

Right now, there are CEOs downgrading every SaaS subscription to the cheapest tier, and building custom tools on top with Lovable, Bolt, and Claude.

The CRM becomes "just a dumb database."
The premium analytics features? Vibe-coded in an afternoon.
The RevOps workflows you charge extra for? Replaced by something stitched together over a weekend.

The implication for pricing is massive:
Differentiation that used to last 5-6 years in client-server days... then 1-2 years in SaaS... now lasts weeks or days.

When your customer can vibe-code a "good enough" version of your premium features themselves, your pricing power evaporates.

So what becomes the moat?
Two things:
→ Distribution (can they find you before they build it themselves?)
→ Depth of integration (are you so embedded they can't rip you out?)
→ Data (do you have proprietary data they can't replicate?)

If your pricing strategy assumes feature differentiation will protect you, you're already behind.

The companies that win will price for outcomes and depth of integration, not feature access.

Because features are getting commoditized faster than anyone predicted.
How are you thinking about this in your pricing model?

Credit-based pricing is an admission that you don't understand your value yet. 
I've been watching the AI pricing space closely, and here's what I'm seeing across dozens of companies ↓

They're adopting credits and tokens not because it's the best model, but because they're uncertain about two things:
→ What use cases will actually drive adoption
→ What value those use cases deliver

So they default to tracking costs (tokens, compute, API calls) instead of outcomes. 
And here's the thing, that's not necessarily wrong at this stage.

But there's an important distinction to make here.

Cost-plus credits tied to tokens or compute? 
That's transitional. 

When you're genuinely uncertain about value delivery, it buys you runway to learn. 
But it shouldn't be a destination.

Action-oriented credits tied to meaningful outcomes? 
That's different. 

Companies like Clay AI and HubSpot have built successful credit systems because the credits correlate to actions that derive value, updating a contact, enriching a record, taking a step that moves the business forward. 

Easy to understand, easy to connect to ROI.

The difference is whether credits measure what you spend or what the customer gains.

Three questions to ask yourself if you're running credits today:
1/ Are you tracking which actions correlate with customer success?
2/ Do you know which use cases drive the most willingness to pay?
3/ Do your credits reflect cost consumption or value delivered?

If your credits are just a proxy for compute, you're not pricing strategically, you're billing for infrastructure.

What's your take, are your credits measuring cost or value?

AI companies can capture more value than SaaS ever could.
Here's why ↓

On-premise software captured roughly 5% of the value it created. 
You were paying for access, that's it.

SaaS changed the game. 
Suddenly you could track activity, usage, outcomes. 
Value capture jumped to 10-15%.

AI changes it again. 
Usage patterns vary wildly. 
One customer might use 10x what another does, and get 10x the value.

The companies figuring this out are capturing far more than the old SaaS playbook allowed.

But here's what most are getting wrong:
They're still pricing AI like it's SaaS. Flat seats. Fixed tiers. One-size-fits-all.

That made sense when usage was predictable. It doesn't when one user generates 50 API calls and another generates 5,000.

The shift isn't just about pricing models. It's about how you think about value exchange entirely.

Your CFO now needs data science skills to understand AI unit economics. Performance margins can swing from 10% to 75% depending on which model you're running.

This is a different game with different rules.
Are you still playing by the old ones?

You're not going to lose your customers if you raise your prices.
I know. It doesn't feel that way.

I've heard this from hundreds of founders and CEOs. 
Smart people. Running great companies. 
Paralyzed by the thought that one pricing change will undo everything they've built.

Here's what actually happens:
We help them build the case. 
Research. Data. Competitive benchmarks. 
They see the evidence that they're underpriced.

Then comes the hard part: actually telling customers.
They start with a few. Hold their breath. Wait for the backlash.

And most of the time?
Customers say yes.

Not all of them. But enough. 
And suddenly the fear dissolves. 

They realize they were leaving money on the table for years because of a story they told themselves.

Here's what we've learned from 400+ engagements:
We almost never recommend lowering prices across the board.

What we find is companies are underpriced in segments they didn't realize, while over-discounting in others.

The problem isn't usually "we charge too much."
It's "we're not charging for the right things, to the right people, in the right way."

If you've been putting off a price increase because you're scared of the reaction, you're not alone.

But the fear is almost always bigger than the reality.

Nobody wakes up thinking "today's the day I fix pricing."
But by the time pricing feels urgent, you've already paid the price.

It usually gets pushed. Delayed. Deprioritized.

There's always something more urgent, a product launch, a reorg, a board deck due Friday.
Meanwhile, the warning signs pile up quietly.

Your best rep starts discounting 30% "just to stay competitive." Finance notices tier 1 is overflowing while tiers 2 and 3 collect dust. A prospect tells you "you're too expensive", then signs with a competitor charging 40% more.

Each one feels manageable in isolation.

But together? They're symptoms of pricing that stopped reflecting your value a long time ago.
The hardest part isn't the fix. 

It's admitting you've been leaving money on the table while focused on everything else.

I've seen this exact pattern in hundreds of companies. 

If you want to win it, start by recognizing the early signals and acting before the damage compounds quarter over quarter.

How many of these signals are showing up at your company right now?

$300K to $30M ARR in two and a half years.
100x growth.

One change: the pricing metric.

The product was a dispatching tool for insurance companies. Seat-based pricing.

Here's the problem, the better we performed, the less revenue we got.

Customers optimized routes, needed fewer seats, and downsized at renewal.
We were penalizing ourselves for delivering value.

So we tested five or six different metrics. Ran correlations. Talked to customers.

Per claim made the most sense.

It aligned with how insurance companies already tracked value and cost. 

Claims scaled with their business. Our revenue finally moved with theirs.

That's when I realized: pricing isn't a math problem. It's a value alignment problem.

The metric you choose determines whether you grow with your customers, or get left behind.

If you're adding AI to your SaaS product, you're about to face a pricing decision that most companies get wrong.

Do you charge per seat? Per usage? Per outcome? Some combination?

The answer depends on how you layer your pricing model. And there are really only three layers to work with.

Base 
Your platform, features, functionality. What customers get access to regardless of how much they use.

Allowance 
What's included before overage kicks in. This is where most companies mess up. Too little creates friction before customers see value. Too much kills your expansion revenue.

Meter 
The unit you charge for when they scale. Get this wrong and customers game the system. Get it right and revenue grows with their success.

Every hybrid pricing model is just a different combination of these three layers.

Access Tiers? Just Base. 
Platform fee plus usage? Base + Meter. 
Credits with overage? All three layers working together.

I broke down five models we see working in the market right now, with specific examples like Intercom Fin's $0.99/resolution and when each model fits best.

Here's what I've learned after 400+ pricing engagements: the model you pick matters less than whether it matches how your customers actually buy and scale.

Most companies copy competitors. 
The ones that win design for their own customer journey.
Which model fits how your customers grow?

Labeling something as "AI" actually lowers trust.
I know. It sounds backwards.

Every company is racing to slap "AI-powered" on their product. 
The assumption is it increases perceived value.

The data says otherwise.
In willingness-to-pay research, the AI label barely moves the needle on what customers will pay. And in some cases, it actively creates skepticism.

Why?
Because the market is shifting from "play AI" to "may I", as in, "may I see proof this actually works?"

Early adopters bought the hype. 
The next wave of buyers wants evidence.

ClickUp figured this out. 
Their standard plan is $7. Their AI plan is $28, 4x the price.

But they didn't just slap "AI" on it and hope for the best.
Their positioning: "This replaces 4-5 other AI tools you're already paying for."

The value prop isn't "we have AI." 
It's "we simplify and centralize what you're already doing across multiple tools."

Simplification + consolidation = worth the premium.

The companies winning at AI pricing aren't selling AI. They're selling outcomes that happen to be powered by AI.

What are you actually selling?

If your sales team doesn't believe your solution is worth the price, they won't sell it.

They'll discount it. They'll apologize for it. They'll position it as "a bit expensive, but..."

I had a client where the salesperson literally felt bad charging customers. 
Not because the product was bad. Because SHE didn't believe it was worth what they were asking.

That feeling? It bleeds into every demo, every negotiation, every close.

You can have the perfect pricing model. The perfect packaging. The perfect positioning.

But if your own team doesn't buy what they're selling, your customers sure as hell won't.

The problem isn't your price. 
It's that you never convinced your team of the value first.

Pragmatic Marketing, Product Management Certification Level 4

Invited as guest lecturer for lab to market capstone courses to speak on topics of product management, general management, and technology trends

I managed to work my way through all four years of college while achieving Provost honors.

Warren College - Minored in Japanese Language and Studies.

Hi, I'm Marcos Rivera

•  I have 25+ years of pricing expertise in Tech
•  I was the Head of Pricing for Vista Equity Partners
•  I have helped price 400 products...and counting​
•  I teach pricing confidence from MBA students to world-class CEOs
•  I am an award-winning author, speaker, investor, and entrepreneur

Here's My Story in a Nutshell

I was raised by a single mother in a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx. The streets were hard on me, but I survived by applying what my mom taught me:  Stay curious, take the lead, and give help.

Fast forward to today, Software as a Service has transformed almost every business, from music to marketing to medicine. I learned a lot straddling dual roles as a product executive and pricing expert my entire career, but my AHA moment came to me after noticing an unwavering pattern:

Most B2B SaaS leaders spend time building value but not enough time capturing it!

So in the spirit of staying curious, I discovered that many B2B SaaS leaders see pricing as a "black box"; they guess, fumble, and wing it most of the time.  They needed help!

From there, I decided to take the lead and help B2B SaaS businesses by dedicating a practice that teaches them step-by-step directions for monetizing value and unlocking growth.

And this is where our story begins. Join us and take control of your most powerful growth lever - Pricing.  It would be my honor to help you! Send me a DM or head to our website: www.pricingio.com

You can also order my debut book, Street Pricing: A Pricing Playlist for Hip Leaders in B2B SaaS (link in bio)

Go capture that value!

Marcos

For this benchmark report, PricingSaaS has examined over 400 B2B SaaS companies across 10 different categories to uncover AI monetization strategies, usage based pricing metrics and created a recap of changes in Q1 of 2024.

We hope you find it helpful and insightful.

2024 B2B SaaS Pricing Q1 Benchmarks & Models

Pricing I/O is a training and coaching boutique helping high-growth B2B SaaS companies accelerate ARR growth and market share. We unlock growth by taking a simple, powerful, and easy to understand approach to monetization – we call this approach the 5Q Pricing Framework.

Pricing I/O: Your B2B SaaS Pricing Experts

25 years of pricing. 500+ SaaS companies.
One conversation where I held nothing back.

Rohit asked me the questions most people are afraid to ask:
→ What's the single biggest pricing mistake you see repeated?
→ How do you know if it's a pricing problem or something else?
→ Should AI features be bundled or priced separately?
→ What made you change your mind on pricing cadence?

I shared the 100x growth story I don't tell often.

Admitted where I got it wrong.

And broke down how to actually think about pricing AI, not the theory, the real decisions.

If you've got 35 minutes, this one's worth it.

Watch the full episode of The AI Pricing Podcast ↓
https://skd.so/OCIaV6

Most SaaS companies treat usage limits as technical guardrails.
Big mistake.

They’re your upgrade engine.

Data retention windows. 
Source limits. 
Processing hours. 

These aren’t just product constraints, they’re monetization strategy.

The key: Set limits where customers naturally hit them as they get MORE value. Not where they get frustrated.

When customers hit limits, they’re succeeding. That’s when they upgrade.

Here’s what that looks like:
→ Starter: 3 sources, 30-day retention
→ Pro: 10 sources, 90-day retention
→ Enterprise: Unlimited, 1 year+

That structure creates a $47K ARR expansion path per customer.
These should feel like growth milestones, not arbitrary restrictions.

What usage limit is driving the most upgrades in your model?

Should you charge for AI separately or bake it into the product?
I get this question constantly. 

And the honest answer is: it depends on what your AI actually does.

I've seen companies destroy expansion revenue by giving AI away for free when they should have charged. 

I've also seen companies kill adoption by charging separately for AI that should have been invisible.

The mistake is thinking there's one right answer. There isn't.

After working through this with dozens of companies, from $10M ARR startups to PE-backed portfolio companies, I keep coming back to three distinct approaches.

The first works when AI enhances the existing experience. 
Makes things faster, smarter, better, but the job-to-be-done is the same. 

Think autocomplete, smart suggestions. 
In this case, don't charge separately. 
Bake it in and raise prices across all plans.

The second works when AI unlocks adjacent use cases. 
Same user, but now they can do something they couldn't before. 
This is your premium tier or add-on play.

The third works when AI creates entirely new users or workflows. 
Different audience, different product. 

This needs its own identity, maybe bundled, maybe standalone.

The question isn't "should we charge for AI?" It's "where does AI create value, and for whom?"

Which of these three describes your AI?

Your packaging model isn't broken because it's "wrong."
It's broken because you outgrew it.

Here are 5 signals I see when companies need to evolve their packaging:

1. Sales is discounting on every deal to "make it fit."

When your tiers don't match how customers buy, reps start hacking. Custom bundles. Creative discounting. Anything to close.

That's not a sales problem. It's a packaging problem.

2. Customers cluster in one tier while others sit empty.
If 80% of customers are in your middle tier and the other two barely move, your packaging isn't giving them a reason to choose.

3. You're building features no one's paying for.
Product ships something great. It gets buried in "Enterprise." No one upgrades for it.

That's a signal the feature deserves its own packaging conversation.

4. Expansion revenue is flat even though usage is up.
Customers are using more. Getting more value. But NRR isn't moving.

Your model isn't capturing the growth happening inside accounts

5. The pricing conversation dominates every sales call.
When customers spend more time asking "what's included where?" than talking about their problems, packaging is creating friction, not reducing it.

None of these mean you picked the wrong model.
They mean your business evolved and your packaging didn't keep up.

Here's the thing about packaging: it's not a one-time decision.

Companies that treat it like infrastructure instead of a living system end up stuck, either too rigid to capture value or too complex to sell efficiently.

The best packaging matches your stage. 
And as you grow, it should grow too.

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