Setting a price for a new product can feel like a shot in the dark. But your initial pricing is not a final decision—it’s a hypothesis. Your first customers are the key to validating and refining that hypothesis. They are more than your first source of revenue; they are a live research and development lab for your entire business model, offering invaluable insights into what’s truly valuable about your product.

This guide explains how to use early customer feedback to move from a guessed-at price to a data-driven model that supports long-term growth.

Leveraging early customers to define pricing is an iterative process of listening, analyzing, and adjusting. It transforms pricing from a static number into a dynamic strategy that evolves with your product and market understanding.

The process generally follows these steps:

• Launch with a hypothesis: You start with an educated guess. This initial price might be based on competitor analysis, perceived value, or your costs. The goal isn’t to be perfect, but to have a starting point.
• Onboard early adopters: These customers are often “friendlies”—users from your network or beta testers who are willing to try a new product. Many startups offer them a “founder’s plan” or a significant discount in exchange for their patience and feedback.
• Gather qualitative feedback: This is the most crucial step. Instead of sending generic surveys, have real conversations. Ask open-ended questions like:
  • “What problem were you trying to solve when you found us?”
  • “Which feature could you not live without?”
  • “Was there a specific ‘aha!’ moment when the product’s value became clear?”
  • “How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?”
• Analyze quantitative data: Look at usage patterns. Are they using the features you thought were most important? Are there features they ignore completely? High usage of a specific feature is a strong signal of where your product delivers the most value.
• Iterate and test: Armed with this feedback, you can start refining your pricing tiers. This could mean changing the core value metric (e.g., from per-seat to usage-based), reorganizing features across different plans, or adjusting price points.

Real-world feedback often reveals that a startup’s initial assumptions about value are wrong. Here are a couple of common scenarios illustrating how early customers can steer a pricing model in the right direction.

A project management SaaS startup launched with three tiers. The highest-priced “Enterprise” tier included a complex, AI-powered reporting feature they believed was their key differentiator. Their lower-cost tiers offered core task management features.

Feedback discovered: After a few months, they interviewed their first 20 customers. They discovered that while the AI reporting was technically impressive, most teams weren’t using it. Instead, they were getting immense value from a simple, collaborative checklist feature in the cheapest plan. It was saving them hours of meeting time each week.

The pivot: The startup restructured its pricing to be based on the number of collaborative projects and checklists. They moved the AI reporting feature into an optional add-on. This aligned their pricing directly with the value their customers were actually experiencing. As a result, they saw a significant increase in upgrades from smaller teams who wanted to expand their use of the core collaborative tools.

A developer-focused API service launched with a standard per-seat pricing model. They assumed that as companies grew, they would add more developer seats.

Feedback discovered: Their early customers were small, agile teams. They loved the service, but they told the founders they couldn’t justify adding more “seats” when only one or two developers were actively working with the API at any given time. The value wasn’t the number of developers with access; it was the number of API calls they were making to power their own applications.

The pivot: The company switched from a per-seat model to a usage-based model tiered by the volume of API calls. This had two immediate benefits:

1. It made the service more accessible for small teams to start with.
2. It allowed the pricing to scale directly with the success of their customers’ applications, creating a true partnership.

Relying on early feedback is powerful, but it comes with its own set of challenges.

• Misconception: “You can’t change prices on early customers.” You absolutely can, but you should do it thoughtfully. Grandfathering early adopters into their original price is a common and fair practice that rewards their loyalty. For future customers, you are free to introduce a new, more informed pricing structure.
• Challenge: Separating signal from noise. Not all feedback is equal. Some requests may be niche or may not align with your long-term vision. It’s important to look for patterns across multiple customers rather than reacting to every single suggestion.
• Challenge: The fear of talking about money. Many founders are passionate about their product but uncomfortable talking about price. You have to overcome this. Framing the conversation around “value” and “fairness” can make it easier. Ask questions like, “For the value you get, does this price feel fair?”

To build a sustainable, customer-informed pricing model, follow a few key principles.

• Start with simplicity: Begin with two or three straightforward tiers. It’s easier to add complexity later than to take it away.
• Identify your value metric: Don’t default to per-seat pricing. Is your value based on projects, data storage, API calls, or something else? Your early customers will help you discover this.
• Talk to customers who churn: It might be painful, but understanding why someone leaves is often more educational than hearing praise from happy customers. They will give you the unvarnished truth about where your value or pricing falls short.
• Communicate transparently: If you decide to change your pricing, explain why to your existing customers. Show them how their feedback helped shape the new model.

Once you’ve gathered feedback and are ready to build or refine your pricing, you need a billing system that is flexible enough to keep up. Iterating on your pricing model shouldn’t require a major engineering effort.

Kinde provides a robust billing infrastructure that allows you to easily create and manage different pricing structures.

• Flexible plan creation: You can quickly define plans with different features and charges, making it simple to test new tier configurations based on customer feedback.
• Support for multiple pricing models: Whether you decide on a flat-rate subscription, a tiered model based on features, or a usage-based approach, Kinde can support it. This allows you to adapt your model as you learn more about what resonates with your customers.
• Iterate without breaking things: Kinde’s system is designed to let you build and publish plans efficiently. You can set up your initial hypothesis, gather feedback, and then easily create new versions of your plans without disrupting existing subscribers.

This flexibility means you can spend less time wrestling with billing logic and more time listening to your customers and building a great product.

• Pricing models
• About plans
• Step 4 Build plans
• Create plans