Most indie SaaS products either have too many tiers or not enough. Here is how to structure pricing tiers that convert — and what to put in each one.
Pricing tiers serve two purposes: they let customers self-select into the right plan, and they create an anchor that makes each tier feel appropriately priced. Get the tier structure wrong and you either leave money on the table or create confusion that kills conversion.
At launch: two paid tiers, maximum. One entry tier, one premium tier. No free tier (use a time-limited trial instead). No enterprise tier (you don't have the sales process to support it yet).
Three tiers become relevant when you have enough usage data to know where the natural break points are — which customers are power users, which are light users, and what feature or usage level marks the boundary. Without that data, a three-tier structure is guesswork dressed up as strategy.
Entry tier — everything the customer needs to get the core value of the product. Not a stripped-down version. Not a feature-gated experience that frustrates. The full core use case, delivered. The entry tier should be something you'd be proud to sell. If it feels like a deliberately inferior product, it will convert poorly and churn fast.
Premium tier — the proactive layer on top of the core. Where the entry tier responds when the customer asks, the premium tier works between interactions. In GhostCoach's case: the entry tier gives you coaching sessions, the premium tier adds a weekly digest that reaches out to you. That's the pattern — reactive vs proactive, not more features vs fewer.
What should not be gated between tiers: core functionality, data export, support access. Gating these creates resentment, not upgrade pressure.
Making the entry tier too weak. If the entry tier doesn't deliver real value, you're not creating upgrade pressure — you're creating churn. Customers who don't get value at entry level don't upgrade. They leave.
Making the premium tier too similar. If the only difference between entry and premium is a usage limit or a few extra features, the premium tier will underperform. The difference needs to feel qualitative, not just quantitative.
Pricing the tiers too close together. A $49 entry and $69 premium creates a pricing paradox — most customers will choose premium because the gap is small. But then premium becomes your entry tier psychologically, and you have no upgrade path. Keep a meaningful gap: 2x is a reasonable multiple between tiers.
GhostCoach: Builder ($79/mo) — unlimited sessions, full memory, session context. Operator ($99/mo) — everything in Builder plus weekly digest and session recaps. The $20 gap is justified by the proactive element: Marcus working between sessions, not just during them.
The pattern that works for most indie tools: Entry tier at a price that feels like an obvious value for the core use case. Premium tier at roughly 2x, justified by a qualitatively different relationship with the product — more automation, more proactivity, more depth.
Tell Marcus what your product does and how customers use it. You'll get a specific tier recommendation with pricing in session one.
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