Blended ARPU (Per Customer, Per Month)
$0
Weighted across all three tiers. $0 / mo recurring
0
Monthly Signups
0%
On Premium Tier
0x
Entry to Premium Spread
SaaS
Sets sensible starting prices, mix, and signup volume for the inputs below.
80
New paying customers added per month across all tiers (any plan).
Industry: 50-120 /mo
Decoy spacing recommendation.
Auto-snap your three tier prices to the anchor-optimized ratio (entry = 40% of premium, growth = 65% of premium).
Turn on to test what the math suggests, then toggle off to fine-tune by hand.
Tune your three tiers.
Price + Mix per tier
Entry
Tier A
$
49
/mo
Contribution to ARPU
$0.00
Decoy Target
Growth
Tier B
$
149
/mo
Contribution to ARPU
$0.00
Premium
Tier C
$
/mo
Contribution to ARPU
Recommended Spacing for SaaS
For your industry, the anchor-optimized ratio places entry at 40% of your premium price and growth at 65%. That spread makes growth feel like the rational center while premium makes growth look reasonable, and entry catches skeptics without cannibalizing.
Entry suggested
$160
40% of premium
Growth suggested
$259
65% of premium
Premium (anchor)
$399
Your top price
Current pricing vs. anchor-optimized.
Your pricing
Anchor-optimized
Your current ladder
$0
Blended ARPU per customer / mo
Monthly revenue
$0
Annualized
$0
Premium mix
0%
Anchor-optimized ladder
$0
25% entry, 55% growth, 20% premium mix
Monthly revenue
$0
Annualized
$0
Premium mix
20%
Estimated Monthly Revenue Lift
$0
From re-pricing alone, no new acquisition.
Anchor effect: growth-tier uptake as premium rises.
Modeled against your current premium price
Growth tier %
Entry + premium %
Peak growth mix at
$0
How your prices stack against your industry.
You
Entry tier price
Door price for skeptics
$49
Growth tier price
The decoy target. Most customers land here.
$149
Premium tier price
The anchor. Makes growth feel reasonable.
$399
Blended ARPU
Weighted across your three-tier mix
$0
Sensitivity: which pricing move shifts blended ARPU most?
Modeled against your current inputs
Operator Playbook
1
The anchor isn't for sale, the middle is. Your premium tier exists to make the growth
tier look reasonable. Treat premium pricing like a strategic frame, not a forecast. The growth tier is
where 50-60% of your revenue should land.
2
Use the decoy effect on purpose. When two options feel close and a third is dramatically
worse on price-to-value, customers reliably pick the dominant option. Add a premium tier even if you
expect zero takers. The 5-15% that buy it subsidize the rest, and the other 85% feel smart for choosing
growth.
3
Build price fences, not feature gates. Differentiate tiers by usage caps, seats, SLAs,
or audience size. Avoid hiding bread-and-butter features behind premium. That breaks trust and pushes
people to competitors instead of up your ladder.
4
Annual prepay belongs on every tier. A 17% annual discount (pay for 10 months, get 12)
is the industry baseline. Customers on annual contracts churn 30-40% less and free up cash flow you can
reinvest in acquisition. Always offer the toggle.
5
Re-anchor every 9-12 months. As you ship features, your premium tier should drift up.
Hold price on existing customers, raise price for new signups. Most operators leave 20-30% of ARPU on
the table because they never adjust the ladder after launch.
Free Detailed Report
Get the full pricing audit by email and SMS.
We'll send you a 4-page PDF with your current ladder, your anchor-optimized ladder, the three pricing moves most likely to shift blended ARPU, and a 30-minute strategy slot with the founder if you want one.
Your pricing audit is on the way.
Check your email for your personalized report (and spam if needed). We'll use your number for follow-up from Nirvani when relevant. Sammy will personally reach out within 24 hours if you flagged the strategy-call option.
MeetingHow this calculator works
What is the decoy effect, and why does it work?
The decoy effect is a cognitive bias documented by Joel Huber in 1982 and made famous by Dan Ariely's
Economist subscription experiment. When customers face two options that feel close on price-to-value
and a third that is clearly inferior or premium, they overwhelmingly pick the middle one because the
third option makes it look like the rational choice. In 3-tier SaaS pricing, premium is the anchor
(sets the ceiling), growth is the target (where you want most revenue), and entry is the door (so
skeptics still convert).
Where do the recommended price ratios come from?
The 40% / 65% / 100% ratio is a blended median across hundreds of public SaaS pricing pages, B2B
subscription studies (Patrick Campbell, ProfitWell, Price Intelligently), and Nirvani's deployment
data. A 2.5x entry-to-premium spread is wide enough that premium frames the value, but tight enough
that growth feels like a small upgrade from entry rather than a sideways jump. If your tiers are too
close (say 1.5x), entry and growth cannibalize. Too wide (say 6x) and the premium tier reads as
enterprise theatre and stops anchoring.
How accurate is the "55% on growth tier" target?
That figure comes from pricing studies showing that healthy 3-tier ladders concentrate 50-60% of
customers on the middle option, 25-30% on entry, and 10-20% on premium. If your mix is bottom-heavy
(say 70% on entry) your premium is anchoring too high or your growth tier is missing a feature that
would justify the upgrade. If it's top-heavy you might be leaving money on the table by under-pricing
premium or by adding too much value to growth.
Why does the calculator normalize my mix to 100%?
The mix sliders represent the share of new customers landing on each tier. We normalize the three
sliders so they always sum to 100% (the blend that actually exists in your customer base). If you
slide entry to 80%, the other two scale proportionally so the math stays honest. Use the sliders as
ratios, not absolute percentages, and the calculator will keep them in sync.
What if my business is one-time, not subscription?
The same math applies. Treat the "monthly signups" as projects, packages, or transactions per month.
Replace ARPU with average ticket. Law firms run case-package tiers (consult, full case, retainer).
Real estate brokerages run lead-gen packages (starter, growth, dominator). The decoy effect works
the same way regardless of whether the price recurs.
What's in the detailed PDF report?
Four pages. (1) Your current ladder, sensitivity table, and blended ARPU. (2) The anchor-optimized
version with prices and feature recommendations. (3) The three packaging changes most likely to
shift mix toward growth (specific to your industry). (4) Annual prepay design, fence-vs-feature
tradeoffs, and a re-anchoring playbook on a 90-day cadence. No marketing fluff. You'll get it
after you submit (delivery time can vary).