B2B SaaS Pricing Consultant: Why Pricing I/O?

In early 2020, I was VP of Product Strategy at Mercatus – a growth-stage B2B SaaS company selling private equity software. Our CEO wanted to triple prices. Our VP of Sales wanted to slash them to win more logos.

The pricing debate was paralyzing the company. If you’ve been there, you know how quickly pricing becomes political.

We brought in Pricing I/O that year. It was one of the best decisions we made. My only regret was not doing it sooner.

This is what the engagement actually looked like, what it delivered, and why I eventually joined the firm.

What a SaaS Pricing Transformation Actually Delivers

We expected Pricing I/O to help us align on a price for our core product. What we got was a broader business transformation.

What the data revealed

The work started with structured customer surveys and interviews – primary research that reveals what you can't see from the inside. The data showed us:

• Which features customers actually valued
• What they were willing to pay more for
• Where our packaging was leaving money on the table

That discovery reshaped our 2020 roadmap. We went all-in on a specific private equity segment, repositioned our messaging, rebuilt our website, and realigned our sales motion from the ground up.

What changed beyond pricing

But it went deeper than pricing. Those insights influenced who we hired, which conferences we attended, which investors we pursued for our Series C, and how we positioned ourselves in every conversation. For the first time, every team – product, sales, marketing, and leadership – rallied around the same truth: what customers valued and what they'd pay more for.

Operational wins showed up too. We reduced our contract from 72 pages to 8, saving weeks of legal back-and-forth on every deal.

The headline result: 

we went from ~40% ARR growth to nearly 90% in 12 months. That trajectory helped set up a successful acquisition by State Street a few years later.

That engagement didn't just change our business trajectory. It changed mine. Pricing I/O has now done this 400+ times and the pattern repeats.

Pricing is not just numbers and packaging on a pricing page. Done right, it's a first-principles approach to understanding what your customers value and tying those insights back to higher ARR, NRR, and company valuation.

What SaaS Companies Actually Get From a Pricing Consultant

I can only speak to what I've seen firsthand. Here's what Pricing I/O clients walked away with.

A 15% ARR Uplift – and Pricing that Scales Across Products

Joe Janela, Director of Pricing at Deputy, needed to evolve from a single product to a multi-product platform. His team worked with Pricing I/O and saw a 15% ARR uplift.

Joe said it plainly: the cost of getting pricing wrong – rolling things back, delayed launches, missed details – is far more significant than bringing an expert in from the start.

Actionable Pricing their PE Parent Rolled Out Portfolio-wide

A product leader at a PE-backed software company faced the classic timing debate. His CEO and CFO weren't questioning the value of pricing work – they were questioning whether now was the right time.

After seeing the methodology and talking to references, they pulled the trigger. What sealed it: the work had to be deployable, not just presentable. Once their parent company saw results, they wanted to roll it out across their entire portfolio.

A Depth of Expertise No Other Firm Could Match

A CRO at a high-growth fintech described Pricing I/O as having the most depth of knowledge he'd seen in how revenue management and price management actually work inside high-performing organizations. He pointed to the quality of the proposal alone and said he wasn't seeing that caliber from anyone else in the market.

A Team that Owns Pricing Without Outside Help

A VP of Marketing at a $30M SaaS company shared what hit me hardest – because I lived it. A year after the engagement, she was running pricing on her own. Her team stopped giving software away, started pricing for value, and felt empowered to adjust pricing on new products without calling anyone for help.

That's the outcome that separates this approach from everything else: you don't just get a pricing model – you build the internal muscle to own it.

What is the Right Time to Invest in SaaS Pricing?

This is the most common question I hear: "Is now the right time?"

The answer is almost always: you're later than you think. 

Here are the signals that it's time:

• Your board or investors asked you to revisit pricing
• ARR or NRR growth has plateaued or fallen behind forecast
• You've recently completed an acquisition or investment round
• You're launching a new product or entering a new market
• You hired a new CRO, CMO, or CPO and pricing was flagged as a gap
• Your team is debating pricing internally with no clear owner or framework

If any of these sound familiar, the cost of waiting is compounding. Stalled growth, random pricing experiments, lost deals, talent churn from pressure without progress – these are the stakes when pricing doesn't get addressed.

Why I’m Here?

I joined Pricing I/O because I lived the transformation. I know what it feels like to debate pricing internally while growth stalls and the leadership team asks hard questions. And I know what it feels like on the other side.

If you’re looking for a B2B SaaS pricing consultant who’s actually been through the transformation themselves, I’m that person. Feel free to reach out directly.

Book 30 minutes with me directly: calendly.com/ali-pricingio/30min

Or reach me at ali@pricingio.com

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