If you raise prices, do you come out ahead?
A price rise adds revenue per customer and costs you customers at the same time, and a single scenario can only ever show you one of those. This grid re-runs a full 12-month bridge at every price point from -10% to +30%, so you can see how much of each rise survives the response, and which assumption the whole answer is hostage to.
SaaS Intermediate Data Table free
After you install, this is the model to open.
If We Raise Prices, Do We Come Out Ahead?
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
The answer
Every row in the table is a full 12-month re-run. Leaving price alone ends the year with 2,174 customers, $8,085,523 of ARR and $525,559 of gross profit a month. Against that baseline:
- ARR at +12%
- $8.26M 2.2% ahead
- Customers at +12%
- 1,983 191 fewer
- Net revenue retention
- 89.2% up from 84.4%
- Gross profit at +12%
- $537K per month
At these response assumptions the 12% rise is worth 2.2% more gross profit, and the gain flattens out near +25% before it starts to fall. Now change the two response numbers to 2% of new sales lost and 8 bp of churn per point, both perfectly defensible, and the same 12% rise ends the year 5.7% worse than doing nothing. Nothing else moved. The real job of the grid is to show you that the sign of the answer belongs to two numbers nobody has measured, and to tell you which one to go and measure first.
The model
A subscription bridge that keeps today's customers separate from the ones you win later, so net revenue retention is measured on the existing base rather than flattered by new logos. Two response assumptions drive everything: how many new deals you lose per point of price, and how much churn each point adds.
| Customers today | 1,850 |
| Revenue per customer per month | $310 |
| Gross margin | 78% |
| Monthly logo churn today | 1.4% |
| New customers per month today | 55 |
| Volume response | 1.2% of new sales lost per 1% of price |
| Churn response | 4 bp added to monthly churn per 1% of price |
| Price change | swept from -10% to +30% |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- How long until a customer pays you back?How Long Until a Customer Pays Us Back?
- What gross margin can you actually promise?What Gross Margin Can We Actually Promise?
- One load took three seconds. Is the site faster?Faster Site, Proven Without the Bell Curve
- Every day improved. Could that just be luck?Did the New Process Cut Ticket Times?
- Your churn is a band. What does that do to LTV?What Is a Customer Really Worth?
- The lift is real. Is it real for every segment?Did the New Onboarding Move Activation?
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: What-if analysis in Google Sheets.