How to Price Your SaaS Side Project (Without Guessing)

You built the thing. It works. Now you’re staring at a Stripe dashboard trying to decide if your app is worth $9/month or $29/month, and honestly, you have no idea. You’ve read a dozen blog posts about pricing strategy and they all say “it depends.” Thanks, very helpful.

Here’s the truth: most indie hackers overthink pricing and underthink validation. You don’t need a pricing consultant or a 47-slide deck. You need a starting price, real users, and the willingness to change the number later. Let me walk you through exactly how to do that.

Why Pricing Feels So Hard

Pricing feels paralyzing because it feels permanent. It doesn’t have to be. When you have 0 customers, your pricing page is a hypothesis. When you have 100 customers, it’s a data point. When you have 1,000, it’s a strategy.

The mistake is treating it like a strategy from day one. You don’t have enough information yet. And that’s fine.

The other reason pricing feels hard: most developers think about cost, not value. You know your server costs $15/month, so charging $19 feels like a rip-off. But your customer doesn’t care about your AWS bill. They care about the problem you solve and how much pain that problem causes them.

Price based on the value you deliver, not what it costs you to run.

A tool that saves a freelancer 5 hours a month is worth $50-100/month to them, regardless of whether your infrastructure costs $5 or $50.

The Four Pricing Models (And Which One to Pick First)

Let’s get through this quickly because only one of these matters when you’re starting out.

Flat Rate

One price, one plan, everything included. Example: $19/month for full access.

Tiered

Multiple plans with different feature sets. Example: Free / Pro $19 / Team $49.

Usage-Based

Pay for what you use. Example: $0.01 per API call or $5 per 1,000 emails sent.

Freemium

Free tier with limited features, paid tier for the full product.

My recommendation for day one: flat rate. One plan. One price. No confusion. No decision fatigue for your customers. No complex billing logic for you.

You can always add tiers later when you understand which features people actually value. Trying to design three tiers before your first customer is like optimizing database queries before you have data. Premature.

The “Start With One Tier” Framework

Here’s the exact process I use when pricing a new side project:

Step 1: Find Your Anchor Price

Look at what your target customers already pay for similar tools. Not identical tools — adjacent ones. If you’re building a niche analytics dashboard for Shopify stores, look at what Shopify app store tools charge. If you’re building a scheduling tool for freelancers, look at Calendly and Cal.com pricing.

Your price should feel reasonable in that context. Not the cheapest (that signals low quality), not the most expensive (you haven’t earned that yet).

For most micro SaaS products, $9-29/month is the sweet spot to start. Solo founders routinely hit $5K-$50K+ MRR at these price points by targeting specific niches with real pain.

Step 2: Launch With That Price

Don’t agonize. Pick a number and put it on the page. You’ll change it. I promise. Everyone does.

The micro SaaS market is projected to grow from $15.7B to $59.6B by 2030. There are plenty of customers out there. Your job right now is to find the first 10, not to perfectly optimize your pricing model.

Step 3: Talk to Your First Customers

Once people start paying, ask them:

• “Was the price a factor in your decision?”
• “What would be too expensive?”
• “What features would justify paying more?”

Their answers will tell you more than any pricing framework ever could. If everyone says “this is cheap,” raise it. If people balk, you might need to reposition the value, not necessarily lower the price.

Step 4: Iterate Based on Evidence

After 20-50 customers, you’ll start seeing patterns. Maybe power users want more, and casual users want less. That’s when tiers make sense. Maybe some customers want to pay annually. Add that option.

The key is: let real usage patterns inform your pricing decisions, not guesses.

The $1 Customer Is Worth 10x a Free User

This is one of the most important things I’ve learned building SaaS products: a person who pays you even $1 is 10x more valuable than a free signup.

Why? Because paying customers:

• Actually use the product
• Give you real feedback
• Tell you what features matter
• Prove your value proposition works
• Stick around longer

Free users ghost you. They sign up, poke around for 5 minutes, and never come back. You learn almost nothing from them.

This is why I’m skeptical of freemium for early-stage side projects. If you want to validate your idea, charge from day one. Even a small amount filters for people who genuinely need what you’re building.

We covered more on this in our post about common SaaS mistakes — giving away too much for free is one of the biggest.

Don’t Let Billing Infrastructure Slow You Down

Here’s the irony: you spend hours figuring out the perfect price, then spend weeks building the payment system to actually charge that price. Stripe checkout sessions, webhook handling, subscription lifecycle management, failed payment recovery… it adds up fast.

This is exactly why we built Beag.io. You configure your pricing, drop in auth + payments, and start charging customers in minutes instead of weeks. The less time you spend on billing plumbing, the more time you spend talking to customers and iterating on your actual product.

If you’ve already turned a side project into a SaaS, you know how much of the work is infrastructure, not features.

When to Raise Your Prices

Most indie hackers charge too little and raise prices too late. Here are clear signals it’s time:

• Conversion rate is above 10% — Your price is probably too low if that many visitors convert.
• No one complains about price — Some price sensitivity is normal and healthy. Zero pushback means you’re leaving money on the table.
• You’re attracting low-quality customers — Very low prices attract people who don’t value the product and churn quickly.
• You’ve added significant value — New features, better performance, more integrations. Your price should reflect that.

When you do raise prices, grandfather existing customers. They took a chance on you early. Honor that.

When to Add Tiers

Add a second tier when you can clearly identify two groups of customers with different needs. Not before.

Good reasons to add tiers:

• Power users consistently hit usage limits
• Teams want collaboration features that solo users don’t need
• Enterprise customers need SSO, audit logs, or dedicated support

Bad reasons to add tiers:

• “Every SaaS has three plans”
• You want the pricing page to look more professional
• You think it will increase revenue (without evidence)

Pricing Mistakes That Kill Side Projects

Pricing at $0 “to get traction”: You’ll get signups, not customers. Traction without revenue is a vanity metric.

Copying a competitor’s pricing exactly: Their cost structure, market position, and customer base are different from yours. Use competitors as a reference, not a template.

Changing prices every week: Pick a price, run it for at least a month, collect data, then decide. Constant changes erode trust.

Building complex billing before you have customers: You don’t need annual plans, team seats, add-ons, and usage metering on day one. You need one price and a checkout button.

FAQ

How much should I charge for my SaaS side project?

For most micro SaaS products, $9-29/month is a solid starting range. Look at what adjacent tools charge in your niche, position yourself reasonably, and adjust after you have paying customers. Don’t aim for the cheapest option — that signals low value.

Should I offer a free plan?

Not at first. Free plans are expensive to support and attract users who won’t convert. Start with a paid-only model (maybe with a 7-14 day free trial) to validate that people will actually pay. You can always add a free tier later once you understand your conversion funnel.

When should I switch from flat-rate to tiered pricing?

When you have clear evidence that different customer segments have different needs. This usually becomes obvious after 50-100 customers. If power users keep asking for more while casual users only use basic features, that’s your signal to create tiers.

How do I handle price increases for existing customers?

Grandfather them. Let existing customers keep their current price for at least 6-12 months (or permanently). Only apply new pricing to new signups. This builds loyalty and avoids churn from your earliest supporters.

What’s more important — getting the price right or getting customers?

Getting customers. Always. A wrong price with real customers gives you data to fix it. A perfect price with zero customers gives you nothing. Ship, charge, learn, adjust.

---

Ready to stop thinking about billing and start charging customers? Beag.io gives you auth + payments in 5 minutes so you can focus on what actually matters — building your product and talking to users. Get started at beag.io.