The only way one can grow their business is by keeping customers happy, getting more referral from them and focus on acquiring new customers. I recently witnessed a price increase as one more strategy, though not a good one but being followed by a lot of Saas companies.
The recent one following the herd is Sendgrid.
What is the Price surge about?
We saw an email which was received by a Sendgrid user and it says something like this:
Just received this email.
“As a valued SendGrid customer, we would like to inform you of an upcoming price change to SendGrid’s Essentials plans, effective January 1st, 2019. This change reflects ongoing investment in our infrastructure, products, and services, ensuring that we continue to provide you with a best-in-class experience.
Your Essentials 40K plan price will change from $9.95 per month to $14.95 per month. Please note, this pricing will be in effect for new customers on December 1st, 2018, but as an existing customer, we’re providing you with additional notice in case you have any questions. Your January bill will reflect these changes.”
Customers for sure don’t admire price rise:
Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18553899
What does the company have to say about it?
Since the announcement, people have been unclear as to what is the reason for the price surge. There have been constant questions to the company and they have been somewhat unclear with the responses which do create a general atmosphere of unsatisfaction among their clients.
Price increase impacts startups and SMEs
Well, everyone knows when the demand for goods increases, prices decrease. However, this price surge seems to be going in the opposite direction altogether with their recent pricing plan revision.
Since Sendgrid is a huge brand name in the API based transactional email delivery segment, a big part of their client base is made up of SMEs. The price surge is not subtle in any way ($9.9 to 14.95 for the basic plan) is a surge which many companies find hard to keep up with- especially the ones where a lot of bulk emails were being sent monthly. This has caused many SMEs to reconsider their choice of ESP and move to another- more affordable services.
As goes the popular belief, Pricing is the most important driver of profits. Companies often increase their prices to get more profits and this clearly seen when they don’t have a good enough reason for the price increase.
But apart from an increase in revenue and profits, client dissatisfaction, bad PR and loss in clients due to cheaper alternatives being present in the market are some of the cons of the price surge.
What are the alternatives?
There are many good alternatives available in the market, If you are sending good content and your list is pure, you will experience great inboxing, unless you have made a blunder.
I would recommend Pepipost, we built Pepipost with a lot of love and passion for good email sending. It is an AI-powered email delivery service which not only helps user Inbox better but also saves them a lot of money.
Check out how we compare with sendgrid
Born with a single mission to build and service worlds largest good email sender community. Pepipost doesn’t charge you for emails opened, this is our reward for you, for sending good emails from our platform. We give you credits for every email opened, every month on your bill. Check out how we do that here on our pricing page
Now you can save up to 50% of your cost, that you would’ve spent with Sendgrid.
This is how pricing calculator works
In case you want to switch from Sendgrid to us, we have easy to use migration guide and API via which in no time you can start sending emails from Pepipost.
We hope that you can leverage great inbox delivery without making a hole in your pocket like our 20,000+ customers.
A business is made for its clients and their needs fuel its development. Although a price increase is a factor which is required to keep a company afloat in this economy, a gradual increase in prices which can be accommodated by the clients should be executed by companies rather than a sudden significant surge.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tanishq Juneja
CEO and Email Guy @Pepipost
Tanishq is an email enthusiast and has a natural instinct for leadership. He has a vision for development and the aptitude to drive growth towards the goals. He loves experimenting with new technologies and is a MarTech aficionado. He is a Batman fan and loves watching movies.