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The Importance of a Pricing page
The pricing page is one of the most important parts of a SaaS or B2B website because it is where you convert browsing customers to paying customers. At some point, every customer gets directed to choose a pricing plan, making the page vitally important to your conversion rate. We analyzed over 25 popular SaaS & B2b websites to see what stands out.
Skip to the screenshots. All our screenshots show the above the fold content on a typical 1920×1080 (16:9) monitor. If you enjoy this article, visit the rest of our site to find the software to build your business.
The Power of Three
The first thing you will notice in the images below is the prevalence of the number three, as in three choices of plans, three boxes, three columns. There is a reason for this. Studies have shown that when faced with too many choices, people decide to not make any choice at all. By reducing the choices you present to the customer, you increase your conversion rate.
Companies still show four or five options, but rarely any more beyond that. Every SaaS creator or B2B website owner, therefore, faces a trade-off. You need to narrow down the choices you show while still giving enough information about everything your company offers.
An analysis of the websites below shows a few options at your disposal. Companies show the fewest options available above the fold, and then push the less important ones to below the fold. Often this is the free tier, occasionally the enterprise tier.
Some large companies use tabs or toggles to allow customers to switch between the different lines of businesses. They often use the number three in the tab count. Having three plans with three tabs allows you to show up to nine pricing options quickly. A newer alternative to tabs is the slider, which can show off a pricing-by-numbers structure quickly.
Lastly, companies include lists of what’s included in each plan as you scroll down. These feature lists are often separated by function or area with dividers or spacers, allowing you to show off multiple areas under each pricing tier which further explains what exactly your business does.
A Prevalence of Free Trials
Almost everyone these days offers a free trial. Why? Because they convert. Email is a powerful marketing tool and having someone sign up for free allows you market to them during the trial. It also gets them using your product, a huge first step on the way to purchasing your product. It’s much easier to convert someone using your free trial than it is to convert someone who hasn’t signed up yet at all.
The free trial also does another thing, which is to improve satisfaction. If you sign up for a service and it’s not for you or doesn’t do what you want, then it makes you angry if you’ve paid for it. Allowing people to try it out increases your user satisfaction. Free trials are commonly highlighted in headlines and calls to action.
Hierarchy
The pricing pages use design hierarchy to convey large amounts of information while not making the page look busy. Small text in a light color moves it to the background, bold text brings it forward, different colors highlight, while table design structures your data and shows off information cleanly.
You should find some way to highlight the choice you want to draw customers’ eyes to with design elements. If there are three options, often one box or column is offset from the others by raising it slightly above the two on either side, and your call to action on the plan you want them to pick is bigger or bolder.
Each page has an important call-to-action to move the viewer to the next step in the process. Interestingly, the actual price is often one of the most prominent design elements on the page or one of the least. Either one seems to convert and feel trustworthy. Icons are another design element that helps break up large blocks of text.
Actual Pricing
The last thing you’ll notice is the prevalence of pricing. Showing your actual prices is now considered a way to increase user trust and show that you are not offering different people in the same situation different prices. However, if there are a lot of things that go into pricing your services, you may still choose to show a “call for pricing” piece of text. Some companies that have one main driver of pricing use a slider to help you figure out what your costs might be. An example of this is email marketing, where how many emails you send is the main cost driver.
Let’s get started on the screenshots.
Screenshots
Sprout is a social media management tool for marketing departments at companies to manage multiple social media accounts. You can see they have the typical three-column layout with the middle column raised slightly and the calls to action are highlighted in green, their brand color. The headline highlights the free trial.
Clerky is a popular startup incorporation service for startups about to enter into an investment round or issue stock options. They have two tabs, but only one price for their main option. The price is clear but unobtrusive, and the call to action button dominates.
Clicking the other tab brings up four more tabs with a column under each one highlighting the products they offer. A great way to hide extra data and draw people into the service they want you to sign up for while still having all the data readily available to the user.
Flywheel is a managed WordPress host targeting small businesses or marketing agencies who run websites for other companies. They have four columns, with a fifth option (a custom plan) below the fold. A yellow flag highlights the plan they want to draw your eye to and the tab/toggle above the columns allows you to switch between yearly and monthly pricing (a common feature).
Chargebee is a SaaS company focused on other SaaS companies to help them run their subscription billing and recurring payments. They have subtle design elements like the yellow highlight over the last three words in the title and the “popular” flag over the middle plan. They also have a monthly/yearly tab toggle and bold calls to action except for the enterprise plan, which has a muted call to action.
Harvest is a time tracking and invoicing app targeted towards businesses that charge clients in timed increments. They kept it very simple with just two options and the call to action is largest element on the page. A great example of a targeted business pricing page. The call to action starts the free trial, a common way to get customers into your funnel.
Square is a large payment processor targeting entrepreneurs, small businesses, and large corporations. You can see the dilemma on their pricing page, they don’t know which of their many services you are interested in. They still use the rule of three to narrow down what you are looking for, then present the pricing information below the tabs. Wondering where the call to action is? As you scroll, the call to action appears at the top of the page.
Email Marketing Pricing Pages
Aweber is an email marketing provider. They decided to segment their customers into six groups, five up top, with enterprise customers below (but still above the fold). They have a three-tab option to switch pricing above the groupings and large but similar calls to action across the page.
Drip is also an email marketing company and a competitor to AWeber. Instead of five columns like AWeber, they went with a slider concept. It allows the customer to pick how many emails they might send out each month then shows the cost. It allowed them to switch from five columns to a single box.
CRM Pricing Pages
Agile is a CRM provider that helps companies keep track of customers and make more sales. CRMs are notorious for doing a lot of different things, and the websites of CRM vendors show the struggle to present that information clearly. Here, Agile has gone with four columns and a clear call to action. The prices are subdued yet easily found. Icons break up the page, and you can compare Agile’s page to Aweber’s page above to see the difference it makes.
If you scroll down, you will notice that Agile’s pricing page has columns of features and divides the columns up according to their offerings, allowing them to present more information. Notice the long columns are broken up by dividers and design elements to help the eye travel as you scroll down.
HubSpot is also a CRM vendor that took a different tack for trying to present large amounts of information. The page begins with two tabs, then underneath them are five more tabs, allowing them to show off prices across their business offerings from one page. Finally, the three pricing boxes with calls to action are below that. You can visit all the pricing aspects of their complex business easily.
Freshsales is also a CRM vendor with a lot of offerings. However, instead of tabs, they have gone back to a simple layout of four offerings (and the free tier below the fold). Where are all their other products? They have chosen to separate out their business offerings with completely different pages (mini-websites), each one with separate pricing pages. You can find the list in the menu at the top (the word “Products expands to list them all with icons) or all the way down below in the footer, which lists 13 more business lines. It is an interesting alternative to HubSpot’s tabs.
Salesforce is probably the biggest CRM vendor with many complex offerings across multiple business lines. You can see that clicking on their pricing page doesn’t get you any pricing, it gets you 17 choices to pick from. Hopefully, you can figure out what it is you need. However…
once you finally click on the right one, the choices are fairly simple, with a four-across grid, large prices, and simple calls to action. We’re guessing their funnels bring people directly to the correct pricing page to begin with.
Project Management Pricing Pages
Basecamp is a project management tool for companies and remote teams. You can see they have completely narrowed down their offerings to one simple plan. A big headline, a sub-headline with pricing, and a call to action, followed by a grid of features. If you scroll below the fold they have their free plan:
Although it is hidden below the fold (indicating they’d rather you not see it first), they clearly state what you get for free. Notice that the call to action for the free plan is subdued, with the color on the page instead highlighting what you get with the paid plan (the yellow box is clickable and takes you directly to the signup screen).
Taskade is a smaller competitor of Basecamp, offering features for remote teams to get projects done. You can see they went with the almost stereotypical pricing page, three columns, middle one is offset to break up the page and it is highlighted red to draw your attention. Prices are in a large font and the calls to action obvious. Why mess with something if it works?
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This is our call to action for our newsletter above. Its not a pricing page, but you can get great deals if you sign up! Which you should totally do. Notice the big subscribe box? On to more screenshots…
Monday.com is a remote team and project management SaaS offering for small businesses and teams. You can see they highlight the free trial upfront at the top. They have four plans with scrolling columns under each one to highlight all their features. An additional bar in the middle automatically calculates the cost based on the number of users you will have and changes the pricing in the four boxes below when you pick an option. It is a nice touch that doesn’t clutter the page too much. They are one of the few websites to use multiple different colors on the same page.
Additional competitors in this space include Asana and Trello, both screenshots are below.
Both of them have clear pricing and calls to action, with scrolling columns below to highlight more features.
Accounting Pricing Pages
Quickbooks is a popular small business accounting software product. They highlight five columns across. They do something strange we’ve seen on other pages, which is to highlight the cheapest plan all the way on the right, separated out slightly, instead of on the left where it would usually go. Their page is dominated by their sale headline, underneath that is a useless toggle (turning it off makes you pay 50% more, who would do that?).
Freshbooks is a Quickbooks competitor. Their space above the fold is completely dominated by their sale headline (the screenshots were taken during the pandemic, when many of their potential customers were going out of business). Scrolling further down the page gets you to:
a combination of a four-across pricing grid and feature columns all-in-one. Little pink tags highlight their sales prices and a party graphic with a design offset on the second column highlights the one they want you to pick. It is also the only one with a large green call-to-action button, all the rest are subdued.
Wave is a free accounting app for businesses (they make their money by taking a cut of invoicing payments or charging for payroll services). Their pricing page is dominated by the blue box up top with the call to action highlighting the free part. Three boxes that continue below the fold explain how they make money and below that is a features list neatly divided up by areas of business.
Xero is another accounting vendor, also highlighting a sale. The three-across grid highlights prices prominently, but the sale text has pushed the calls to action below the fold, which is unfortunate.
Help Desk Software Pricing Pages
Intercom is a business messaging SaaS that helps businesses communicate with customers (chat windows, help centers, tech support, etc.). They have a four-across grid, with blue highlighting on the right two columns to draw your eye away from the cheaper ones (or to just provide some design excitement, as it’s unlikely you will spend $999 a month when you only need a $39 a month plan). Below the fold is an additional set of pricing boxes for add-ons, which is a great touch to upsell a customer.
Zendesk is also helpdesk software for businesses that need to communicate with a lot of web visitors or customers. However, they have expanded into sales CRM, which necessitates the needs for tabs at the top. There is no actual pricing yet, you have to click the little teal text to have a window pop up that shows actual pricing, in a five across grid. Not the best calls to action on that either, and on the main page, the calls to action are hidden below the fold. All in all it could be better.
We’ve seen this company before in a screenshot above. As we noted then, instead of having a pricing page for one entire company across business lines, they have separate pricing pages for each line of business. This one, for Freshdesk, has a call to action for the demo up top, and then a toggle above a five-across grid. The toggle toggles… something. It’s unclear if they are just rearranging their pricing or you toggle to a completely new product.
Payroll Provider Pricing Pages
Gusto is a very popular small business payroll provider. They have a clean, four-across grid with obvious calls to action. The pricing is small but highlighted in the same color.
ADP is a massive payroll provider. As you can see, it gives them the opportunity to not bother to put pricing on their website. Above the grid is a subtle toggle for different-sized businesses, and below the fold are feature columns with checkboxes.
Square Payroll (a division of Square) doesn’t have a separate page for pricing, they just combine the features page and the pricing information in one. They decided to go with a simple call to action above the fold. Below the fold is a discussion of features. You have to scroll some ways until:
It lacks a large call to action (because there are other ones above it and below it), but either link will take you to a page with another big call to action.
Other B2B
Ruby Receptionists is our last example. They are a virtual receptionist service popular with people with high-value clients like lawyers and accountants. Their page lacks a call to action above the fold, although a chat window does pop up. Below the fold:
You can see their pricing grid with four across, however, the buttons and heading compete with each other. We think this one could probably be improved by making the call to actions stronger and moving them above the fold. However, in between the two screenshots is a call to action to call them (on the phone). It’s possible their clients prefer that method than perhaps just signing up right away. And they probably have a lot of people on hand to answer phones.
Conclusion
If you are building a pricing page for your SaaS or B2B business, the key takeaways are:
- Keep it simple using the rule of three;
- Use clear design hierarchy;
- Use clear and large calls to action;
- Push features below the fold into columns, but break them up with design elements so you don’t have an infinite list;
- Reduce choice as much as possible.
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