Pricing is Hard.
Normally I don't put a period after my headlines. But pricing is hard – period. You know what I mean? It's challenging to figure out the right spot where you and customers both agree that the value exchange is worth it. You know what is even harder? Pricing utility features.
Wait, what does that mean?
Utility Features vs Solution Features
Utility features aren't solution features. They're not the things people go looking for at Google – like a membership plugin that creates a solution that helps you protect content while generating income.
eCommerce stores and online courses are the same. Donation plugins for non-profit sites – same thing. Event Calendars. All of these things are features / products that help create solutions.
So what isn't a solution feature?
- A pop-up that tells you about a Black Friday sale
- The display of App Store Reviews from Apple
- A countdown timer
These are utility features. And while people still create these as their own products, they're really hard to price. Because we don't think of them the same way we think about solution features.
So how do you go about pricing utility features?
Let's Talk No Code for a Second
We're just at the start of a movement that's been going on for a while. It's a no-code or low-code world and it's a result, I think, of the movement a few years ago where they told everyone that they needed to learn how to code.
Surely that can't be right. Right?
So out came several solutions that let you create amazing things without writing a line of code.
That's the world we're in right now. And there's a no-code solution that delivers more than 60 utility features for any site on any platform you like.
Ever Heard of Elfsight? Me either?
They're 60+ utility features are pretty amazing. They have a huge list of available “widgets” and you configure them (in a form, no coding) from several base templates. Then, when complete they give you a snippet of code you add to your site. And from there, you're off and running.
But how do you price these things? That's the whole point of today's article – how do you price utility features?
Their Pricing is Smart
I don't recall seeing a pricing approach that is as clean as this for utility features, which is why I knew I had to highlight them and how they approach their pricing.
From what I can tell, there's no simple way to give them a bunch of cash and get all of their widgets at once.
Instead, pricing is per utility feature. With a 14-day money back guarantee. And a free version to start. Check these three utility pricing pages.
First Instagram feed.
Then let's look at a testimonial slider.
And how about a cookie consent utility?
You catch the theme, right? They're all the same.
You can test it on your site for free for the first 200 views, but with their logo on it. Then, if you want the logo removed, it's $5/month for the single utility.
And if you have more traffic, you likely top out at $10/month, which isn't that much.
But what if you want more than one utility feature?
Once you buy the first app, you'll get a 30% coupon for the second app. And once you buy two apps, you get 50% off for all the other apps you buy.
Why is this Model so Brilliant?
You might be thinking, “Ok Chris, they give out coupons, so what?” But remember that we're talking about pricing utility features. They've done three things really well.
They have kept the price low – most people end up pricing utilities too high. They can't help themselves because of the investment they've made. But when you do that, you scare people off.
They have kept the pricing predictable – again many folks developing utility features have different prices for different utilities. This creates surprise and frustration for folks when they come back to your site and are surprised that one utility doesn't cost the same as the other they already bought.
They keep you coming back for more – If you buy one of these and it works, and they give you a coupon to come back to get another at half off, aren't you likely to come here before you go anywhere else? And if every great feature only costs $5/month (because of your 50% coupon), you might end up with 5 or 10 of these utilities over time.
And did you catch that it doesn't matter if you're using WordPress or Webflow? It works on both, plus Shopify and everywhere else. So even if you change your platform, you're likely not going to change these utility features.
That is pure brilliance.