Traumatised by the cricket, Alex finds parallels between pricing and a dramatic batting collapse.
Scaling SaaS pricing for a scale-up company can feel a lot like the dramatic turns I just witnessed in the first Ashes Test in Perth, where Australia defeated England in just two days.
So what lessons can we take from that Test match for SaaS businesses growing quickly and needing to scale their pricing models to support that growth?
In that Perth Test, England started strongly, posting 172 in the first innings and putting pressure on Australia. But Australia’s reply and then their second-innings onslaught, led by Travis Head’s explosive 123 off just 83 balls, turned the game around in a dramatic fashion.
Similarly, a scale-up company that has built its pricing around a simple metric (say, per-user or per-seat) may find that metric loses its grip as the business grows. What once aligned with customer value can be outpaced by changes in usage, automation, or larger feature sets.
Redefining the value metric to, for example, usage, data throughput, or outcomes, is often necessary. But doing that mid-growth, all the while ensuring the change doesn’t disrupt existing customers or deals that are in play, is akin to England trying to recalibrate their batting and bowling strategy after Australia turned the tide - quite the challenge!
As scale-up companies grow, they will also likely face more diverse customer segments, and what worked for the first round of customers and early adopters rarely works as the customer base enters its growth phase.
As the customer base expands across industries, regions, and company sizes, expectations around pricing will diverge. SMBs want frictionless self-serve upgrades; mid-market buyers want predictable scaling and standardised pricing; enterprise buyers demand tailored contracts, SLAs, and compliance add-ons. Building a pricing catalogue that fits without collapsing, unlike England’s second innings at Perth, under its own complexity can be extremely difficult.
The result is that many scale-ups end up with overly customised enterprise deals, confusing mid-market packages, or free tiers that cannibalise paid revenue - when what is required is clarity of thought and clearly understood sizing, ranging, and labelling.
In Perth, Australia’s bowlers - notably Mitchell Starc, who claimed a ten-wicket haul across the match - ripped through England’s batting. Australia’s bowling was clinical, and they exploited England’s weaknesses efficiently.
In a SaaS scale-up, introducing more sophisticated pricing (e.g., usage-based tiers, overage charges) can be just as brutal if your operational infrastructure doesn’t scale.
Early pricing decisions are often made without thinking about billing systems or measurement accuracy. If you later introduce usage-based components or hybrid models, you are likely to discover that your internal systems can’t support them. Revenue operations need to reconcile invoices, sales need to forecast deal size, and customer success needs clarity on how upgrades and overages work.
Without strong internal tooling and communication, what on the surface looks like a small pricing label change can create billing errors, customer disputes, and internal bottlenecks.
Australia’s chase of 205 in just 28.2 overs felt like a sprint in a format built for endurance. For SaaS scale-ups, repricing existing customers (migrating them from legacy plans to newer structures) often feels like chasing a target under pressure. Customers may resist, especially if they were comfortable under the old model, and poorly managed transitions can lead to churn or customer dissatisfaction.
Just as Australia picked the right moment to accelerate and chase down the target, SaaS companies must carefully plan timing, communication, and grandfathering policies when changing pricing, as mishandling a pricing rollout can set back a scale-up’s growth by years.
The Perth Test was historic - not just for the result but for how quickly it unfolded. Scale-up SaaS companies are likewise under constant competitive pressure: emerging rivals, new feature launches, and shifting customer expectations all demand agility.
Scale-ups must continually monitor competitors while resisting the temptation to undercut prices or give away too much in order to close deals. A pricing strategy guided by fear rather than value can erode margins quickly.
Instead, successful scale-ups need to stay grounded in their value proposition(s) and execute with precision - much like Australia timed their chase brilliantly, even after being under early pressure.
Finally, scaling pricing is not a one-off. The Ashes may be decided over five Tests, but each Test unfolds over multiple sessions, with constant adjustments.
Scale-up SaaS businesses need the same mindset: they must continuously run pricing experiments (A/B tests on tiers, usage thresholds, and packaging), measure impact on acquisition and retention, and refine. This experimentation mindset is often what separates scale-ups that plateau from those that break through to the next stage of growth.
The 2025 Ashes Test in Perth will be remembered by those who support England as a shocker: a dominant Australian turnaround, a blistering century from Head, and a match wrapped up in two days. For scale-up SaaS companies, scaling pricing presents its own kind of test match, one that demands foresight, agility, and internal alignment.
The most successful SaaS scale-ups, like Australia’s batters and bowlers in Perth, are those that can shift gear mid-innings, execute under pressure, and adapt to evolving conditions.
Pricing is not a set piece; it’s a dynamic strategy that must evolve as the game - and your customers - changes.
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