What if I told you there’s a good chance your SaaS pricing page is sleeping on the job?
Just. Showing. Up.
Doing the bare minimum for your prospects’ buying journey.
Lazily pointing visitors to the macro conversion (and expecting a participation trophy).
Why does that happen?
I’ll tell you why.
SaaS homepages, product pages, and campaign landing pages get all the attention — because working on messaging is sexy.
As marketers and copywriters, we love obsessing over those “core pages.” Heck, even the CEO likes to get involved.
Meanwhile, the pricing page gets treated like an afterthought.
“This Figma template looks good. Let’s fill it in.”
“Our competitors are doing this. Maybe we should too.”
It’s as if we expect the other pages to carry the full weight of moving prospects toward a yes. And the job of the pricing page is to let people cross the finish line.
Sure, it’s converting.
But how many good-fit leads is it not converting?
What if this whole time you could’ve been converting more prospects? Better prospects? Maybe even converting them sooner?
I’m willing to bet your SaaS pricing page needs a little kick in the tush.
I’ve examined 100+ SaaS pricing pages.
Here are the 5 most underestimated, most commonly neglected areas that could be costing you conversions.
1. Take your pricing page headline from womp womp to “Take my money”
Your pricing page isn’t just the last stop before a prospect converts.
It’s a critical messaging page, persuasion piece, and visitor touchpoint.
Often, visitors go from the homepage right to the pricing page — or go there straight from the SERP. And they’ll return to your pricing page multiple times during their buying journey.
You should go check your GA4. Your pricing page is likely the second-most visited page.
So why on earth do so many SaaS pricing pages greet visitors with “P-R-I-C-I-N-G” in big bold letters?
We wouldn’t be caught dead with a homepage hero that says “H-O-M-E-P-A-G-E.”
As with any conversion page on your site, the headline sets the tone for the whole page. Please don’t let it be “Pricing”:
Tella’s pricing page hero
Whimsical’s pricing page hero
The word “price” puts emphasis on payment. It reminds the visitor their assets are about to be depleted. It’s saying, “This is how much this product will cost you” instead of “This is the value you’ll get from it.”
In other words, a headline that says “Pricing” is being a bad salesperson.
Similar to “Pricing,” another headline I encounter all too often is some variation of “Pick your plan.”
That line might as well not be there, because it’s not saying anything at all.
Look, you’ve got this precious hero real estate. Don’t waste it on self-referential copy.
Wistia’s pricing hero
You may think I’m making a mountain out of a molehill.
“Our customers hate being marketed to.”
“They wanna see pricing, so show them pricing.”
“Why distract them?”
But lowkey hear me out.
The headline is your first point of connection with your prospect. It’s why you agonize over it on the homepage, product pages, and PPC landing pages — even running A/B tests to settle internal debates.
Now what, pray tell, makes the pricing page exempt from having a compelling headline?
3 reasons your SaaS pricing page hero needs a glow-up
Your prospects aren’t robots. They’ve got cognitive biases. They’ve got desires. They’ve got fears standing in the way of their own progress.
Your pricing page is where doubts and hesitations scream the loudest.
Why?
Because saying yes requires them to make a bet with themselves, take a chance on your product, and part with their hard-earned money (or fought-for budget!).
When they land on your pricing page, they bring all that baggage with them.
Your headline is the first thing they see on that page.
Use it to frame for value, boost recall, and prime for action.
- Framing
Over the years, various studies have tested whether framing — saying basically the same thing but using different messaging angles — can shape consumer/buyer perception. For example, research published in the International Journal of Diplomacy and Economy found that positive-attribute framing and positive-goal framing influence consumer decisions.
Different studies have led to different conclusions on which messages work best, but one thing they all agree on is this: how messages are worded influences our buying decisions, attitudes, and experience using products.
Though a lot of these studies are done in a consumer-goods context, we shouldn’t dismiss the power of messaging in the SaaS world. (And generally, we don’t — except on pricing pages for some odd reason.)
- Boost recall
Your SaaS buyers are flooded with options on how to solve their problem.
Your messaging can help put the odds in your favor.
The von Restorff effect refers to the phenomenon where people are more likely to remember an item that stands out in stark contrast to the rest. But it doesn’t just work in advertising or consumer goods. It works in everything from UX design to email subject lines. So there’s no reason not to apply it on your pricing page — starting right in the hero.
To go a step further, try to craft headlines with “syntactic surprise.” A 2023 study published in The Journal of Marketing discovered that headlines with just slightly unusual syntax (sentence structure) convert better than those with a common, predictable syntax.
Apparently, they create just enough “surprise” for the reader — like a shot of espresso to the brain!
The researchers created a scoring system and this nifty Syntactic Surprise Calculator to help you find the sweet spot.
- Priming
The psychological principle of priming refers to the finding that stimuli can influence a person’s decision.
A 2018 study published in the Psychological Bulletin revealed that word-based stimuli can shape subsequent decisions. For example, words that were in line with the reader’s personal goals (e.g., career success) had a particularly strong impact on behavior.
In other words, when readers were presented with relevant goal-oriented messaging, they were more likely to take action.
My point?
SaaS companies are already using outcome-focused messaging on homepages and product pages, so why not use similar messages to prime your prospects on the pricing page too?
So let’s get to work.
How to craft better headlines for your SaaS pricing page
Your pricing hero is a golden opportunity to do one (or a combination) of the following things:
- Remind visitors about the problem they’re trying to solve and frame your solution as a painkiller
- Reinforce your product’s unique value
- Show how your product helps customers achieve their goals
- Call out your competitors’ fatal flaw and promise something better
- Communicate a specific ROI your customers can expect
How do we do that?
We have to go back to 101-level conversion principles: making every page about them.
Think about it. Your prospects don’t come to you to spend money. They come to you to make progress in their lives. (Hat tip to Bob Moesta.)
Taken as a whole, your SaaS website shows visitors how your product can help them become better versions of themselves.
Your pricing page is an integral part of telling that story. And it all starts with the headline.
To craft some headlines, first think about what messaging angles could complement your homepage and product pages. For example, if your homepage leads with the problem, your pricing page can lead with a concrete outcome.
Revisit your positioning and messaging strategy. What’s your product’s most attractive differentiator? Why do your ideal customers choose your product over the incumbent? What do customers gain by using your product?
Let’s look at some examples of SaaS companies doing this well:
Content Snare, a secure document collection and collaboration SaaS for accounting firms and agencies, says this in their pricing page hero:
“Eliminate the information collection bottleneck and create an amazing experience for your clients.”
The headline:
- Reminds prospects about their main problem and pain point
- Promises a cure and a highly desirable outcome
Content Snare’s pricing hero
Incident.io, an incident management and alerting platform, says this on their pricing page:
“Cheaper than downtime.”
The headline:
- Reminds prospects about the main negative outcome of inefficient incident management
- Reminds them of the costs of not doing something about it
- Uses a memorable cheeky tone to pre-empt their anxieties about the potential cost of a new solution
Incident.io’s pricing hero
Flagsmith is a feature flag and remote configuration management platform for developers. Their pricing hero says:
“Ship faster and control releases.”
The headline:
- Reinforces the functional job-to-be-done (JTBD)
- Which, in itself, is the benefit their prospects are after
Flagsmith’s pricing hero
ProcureDesk, a purchasing automation SaaS for small to midsize businesses, has this on their pricing hero:
“A small price to pay to get rid of 90% of manual approvals.”
The headline:
- Reminds prospects of the problem
- Frames ProcureDesk as the cure
- Anchors the price of the solution against costs of keeping the status quo
ProcureDesk’s pricing hero
Can you see what a difference it makes when the pricing page leads with value to the customer?
It reframes pricing from “This is what you’ll pay” to “Here’s how our product will make your life better.”
No go and replace that placeholder copy with a compelling message that pulls your visitors in.
If you feel stuck, try these 5 headline formulas to get the juices flowing, or download these 65 headline formulas. (Remember, you can also instruct AI to write headlines using your favorite formulas.)
2. Turn your plan descriptions into Bat Signals
Too many SaaS pricing pages are quick to present 3+ plans without as much as a word about the people they’re best suited for. This leaves visitors groping in the dark.
Take Wistia’s pricing page, for example:
Wistia’s pricing cards
It’s making the visitor do homework — it’s the cardinal sin of website conversion copy.
A quick customer-focused blurb on each pricing card prevents analysis paralysis and helps visitors narrow their choices more effortlessly.
“Vesna, you’re being nitpicky.”
Nah-ah.
The devil’s in the details.
2 reasons your pricing cards should talk about your prospect — not just features and 🤑
You have the curse of knowledge when it comes to your product and pricing. Which often leads to inadequate pricing pages that leave your prospects having to connect the dots. (Not good.)
Instead:
- Minimize cognitive load and decision fatigue.
Adding a customer-focused description on each plan reduces cognitive load and decision fatigue.
They’re small but important signposts that guide your pricing page visitors to focus on the right thing.
- Mirror your prospects.
You’ve probably heard it said: your audience is more interested in themselves. As marketers we know this (Marketing Myopia, The Self-Reference Effect, Jobs-To-Be-Done Theory). It’s just that sometimes we forget to apply it.
A short reader-focused description on each pricing card is an easy way to mirror their desires and goals and thus make your pricing page about them.
The great thing is, if you know your customers (and I hope you do!), crafting a line of copy for each pricing card is a piece of cake.
Here are some great formulas:
- Best/perfect/ideal for X [persona/business]
- Action verb + functional JTBD
- For X [persona/type of business] looking to do Y [JTBD].
- Desired outcome + main capabilities that enable it
- Explain usage model (if you have complex consumption-based pricing)
Let’s look at examples of SaaS companies doing this well.
Best/perfect/ideal for X [persona/business]
The “Best for X” formula is the bare-minimum formula.
It’s a little lacking because it doesn’t say what that persona or business should hope to do with the features in each plan, but it’s certainly better than nothing!
Here’s how FeedHive does it:
FeedHive’s pricing cards
Action verb + functional job-to-be-done (JTBD)
The “action verb + JTBD” formula focuses less on who customers are and more on what they’re trying to accomplish, on a rudimentary level.
Monday.com’s pricing plans are a good example of this formula:
Monday.com’s pricing cards
For X looking to do Y
The “For X looking to do Y” formula works really well because you’re doing two things: identifying the persona or business and defining their functional JTBD.
Asana’s and Ramp’s pricing pages do this well:
Asana’s pricing cards
Ramp’s pricing cards
Desired outcome + main capabilities that enable it
This formula wins on the clarity front because you’re telling your visitor the main distinction from one upgrade to the next. But you don’t just make it about the product — you’re mapping those capabilities to your prospects’ desires.
This approach requires that you know your customer segments really really well and you’re willing to distill each plan into a USP.
Copper CRM does a great job of this:
Copper’s pricing cards
Explain usage model
Of course, some products can’t map a persona or business to each plan.
This is often true when you’re selling to developers.
In that case, your pricing card will need to explain licensing, usage, or consumption.
Take Deepgram, for example. It’s an AI platform that provides APIs for speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and full speech-to-speech voice agents.
Each pricing card is a different pricing model:
Deepgram’s pricing cards
Now go and make that pricing table have a better sales conversation with your prospects.
3. Craft a kickass SaaS pricing page offer
Products don’t sell themselves (even when it appears that way).
Offers do the selling.
Now, you might think a free plan or a free trial is a good offer, but in reality, that’s just the bare bones of an offer.
An offer should be optimized to neutralize common objections and reduce risk.
That means you should regularly conduct customer research to surface those objections.
Based on your insights, you may decide to:
- Give buyers a cheaper way to buy your product (e.g., savings through annual billing)
- Allow your buyers to lock into a lower initial price offering (great for startups)
- Reduce risk by offering a money-back guarantee
- Minimize the pain of switching with full onboarding support and migration
- Offer pilot programs or proof-of-concept trials to enterprises for more complex products
You can also use your offer to one-up your competition. Audit your competitors’ offers regularly and see if you can sweeten yours a little more. The problem with SaaS offers is they’re similar to SaaS features: they quickly become table stakes, so you have to adapt and raise the bar.
Examples of kickass SaaS offers
Userbrain, a UX testing site, probably knows companies hesitate to invest in testing because it’s seen as an expensive exercise. But they’re smart. They know it’s only expensive if the insights turn out to be irrelevant.
So Userbrain offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee.
Userbrain’s pricing page offer
Let’s zoom in:
Userbrain’s pricing page offer
It says, “If you’re not happy with one of our testers, you’ll get a new one at no extra cost. That’s a pretty sweet offer. (I just think it needs to be featured more prominently on the page!)
In other words, it’s like saying, We’ll make sure you get value out of your investment.
Another good example of a pricing page offer is Content Snare, a secure client document collection SaaS for accounting firms.
Knowing their customers well, Content Snare decided to craft their offer around the pains of switching to a new solution:
Content Snare’s pricing page offer
Another example of a strong SaaS offer is Coda.io, a Notion alternative. Their offer is a unique pricing model for paid seats.
Unlike many collaboration and project management tools (e.g., Notion, Miro), Coda doesn’t charge you for editors, only “Doc Makers.” That means customers don’t have to purchase extra seats for editors on your team.
Coda.io’s pricing page offer
Another cool example of a pricing offer can be found on Clay’s website.
In the world of credit-based pricing models, we know most companies don’t allow customers to roll over their credits to the next billing cycle.
So Clay decided to create a compelling offer with credit rollover and even wrote a blog post about it in case people miss it on the pricing page.
Clay’s pricing offer
Bottom line?
Use your offer to make your prospects feel like you’re partnering with them in their success.
As for where on the pricing page you should put your offer? It depends on what the offer is, but here are a few ideas:
- Subhead under the hero headline
- Crosshead and subhead under the main pricing table
- A prominent block of copy + illustration under the collapsed plan comparison table
Plus, make sure to cover it in the FAQs to drive the offer home.
4. Let your proof do the persuading
Most SaaS pricing pages are shy with their social proof.
You might see a few customer logos tossed in and a line about how many companies are using the product. But shockingly, many pricing pages don’t include a single testimonial.
Like these pricing pages:
Mmhmm’s pricing page — no social proof
FeedHive’s pricing page — no social proof
Most marketers understand the power of social proof.
So why would anyone think the pricing page — the site of conversion — can do without it?
Gartner found that “86% of businesses considered verified reviews critical in their purchase decisions.” And “41% of buyers consider customer reviews and ratings the most used content type while making a software purchase.”
Your pricing page is the perfect time to let your star customers do the talking.
Just like your other pages, it’s selling a future version of your customer. A version that’s more successful, more efficient, more in control, more [insert your ICP’s desire here].
So your social proof?
It’s not there to flex.
It’s there to reflect.
It should act as a mirror to your buyer — showing them who they can become via customers who’ve already made the leap.
That means your choice of social proof should be anything but random.
Which testimonials should you pick?
On your pricing page, try to feature testimonials or reviews that:
- Best resemble your ICP, so you can acquire more of the same customers
- Touch on overcoming an objection
- Rave about an early win
- Include a quantitative outcome or ROI
- Use the present tense!
Wait, what? Use the present tense?
“Vesna, you’re being nitpicky again.”
Maybe. But get this.
In 2023, The Journal of Consumer Research published a study that found “present tense increases helpfulness, usefulness, and persuasion, and do so because it makes communicators seem more certain.”
Bench.co features this compelling testimonial on their pricing page. It happens to be in present tense with specific customer outcomes! It’s perfect because it anchors software pricing against dollars saved through productivity.
Bench.co’s pricing testimonial
If you don’t have testimonials using the present tense, it’s not the end of the world. But it’s a cool thing to keep in mind and look out for!
How and where to feature your testimonials on your pricing page
First things first, please don’t use the tired crosshead “Don’t take our word for it” or “What our customers say.” If I had a dollar for every time I see …
Testimonial on Apollo.io’s pricing page
You don’t have to get super creative.
Simply take a punchy phrase from the testimonial, enclose it in quotes, and use it as the header.
My edit, using a Chrome extension
Now you’re actually saying something. You’re answering an objection about switching — and you’re using your customer’s words to do it.
Aikido knows what’s up. They use pull-quote testimonial headers.
Aikido pricing testimonials
Another thing you can do for social proof is add a wall of love or collage of reviews, like Tella or Wynter:
Wall of love on Tella’s pricing page
Customer reviews on Wynter’s pricing page
On a pricing page, there’s no wrong place to use social proof.
You can do a mix. Add a feature testimonial after your offer or main pricing table. Add a wall of love before FAQs. Add a logo bar with a meaningful crosshead after your hero.
Remember to use headshots whenever possible. Include names and titles/roles. Specific = believable.
What about other forms of proof?
Remember to include multiple types of proof.
Think:
- Customer logos (if they’re bragworthy)
- G2, Capterra (et al.) badges, ratings, and verified reviews
- Case study snippets (always with links to the full study)
- Numbers — # of customers, # of users
Let’s talk customer logos.
You should definitely use them.
But logos alone don’t communicate much. So pair them with a compelling crosshead. Add precise quantitative proof and specificity if possible — because precise, unrounded numbers make claims more believable (but please don’t ever ever lie!).
Some of the best proof sections I’ve seen combine multiple proof elements, trust signals, and credibility boosters into one compelling section.
TypingMind, an LLM client (UI) product, includes a specificity crosshead, review-site ratings, and select reviews (that even have pull quote headers of their own):
TypingMind’s pricing page proof
The proof section on ClickUp’s pricing page leads with “10 million users,” highlights a case study with quantitative customer results, and includes big-fish customer logos below.
ClickUp’s pricing page proof
Front, a customer support platform, also went for a hybrid proof section on their pricing page. They include a customer count, quantitative results from customers at recognizable companies, logos, and a ghost button to their case study page to boost believability.
Front’s pricing page proof
Lastly, check out Toggl’s proof section. Another great combo of concrete ROI, case study proof, customer company count and logos:
Toggl’s pricing page proof
The takeaway?
Think outside the box.
Rather than slapping a testimonial slider and a single line of logos, combine multiple proof elements into one cohesive section. It’s words, numbers, and icons working together to nudge your website visitor toward a yes.
When taken together, your social proof and trust/credibility boosters tell a story.
5. FAQs = Fantastic Answers to Questions
FAQs on pricing pages are another major messaging opportunity.
Most SaaS pricing pages nowadays include the, but very few milk their conversion potential.
Well, Butter (a Zoom alternative) seems to be having some fun. 🤭
Butter.us pricing page FAQ
For a lot of SaaS companies, FAQs feel like a best practice to check off.
The result?
Bland, transactional FAQ copy.
“How does the free trial work?”: “You get 14 days free. No credit card required.”
“Can I change my plan later?”: “Yes, you can upgrade or downgrade anytime.”
That’s … fine, I guess. But why settle for “fine” when you can be fantastic instead?
Go beyond fact and make your prospect feel something.
A visitor who clicks on your FAQ accordion is primed for consumption, so serve up something good.
What to cover in your FAQ
Keep your FAQs focused on questions that would come up later in the buying journey.
Another thing you can do is, upload full-page screenshots of your homepage and most important product pages into ChatGPT and ask ChatGPT to craft relevant FAQs from the point of view of a high-intent customer with decent product awareness.
If you use a chat widget, analyze what questions come up the most. If you conduct customer interviews, uncover common buyer objections and tackle them in the FAQs.
- Your free trial
- Upgrading plans
- Cancellation policies
- About your offer
- Adding/removing seats
- Integrations
- Migration or switching
- Onboarding and/or support
- Security and compliance information
It really depends on your category, your product, buyer sophistication, etc.
If you use a chat widget, analyze what questions come up the most. If you conduct customer interviews, uncover common buyer objections and tackle them in the FAQs.
Tips to take FAQs from forgettable to fantastic
There are ways to inject life without standing in the way of clarity.
- Use a crosshead other than FAQ. Use a question or objection-handling answer to lead with instead!
Aikido, a security platform for applications and cloud infrastructure, already has refreshing messaging all over their website. But the FAQs on their pricing page were looking sad.
Aikido pricing page FAQs (original)
Notice what happens when you turn the “FAQ” placeholder header into a spicy crosshead. (Bonus points if you start with “No,” “Never,” “Don’t”, etc., and use negativity bias to your advantage.
My take:
Aikido pricing FAQs edited with Crome extension
- Use “you” and “your” a lot. Studies like this one prove they help your message connect with your reader.
Butter.us does a really good job addressing their prospect in second-person POV:
They also don’t shy away from giving their askers a full-course-meal of an answer. Since they’re using paragraph spacing, boldface, and reader-focused language, it doesn’t come across as a wall of text.
- If you wind up with a longish list of FAQs, divide them into groups and label each category.
Zendesk is one of very few companies I see categorizing their FAQs so they’re easier for the visitor’s eye to scan and filter:
Zendesk FAQs with categories
Don’t be afraid to sprinkle in some brand voice. Make this interactive part of the page count so you get as many brownie points with your prospect as possible.
Go forth and convert
Your pricing page isn’t just a pit stop before conversion. It’s a persuasion powerhouse — when you treat it like one.
From a compelling pricing hero to buyer-focused plan descriptions, an irresistible offer, high-impact social proof, and fantastic FAQs, every element should work to move your visitors toward a confident, enthusiastic YES.
The best pricing pages don’t just display tables, numbers, checkmarks, and buttons.
They frame value.
They mirror transformation.
They speak directly to the buyer.
They remove doubt and create desire.
And the best part? Most SaaS companies aren’t doing this well.
So if you take the time to elevate your pricing page beyond “good enough” — your CRM will thank you.
BONUS: Get this custom GPT to audit your SaaS Pricing Page
The SaaS Pricing Page Whisperer will audit your pricing page in a matter of seconds and give you a score out of 100.
It’ll identify conversion strengths and gaps and tell you how to improve your pricing page.
All you need is a full-page screenshot of your pricing page.
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