Everyone says they want adoption. After all, when users actually use your product, everything gets better—stickier accounts, higher retention, organic growth. But here’s the thing most SaaS companies overlook: your pricing model, even if it looks great on paper, might be actively working against the very thing you're trying to achieve.

According to Zylo’s 2024 SaaS Benchmarks Report, 22% of companies are now shifting to hybrid pricing models that combine subscription with usage-based elements. Why? Because traditional pricing approaches—especially rigid user-based or unpredictable consumption-based models—often create friction that slows down adoption and stifles growth.

In the race for predictable revenue, it’s easy to default to pricing strategies that look tidy in spreadsheets. But these models can create invisible barriers—limiting who gets access, how deeply teams can engage, and how freely features are explored. Instead of encouraging product usage, they introduce hesitation. The result? Slower adoption, lower engagement, and a higher risk of churn.

In this post, we’ll unpack how traditional pricing models can hold adoption back, explore smarter ways to structure pricing for long-term growth, and share what forward-thinking SaaS companies are doing differently.

The Unintended Consequences of User-Based Pricing

Per-seat pricing has long been the go-to model in SaaS businesses. It’s clean, familiar, and easy for finance teams to slot into annual budgets. But in today’s world—where software is increasingly collaborative, cross-functional, and embedded into everyday workflows—this pricing strategy is starting to show its cracks.

Here’s the problem: when every new user comes with a price tag, customers get cautious. Instead of encouraging adoption, they start gatekeeping access. Licenses are reserved for “power users,” while adjacent teams, execs, and external collaborators are left on the sidelines. Not because they wouldn’t benefit—but because their usage is harder to justify in a cost-per-seat world.

This kind of rationing kills momentum. It fragments adoption, stifles the network effect, and slows down the viral spread that should be happening inside accounts. And for products where value increases the more people use them—think collaboration tools, customer intelligence platforms, AI copilots—that’s a huge missed opportunity.

In short: the more restrictive your pricing feels, the more your customers will restrict their usage. And that’s the opposite of what you want when trying to drive adoption.

When Consumption-Based Pricing Triggers Cost Anxiety

To get around the rigidity of per-seat pricing, many SaaS companies have turned to usage-based models. In theory, it’s a win-win: customers pay in proportion to the value they get, and vendors earn more as usage grows.

But in reality? It’s not always that simple.

When pricing is tied to technical inputs—like API calls, compute time, storage, or message tokens—it can trigger a very real fear in customers: the fear of runaway costs. Budget holders start sweating over unexpected spikes. Procurement gets nervous about approving something that can’t be forecast precisely. And the people actually using the product? They start holding back—avoiding experimentation, skipping features, second-guessing every click.

Instead of driving adoption, this model often leads to hesitation and self-censorship.

This anxiety is especially acute in AI-powered products, where costs are tied directly to backend usage. Vendors often default to pricing based on things like tokens or data processed—metrics that feel abstract and unpredictable to customers. The end result is a pricing model that feels confusing, risky, and hard to trust.

And when trust is low, adoption stalls.

The Psychology of Adoption and How Pricing Shapes It

Adoption isn’t just about features or functionality—it’s about how people feel when they use your product. That's what pricing for product adoption is all about.

Whether we intend it or not, pricing sends signals. If your model feels restrictive, customers assume they need to tread carefully. If it penalises usage, they’ll hold back. If every new user requires approval, they’ll pause before expanding. Your pricing model becomes a set of unspoken rules about how the product should be used.

To drive adoption, you need to flip that script.

Pricing should signal openness, not limitation. It should make customers feel supported in exploring the product, not punished for growing with it. Your SaaS adoption strategy should reward progress—encouraging users to go deeper, not stay small.

This is the shift that defines modern SaaS pricing: moving from monetising access to monetising outcomes. And once you start thinking that way, everything changes—from how you design plans to how you define success.

Pricing Strategies That Encourage Expansion, Not Restriction

The good news? SaaS pricing is evolving. More and more companies are rethinking how they charge—not just to boost revenue, but to actively support adoption. The best models reduce friction, offer flexibility, and align incentives across the entire customer journey.

Here are a few standout strategies:

1. Concurrent Usage or Domain-Wide Access

Instead of charging per named user, some vendors shift to concurrent usage or domain-wide access. Take AskBrian, for example: anyone with a company email can use the tool, and pricing only adjusts if usage consistently exceeds agreed thresholds. It’s a smart way to encourage organic growth without losing control over revenue.

2. Forgiveness Policies and True-Forward Contracts

Surges in usage aren’t a bad thing—they’re a sign the product’s catching on. Instead of penalising customers with retroactive overage fees, forward-thinking vendors like Cisco offer “true-forward” pricing: contracts are adjusted only in future billing periods. That small shift builds trust and removes the fear of financial surprises.

3. Tiered Adoption Rewards

Some companies reward progress. Hit a key milestone—like completing onboarding or hitting a usage target—and you unlock perks: discounts, expanded capabilities, or even specific features. Rewards-based pricing is a simple way to reinforce the behaviours that lead to long-term success.

4. Embedded Enablement Services

Want faster time-to-value? Bake onboarding, training, and support right into your pricing. Some vendors even make enablement mandatory—not as a hurdle, but as a shared commitment to success. When customers feel set up for success, they’re more likely to engage deeply from day one.

5. Transparent Usage Visibility

Uncertainty kills confidence. That’s why modern SaaS platforms are building usage dashboards, predictive alerts, and budgeting tools right into the product. When customers understand what they’re using and why it matters, they’re more likely to scale up—without hesitation.

Adoption Challenges in AI-Powered SaaS Products

AI is changing the game—but it’s also introducing new friction when it comes to pricing and adoption.

Because AI workloads often come with high infrastructure costs (especially when built on third-party LLMs), vendors feel pressure to tightly meter usage. And that leads to a tricky tradeoff: do you restrict access to protect margins, or do you encourage exploration and risk a runaway bill?

Some vendors respond by charging per token, per prompt, or per GB of processed data. But here’s the issue: those metrics are abstract. Most customers don’t know what a token is, and they definitely can’t predict how many they’ll need. That disconnect creates uncertainty—and uncertainty slows down adoption.

The more progressive SaaS companies are taking a different approach. Instead of tying pricing to raw inputs, they’re linking it to outcomes: reports generated, insights delivered, anomalies detected. These are value units customers understand. They align with business goals, not backend mechanics—and that makes them easier to justify, expand, and trust.

Others are bundling AI features into broader workflows instead of selling them as add-ons. That way, adoption happens naturally—as part of the existing user journey—without requiring a separate conversation or budget approval.

The key is to design pricing that supports AI adoption, not suppresses it. And that starts with shifting the focus from cost control to value creation.

The Flywheel: Adoption → Retention → Expansion

At its core, pricing isn’t just about how you make money—it’s about how you enable value. When pricing aligns with how customers experience that value, product adoption rate goes up. And when more users adopt your product early and often, everything downstream gets easier.

Think of it like a flywheel: adoption fuels retention. Retention builds trust and turns existing customers into loyal customers. And loyal customers drive expansion—through upsells, referrals, and broader product usage across the organisation.

But when pricing is seen as a barrier? That flywheel stalls. Product usage stays shallow. Renewals become a battle. Expansion slows down. Even a great product will struggle if customers feel like they’re being penalised for growing with it.

The companies that win are the ones that treat pricing as a growth lever, not just a monetisation tool. They focus on removing friction, supporting how users adopt their product in real-world workflows, and making sure existing customers feel empowered—not nickel-and-dimed.

Final Thoughts: Rethinking the Role of Pricing in SaaS Growth

If there’s one shift SaaS companies need to make, it’s this: stop thinking of pricing as just a revenue lever, and start treating it as a product adoption strategy.

That means moving away from models that restrict access or create anxiety—and toward ones that encourage exploration, celebrate progress, and support long-term value. It means recognising that adoption isn’t something that magically happens post-sale. It’s shaped by every signal you send—starting with your pricing model.

By removing penalties for usage, rewarding adoption milestones, and aligning pricing with outcomes instead of inputs, vendors can unlock not just higher product adoption rates—but deeper relationships with existing customers. Relationships that turn into loyal customers, higher retention, and steady expansion over time.

Adoption is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s the engine behind sustainable growth. And the smartest SaaS companies are building pricing models that fuel that engine from the very first interaction.