We recently made some modifications to our website.  Not only had we outgrown our first website but we also landed the domain name that we wanted when we started the company—Newton Software.

A light bulb went off during this process—whenever we go to a website, whether we are buying a bike tire or software, we all always want to know how much things cost. We’re pretty sure that you agree with the statement, “Just show us the price!” We hate it when people don’t tell us the price. Why were we doing the same?

Publishing pricing is considered a sin to most conventional business software companies. Online pricing removes any opportunity for a salesperson to negotiate.  And, with most conventional business software companies there is a charge for everything from adding users and forms to implementation and activation. For example, I was speaking with a customer of a well known payroll company that happens to sell recruiting software that they picked up through an acquisition. She recently hired a recruiter to replace someone that was unfortunately laid-off late last year. In any event, she called her support number and was transferred to the sales department.  The sales department at this well-known pay roll company promptly explained that there are additional charges for changing users. So, how did she react? Well, there was not much she could do. Buried in her 21 page, 2 year contract, on line 4009 section Y, article (ii) there states a clause “adding and/ or changing a user will incur an activation cost outlined in addendum B of said contract”. She had to pay the $350 dollars for someone to flip a switch and type 10 characters on a keyboard.   We think this is crazy.

 

So what was our thinking on publishing our price on our website?  Well, as I mentioned earlier; if we were visiting our own website, we would want to know how much Newton costs and how the pricing works.  We believe that part of the reason that people put off buying technology that could make their lives easier is because the purchasing process is so mind numbingly painful rife complicated pricing formulas, too many options, long commitments, long implementations cycles ( we’ll address that is a future post), etc.  We design smart, easy-to-use software.  Our software takes the friction out of hiring. We want the way that we price our product to take the friction out of buying it. Tell people what they get, don’t charge for things that should be included like activation and implementation and provide plans that appeal to a broad spectrum of companies, no brainer. We think of this stuff so, you don’t have to.