So discounting is such a surprisingly nuanced and complex topic in SaaS. While a few leaders like Atlassian do pursue a mostly “no discounts” policy for the most part — that just doesn’t work in practice for 99% of us.
As much as we’d all love to have a No Discounts policy … it’s tough in practice.
First, it’s often impossible to get through many procurement departments without one. Second, many enterprise customers are simply used to them, and feel ripped off without one. And third, it’s a tool to create urgency. Sort of. But only when used properly.
So I was curious — how many of you really “hold the line” on those end of month / end of quarter deals? It turns out, those deadlines are quite so … deadly.
48% of you let discounts slide to the next month in general, and another 35% of you do sometimes. Only 17% of you truly expire 100% of expiring deals.
Even Salesforce is using the Vanilla Discounting Playbook. Although there, I do suspect the deal does expire at January 31.
A “fairness” discount keeps a deal in play. A “bonus discount” can help a deal close on time, or early — if the prospect has already basically made the decision. But more than that often is a desperation tactic that backfires.
A related post here:
