Pricing and retention rebuild for a B2B SaaS platform
Acquisition was working. Everything after it wasn't.
The team was hitting new-logo targets and still barely growing, because the bucket had a hole in it. Pricing had been set at founding against a product that had since tripled in scope, and onboarding was a login email. Customers who never reached first value churned at month four — reliably enough that you could set a calendar by it.
- Client
- B2B SaaS platform, ~$3M ARR
- Engagement
- 16-week engagement, embedded
- Market
- Remote — UK and Pakistan teams
- Delivered
- 2024
What we walked into
- CAC payback had stretched past twenty months and was still lengthening.
- Pricing was set at founding and never revisited against how customers used the product.
- Roughly a third of new accounts never completed setup.
- Churn was reported to the board as a support metric, so support owned a problem it couldn't fix.
What we actually did
Segment the churn honestly
We split churn by cohort, plan, and time-to-first-value. Accounts reaching first value inside fourteen days retained at roughly four times the rate of those that didn't — which reframed churn as an onboarding problem, not a support one.
Re-architect pricing around value
Packaging was rebuilt against the metric customers actually scale on, with a genuine entry tier and an expansion path that grows with their usage instead of trapping them at a threshold.
Engineer the activation path
Our engineering team built guided setup, a data-import tool, and in-product milestone tracking, so the path to first value stopped depending on whether a customer read an email.
Instrument and hand over
Cohort retention, expansion, and time-to-first-value went onto a dashboard the leadership team reviews weekly, with clear ownership rather than a shared inbox.
What changed
- -41%
- Reduction in month-four churn
- 2.6×
- Accounts reaching first value in 14 days
- +22%
- Average contract value after re-pricing
- 13 mo
- CAC payback, down from 20+
- Net revenue retention crossed 100% for the first time in the company's history.
- Pricing tied to a value metric that grows with the customer rather than against them.
- Activation owned by product with a number attached, not by support with a hope attached.
- Board reporting moved from new logos to cohort economics.
Client identity is withheld under confidentiality. This case study is representative of the engagements we run and the results they produce; figures illustrate typical outcomes rather than a specific audited account. We're happy to discuss specifics, and arrange references, on a call.
The engagements behind this work
Growth & Strategy
Sharpen the strategy, focus the team, and unlock the next stage of growth.
Scaling Strategy
Build the systems, processes, and capital roadmap to scale without breaking.
Custom Software Development
Internal tools, SaaS products, and integrations that fit your business — not the other way around.
More on how we work with saas & tech businesses.
Ready when you are
Let's build the next chapter
of your business — together.
Tell us where you are and where you want to go. We'll come prepared.