Last Updated:
Apr 9, 2025
Pricing principles
Go-to-Market
Our pricing reflects the unique value we provide to developers and enterprises alike. We approach pricing with two distinct philosophies depending on the product and offering. Our focus is always on delivering exceptional tools and services that empower developers to build outstanding applications while ensuring enterprises see the full value of their investment.
Two Pricing Philosophies
Enterprise-Centric Products Avalonia XPF and Avalonia Support agreements are tailored for large enterprises. These offerings come with premium pricing that reflects the immense value they provide in enterprise-scale application development and support.
Avalonia XPF: Sold on a per-app basis, XPF offers enterprises a specialised, high-value toolkit at a price point designed to be a bargain for their scale and needs, while remaining out of reach for individuals.
Avalonia Support: Delivered on a per-seat basis, this service provides dedicated, high-quality support for enterprises, ensuring they get the most out of Avalonia with unparalleled guidance and problem-solving.
Expanding Accessibility with Avalonia Accelerate With the upcoming Avalonia Accelerate, we are broadening our reach to cater to hobbyists, startups, and enterprises. Avalonia Accelerate remains a premium offering but introduces three per-seat pricing tiers. Each tier allows users to choose the level of support and access they need, without removing features but tweaking aspects like SLAs and access to source code.
Core Principles of Pricing
Premium First, Always
Avalonia UI is a premium offering. We don’t aim to compete on price; instead, we compete on the quality, reliability, and productivity our tools and services bring to developers. A UI framework is a critical, long-term choice for organisations, and modest differences in price are unlikely to sway decisions. Our approach ensures we protect our margins while delivering exceptional value. Let our competitors race to the bottom, we’re focused on long-term sustainability and innovation.
Open Core, No Limits
At the heart of Avalonia is our open-source project, which has thrived for over a decade. This open core provides a robust foundation for developers at no cost, ensuring access to a complete, powerful UI framework without arbitrary limits. All our paid offerings are optional and designed to add value, enabling users to be more productive and ship better apps.
Sticky by Design
UI frameworks inherently have a long lifecycle, once adopted, they become deeply embedded in an organisation’s development stack. With Avalonia’s focus on reliability, extensibility, and productivity, our offerings are designed to reinforce this “stickiness,” creating long-term relationships with our users.
Generosity Fuels Growth
We’re committed to being generous in how we engage with our community and customers. Whether through surveys to gauge acceptable pricing ranges (with a focus on Western Europe and the US) or strategic giveaways of premium tools to encourage adoption, we believe that investing in goodwill builds loyalty and fuels organic growth.
Grandfathering Pricing
Loyalty matters. Customers who have supported us over the years benefit from our grandfathering policy, ensuring they retain the best prices even as our offerings evolve.
Product-Specific Pricing Models
Avalonia XPF
Per-App Licensing: Designed for enterprises, this model reflects the high value XPF provides in enterprise-scale applications.
Avalonia Support
Per-Seat Pricing: High-touch support tailored to enterprise needs, priced to reflect the premium value of our services.
Avalonia Accelerate
Per-Seat, Tiered Pricing: Three tiers allow organisations to select the level of service and access they require
Competing Strategically, Not Reactively
We are aware of our competitors and the broader landscape but remain confident in our vision and roadmap. While our competitors may ship features faster or announce similar tools, these moves rarely deviate from what we’ve already planned or considered. We do not let competitor roadmaps dictate ours; we focus on building the best tools and frameworks for .NET developers.
Discount Policy
Core Principle
Avalonia UI is a bootstrapped company serving enterprise customers who are typically significantly better capitalised than we are. We only offer discounts in exchange for clear, mutual value. Never simply because a customer asks.
Discounting erodes our margins and our ability to invest in the product that benefits all customers. The marginal cost difference to our customers is typically negligible; the revenue difference to us is material.
Accelerate
Accelerate Business
No discounts. Accelerate Business is already priced for maximum accessibility. If a customer cannot afford Business licenses, they should use our Community Edition.
Accelerate Enterprise
Discounts available for volume deals only.
Minimum volume: 10 seats
Sales discretion: Up to 7.5% discount when paired with qualifying value exchange (see below)
Executive approval required: 7.5%+ discount requires CEO/COO/CTO/ approval and strong justification
Discounts above 15% will be rare and reserved for strategic accounts with exceptional circumstances.
Enhanced Support
Support is the most expensive thing we do, both financially and in terms of opportunity cost, because it means allocating some of our most experienced engineers to help individual customers instead of advancing the product for everyone.
We can offer discounts on support, but only in specific situations. First year discounts rare and modest, because the initial engagement carries the highest risk while we are learning how the customer works, and how challenging they will be to support.
1st Year - Business Support
Discounts available for volume deals only.
Minimum volume: 8 seats
Accelerate licenses: At your discretion
1st Year - Enterprise Support
Discounts available for volume deals only.
Minimum volume: 5 seats
Accelerate licenses: At your discretion
Renewals
Discounts are usually more appropriate at renewal, once we have real usage data, and any proposal should be guided by our customer profitability analysis.
Handling Unprofitable Accounts
If an account has become unprofitable, that effectively means we are subsidising that customer’s development; in those circumstances we cannot offer a discount and will instead adjust pricing to restore the account to a sustainable level, even if that occasionally means deciding not to renew the agreement.
If the customer pushes back on revised pricing, we should be open about the fact that the previous terms resulted in a loss for us and that the new proposal reflects the true cost of the support and engineering effort required to keep the relationship viable.
XPF Licenses
More flexibility, but protect margins.
XPF's cost structure is primarily support delivery. Excessive discounting undermines our ability to provide the support that justifies XPF's value.
Sales discretion: Up to 10% discount when paired with qualifying value exchange
Executive approval required: 10%+ discount requires CEO/COO approval
Hard cap: 20% maximum discount except in extraordinary strategic circumstances
Development Services
Our development services are priced using four standard hourly rates. Each rate corresponds to the complexity of the work and the level of expertise required, ranging from implementation work handled by more junior engineers through to deep architectural and performance work handled by our most senior and principal engineers. For any given engagement, we select the applicable rate based on the nature of the tasks, the skills required and the level of responsibility carried by the engineer or team assigned. This keeps pricing easy to calculate and ties cost directly to the type of work being delivered.
When a customer seeks work that contributes directly to the our open-source ecosystem, we treat this as a co-investment. In these cases we will fund 40% of the development cost by applying a 40% reduction to our standard hourly rate for the work that benefits the ecosystem. The effect is that the customer pays 60% of the usual rate while the remaining 40% is our contribution to the ecosystem.
A 50/50 split might appear more intuitive, but we have chosen a 60/40 split because co-funded work requires us to divert engineers from our internal roadmap and support commitments, and to own the long-term maintenance of that work in the core project. The additional 10% contribution reflects that opportunity cost while still providing a substantial discount and a clear signal that we are investing alongside the customer for the benefit of the wider ecosystem.
In some cases a customer may wish to fund open-source work that is highly specific to their use case and not planned or broadly useful for the wider community. Where the requested functionality is niche, experimental or misaligned with our long-term roadmap, we may apply a lower co-funding percentage or decline co-funded pricing altogether. Any variation to the standard 40% contribution will be agreed in writing before the work begins and may be limited to specific parts of the scope.
For features that are expected to require significant ongoing maintenance, support or compatibility work in future releases, we may also require the customer to maintain an appropriate support agreement alongside the development engagement. This ensures we can provide timely assistance with the new functionality, fund its ongoing upkeep and avoid a situation where the wider roadmap or other customers are negatively affected by the long-term cost of maintaining a niche feature.
Qualifying Value Exchange
Discounts must be earned. The customer must provide one or more of the following:
Time-bound commitment:
Close and purchase order by end of current month
Multi-year commitment with upfront payment
Marketing value:
Written testimonial for website
Video testimonial (higher value)
Public case study with metrics
Permission to use logo prominently on website
Joint press release or conference presentation
Social media endorsement from company account
Strategic value:
Reference customer for similar prospects
Early adopter program participation
Introduction to 2+ qualified prospects in their network
Customer Discount Conversations
When customers request discounts, use this framework:
Acknowledge: "I understand you're looking for the best value."
Establish context: "We're a small, bootstrapped team competing against companies 100x our size. Unlike our VC-backed competitors, we can't burn investor money on aggressive discounting. Every euro of revenue directly funds the engineers building features you'll use."
Propose exchange: "That said, we do offer discounts when there's mutual value. For example, if you could [close by month-end / provide a testimonial / introduce us to X], I could offer Y% discount."
Executive escalation (if needed): "Discounts above X% require executive approval. I'm happy to make the request, but our leadership will want to understand what makes this strategically important. Can you help me build that case?"
Red Flags
Never discount if:
Customer is simply price shopping with no intent to provide value exchange
Request comes without any deal urgency or commitment
Customer is using "competitor pricing" as leverage (with or without proof). They're welcome to use the competitor
Deal size doesn't justify the administrative overhead of custom terms
When in doubt: Escalate to the leadership team rather than offering a discount you're uncertain about.
Our pricing reflects the unique value we provide to developers and enterprises alike. We approach pricing with two distinct philosophies depending on the product and offering. Our focus is always on delivering exceptional tools and services that empower developers to build outstanding applications while ensuring enterprises see the full value of their investment.
Two Pricing Philosophies
Enterprise-Centric Products Avalonia XPF and Avalonia Support agreements are tailored for large enterprises. These offerings come with premium pricing that reflects the immense value they provide in enterprise-scale application development and support.
Avalonia XPF: Sold on a per-app basis, XPF offers enterprises a specialised, high-value toolkit at a price point designed to be a bargain for their scale and needs, while remaining out of reach for individuals.
Avalonia Support: Delivered on a per-seat basis, this service provides dedicated, high-quality support for enterprises, ensuring they get the most out of Avalonia with unparalleled guidance and problem-solving.
Expanding Accessibility with Avalonia Accelerate With the upcoming Avalonia Accelerate, we are broadening our reach to cater to hobbyists, startups, and enterprises. Avalonia Accelerate remains a premium offering but introduces three per-seat pricing tiers. Each tier allows users to choose the level of support and access they need, without removing features but tweaking aspects like SLAs and access to source code.
Core Principles of Pricing
Premium First, Always
Avalonia UI is a premium offering. We don’t aim to compete on price; instead, we compete on the quality, reliability, and productivity our tools and services bring to developers. A UI framework is a critical, long-term choice for organisations, and modest differences in price are unlikely to sway decisions. Our approach ensures we protect our margins while delivering exceptional value. Let our competitors race to the bottom, we’re focused on long-term sustainability and innovation.
Open Core, No Limits
At the heart of Avalonia is our open-source project, which has thrived for over a decade. This open core provides a robust foundation for developers at no cost, ensuring access to a complete, powerful UI framework without arbitrary limits. All our paid offerings are optional and designed to add value, enabling users to be more productive and ship better apps.
Sticky by Design
UI frameworks inherently have a long lifecycle, once adopted, they become deeply embedded in an organisation’s development stack. With Avalonia’s focus on reliability, extensibility, and productivity, our offerings are designed to reinforce this “stickiness,” creating long-term relationships with our users.
Generosity Fuels Growth
We’re committed to being generous in how we engage with our community and customers. Whether through surveys to gauge acceptable pricing ranges (with a focus on Western Europe and the US) or strategic giveaways of premium tools to encourage adoption, we believe that investing in goodwill builds loyalty and fuels organic growth.
Grandfathering Pricing
Loyalty matters. Customers who have supported us over the years benefit from our grandfathering policy, ensuring they retain the best prices even as our offerings evolve.
Product-Specific Pricing Models
Avalonia XPF
Per-App Licensing: Designed for enterprises, this model reflects the high value XPF provides in enterprise-scale applications.
Avalonia Support
Per-Seat Pricing: High-touch support tailored to enterprise needs, priced to reflect the premium value of our services.
Avalonia Accelerate
Per-Seat, Tiered Pricing: Three tiers allow organisations to select the level of service and access they require
Competing Strategically, Not Reactively
We are aware of our competitors and the broader landscape but remain confident in our vision and roadmap. While our competitors may ship features faster or announce similar tools, these moves rarely deviate from what we’ve already planned or considered. We do not let competitor roadmaps dictate ours; we focus on building the best tools and frameworks for .NET developers.
Discount Policy
Core Principle
Avalonia UI is a bootstrapped company serving enterprise customers who are typically significantly better capitalised than we are. We only offer discounts in exchange for clear, mutual value. Never simply because a customer asks.
Discounting erodes our margins and our ability to invest in the product that benefits all customers. The marginal cost difference to our customers is typically negligible; the revenue difference to us is material.
Accelerate
Accelerate Business
No discounts. Accelerate Business is already priced for maximum accessibility. If a customer cannot afford Business licenses, they should use our Community Edition.
Accelerate Enterprise
Discounts available for volume deals only.
Minimum volume: 10 seats
Sales discretion: Up to 7.5% discount when paired with qualifying value exchange (see below)
Executive approval required: 7.5%+ discount requires CEO/COO/CTO/ approval and strong justification
Discounts above 15% will be rare and reserved for strategic accounts with exceptional circumstances.
Enhanced Support
Support is the most expensive thing we do, both financially and in terms of opportunity cost, because it means allocating some of our most experienced engineers to help individual customers instead of advancing the product for everyone.
We can offer discounts on support, but only in specific situations. First year discounts rare and modest, because the initial engagement carries the highest risk while we are learning how the customer works, and how challenging they will be to support.
1st Year - Business Support
Discounts available for volume deals only.
Minimum volume: 8 seats
Accelerate licenses: At your discretion
1st Year - Enterprise Support
Discounts available for volume deals only.
Minimum volume: 5 seats
Accelerate licenses: At your discretion
Renewals
Discounts are usually more appropriate at renewal, once we have real usage data, and any proposal should be guided by our customer profitability analysis.
Handling Unprofitable Accounts
If an account has become unprofitable, that effectively means we are subsidising that customer’s development; in those circumstances we cannot offer a discount and will instead adjust pricing to restore the account to a sustainable level, even if that occasionally means deciding not to renew the agreement.
If the customer pushes back on revised pricing, we should be open about the fact that the previous terms resulted in a loss for us and that the new proposal reflects the true cost of the support and engineering effort required to keep the relationship viable.
XPF Licenses
More flexibility, but protect margins.
XPF's cost structure is primarily support delivery. Excessive discounting undermines our ability to provide the support that justifies XPF's value.
Sales discretion: Up to 10% discount when paired with qualifying value exchange
Executive approval required: 10%+ discount requires CEO/COO approval
Hard cap: 20% maximum discount except in extraordinary strategic circumstances
Development Services
Our development services are priced using four standard hourly rates. Each rate corresponds to the complexity of the work and the level of expertise required, ranging from implementation work handled by more junior engineers through to deep architectural and performance work handled by our most senior and principal engineers. For any given engagement, we select the applicable rate based on the nature of the tasks, the skills required and the level of responsibility carried by the engineer or team assigned. This keeps pricing easy to calculate and ties cost directly to the type of work being delivered.
When a customer seeks work that contributes directly to the our open-source ecosystem, we treat this as a co-investment. In these cases we will fund 40% of the development cost by applying a 40% reduction to our standard hourly rate for the work that benefits the ecosystem. The effect is that the customer pays 60% of the usual rate while the remaining 40% is our contribution to the ecosystem.
A 50/50 split might appear more intuitive, but we have chosen a 60/40 split because co-funded work requires us to divert engineers from our internal roadmap and support commitments, and to own the long-term maintenance of that work in the core project. The additional 10% contribution reflects that opportunity cost while still providing a substantial discount and a clear signal that we are investing alongside the customer for the benefit of the wider ecosystem.
In some cases a customer may wish to fund open-source work that is highly specific to their use case and not planned or broadly useful for the wider community. Where the requested functionality is niche, experimental or misaligned with our long-term roadmap, we may apply a lower co-funding percentage or decline co-funded pricing altogether. Any variation to the standard 40% contribution will be agreed in writing before the work begins and may be limited to specific parts of the scope.
For features that are expected to require significant ongoing maintenance, support or compatibility work in future releases, we may also require the customer to maintain an appropriate support agreement alongside the development engagement. This ensures we can provide timely assistance with the new functionality, fund its ongoing upkeep and avoid a situation where the wider roadmap or other customers are negatively affected by the long-term cost of maintaining a niche feature.
Qualifying Value Exchange
Discounts must be earned. The customer must provide one or more of the following:
Time-bound commitment:
Close and purchase order by end of current month
Multi-year commitment with upfront payment
Marketing value:
Written testimonial for website
Video testimonial (higher value)
Public case study with metrics
Permission to use logo prominently on website
Joint press release or conference presentation
Social media endorsement from company account
Strategic value:
Reference customer for similar prospects
Early adopter program participation
Introduction to 2+ qualified prospects in their network
Customer Discount Conversations
When customers request discounts, use this framework:
Acknowledge: "I understand you're looking for the best value."
Establish context: "We're a small, bootstrapped team competing against companies 100x our size. Unlike our VC-backed competitors, we can't burn investor money on aggressive discounting. Every euro of revenue directly funds the engineers building features you'll use."
Propose exchange: "That said, we do offer discounts when there's mutual value. For example, if you could [close by month-end / provide a testimonial / introduce us to X], I could offer Y% discount."
Executive escalation (if needed): "Discounts above X% require executive approval. I'm happy to make the request, but our leadership will want to understand what makes this strategically important. Can you help me build that case?"
Red Flags
Never discount if:
Customer is simply price shopping with no intent to provide value exchange
Request comes without any deal urgency or commitment
Customer is using "competitor pricing" as leverage (with or without proof). They're welcome to use the competitor
Deal size doesn't justify the administrative overhead of custom terms
When in doubt: Escalate to the leadership team rather than offering a discount you're uncertain about.
Our pricing reflects the unique value we provide to developers and enterprises alike. We approach pricing with two distinct philosophies depending on the product and offering. Our focus is always on delivering exceptional tools and services that empower developers to build outstanding applications while ensuring enterprises see the full value of their investment.
Two Pricing Philosophies
Enterprise-Centric Products Avalonia XPF and Avalonia Support agreements are tailored for large enterprises. These offerings come with premium pricing that reflects the immense value they provide in enterprise-scale application development and support.
Avalonia XPF: Sold on a per-app basis, XPF offers enterprises a specialised, high-value toolkit at a price point designed to be a bargain for their scale and needs, while remaining out of reach for individuals.
Avalonia Support: Delivered on a per-seat basis, this service provides dedicated, high-quality support for enterprises, ensuring they get the most out of Avalonia with unparalleled guidance and problem-solving.
Expanding Accessibility with Avalonia Accelerate With the upcoming Avalonia Accelerate, we are broadening our reach to cater to hobbyists, startups, and enterprises. Avalonia Accelerate remains a premium offering but introduces three per-seat pricing tiers. Each tier allows users to choose the level of support and access they need, without removing features but tweaking aspects like SLAs and access to source code.
Core Principles of Pricing
Premium First, Always
Avalonia UI is a premium offering. We don’t aim to compete on price; instead, we compete on the quality, reliability, and productivity our tools and services bring to developers. A UI framework is a critical, long-term choice for organisations, and modest differences in price are unlikely to sway decisions. Our approach ensures we protect our margins while delivering exceptional value. Let our competitors race to the bottom, we’re focused on long-term sustainability and innovation.
Open Core, No Limits
At the heart of Avalonia is our open-source project, which has thrived for over a decade. This open core provides a robust foundation for developers at no cost, ensuring access to a complete, powerful UI framework without arbitrary limits. All our paid offerings are optional and designed to add value, enabling users to be more productive and ship better apps.
Sticky by Design
UI frameworks inherently have a long lifecycle, once adopted, they become deeply embedded in an organisation’s development stack. With Avalonia’s focus on reliability, extensibility, and productivity, our offerings are designed to reinforce this “stickiness,” creating long-term relationships with our users.
Generosity Fuels Growth
We’re committed to being generous in how we engage with our community and customers. Whether through surveys to gauge acceptable pricing ranges (with a focus on Western Europe and the US) or strategic giveaways of premium tools to encourage adoption, we believe that investing in goodwill builds loyalty and fuels organic growth.
Grandfathering Pricing
Loyalty matters. Customers who have supported us over the years benefit from our grandfathering policy, ensuring they retain the best prices even as our offerings evolve.
Product-Specific Pricing Models
Avalonia XPF
Per-App Licensing: Designed for enterprises, this model reflects the high value XPF provides in enterprise-scale applications.
Avalonia Support
Per-Seat Pricing: High-touch support tailored to enterprise needs, priced to reflect the premium value of our services.
Avalonia Accelerate
Per-Seat, Tiered Pricing: Three tiers allow organisations to select the level of service and access they require
Competing Strategically, Not Reactively
We are aware of our competitors and the broader landscape but remain confident in our vision and roadmap. While our competitors may ship features faster or announce similar tools, these moves rarely deviate from what we’ve already planned or considered. We do not let competitor roadmaps dictate ours; we focus on building the best tools and frameworks for .NET developers.
Discount Policy
Core Principle
Avalonia UI is a bootstrapped company serving enterprise customers who are typically significantly better capitalised than we are. We only offer discounts in exchange for clear, mutual value. Never simply because a customer asks.
Discounting erodes our margins and our ability to invest in the product that benefits all customers. The marginal cost difference to our customers is typically negligible; the revenue difference to us is material.
Accelerate
Accelerate Business
No discounts. Accelerate Business is already priced for maximum accessibility. If a customer cannot afford Business licenses, they should use our Community Edition.
Accelerate Enterprise
Discounts available for volume deals only.
Minimum volume: 10 seats
Sales discretion: Up to 7.5% discount when paired with qualifying value exchange (see below)
Executive approval required: 7.5%+ discount requires CEO/COO/CTO/ approval and strong justification
Discounts above 15% will be rare and reserved for strategic accounts with exceptional circumstances.
Enhanced Support
Support is the most expensive thing we do, both financially and in terms of opportunity cost, because it means allocating some of our most experienced engineers to help individual customers instead of advancing the product for everyone.
We can offer discounts on support, but only in specific situations. First year discounts rare and modest, because the initial engagement carries the highest risk while we are learning how the customer works, and how challenging they will be to support.
1st Year - Business Support
Discounts available for volume deals only.
Minimum volume: 8 seats
Accelerate licenses: At your discretion
1st Year - Enterprise Support
Discounts available for volume deals only.
Minimum volume: 5 seats
Accelerate licenses: At your discretion
Renewals
Discounts are usually more appropriate at renewal, once we have real usage data, and any proposal should be guided by our customer profitability analysis.
Handling Unprofitable Accounts
If an account has become unprofitable, that effectively means we are subsidising that customer’s development; in those circumstances we cannot offer a discount and will instead adjust pricing to restore the account to a sustainable level, even if that occasionally means deciding not to renew the agreement.
If the customer pushes back on revised pricing, we should be open about the fact that the previous terms resulted in a loss for us and that the new proposal reflects the true cost of the support and engineering effort required to keep the relationship viable.
XPF Licenses
More flexibility, but protect margins.
XPF's cost structure is primarily support delivery. Excessive discounting undermines our ability to provide the support that justifies XPF's value.
Sales discretion: Up to 10% discount when paired with qualifying value exchange
Executive approval required: 10%+ discount requires CEO/COO approval
Hard cap: 20% maximum discount except in extraordinary strategic circumstances
Development Services
Our development services are priced using four standard hourly rates. Each rate corresponds to the complexity of the work and the level of expertise required, ranging from implementation work handled by more junior engineers through to deep architectural and performance work handled by our most senior and principal engineers. For any given engagement, we select the applicable rate based on the nature of the tasks, the skills required and the level of responsibility carried by the engineer or team assigned. This keeps pricing easy to calculate and ties cost directly to the type of work being delivered.
When a customer seeks work that contributes directly to the our open-source ecosystem, we treat this as a co-investment. In these cases we will fund 40% of the development cost by applying a 40% reduction to our standard hourly rate for the work that benefits the ecosystem. The effect is that the customer pays 60% of the usual rate while the remaining 40% is our contribution to the ecosystem.
A 50/50 split might appear more intuitive, but we have chosen a 60/40 split because co-funded work requires us to divert engineers from our internal roadmap and support commitments, and to own the long-term maintenance of that work in the core project. The additional 10% contribution reflects that opportunity cost while still providing a substantial discount and a clear signal that we are investing alongside the customer for the benefit of the wider ecosystem.
In some cases a customer may wish to fund open-source work that is highly specific to their use case and not planned or broadly useful for the wider community. Where the requested functionality is niche, experimental or misaligned with our long-term roadmap, we may apply a lower co-funding percentage or decline co-funded pricing altogether. Any variation to the standard 40% contribution will be agreed in writing before the work begins and may be limited to specific parts of the scope.
For features that are expected to require significant ongoing maintenance, support or compatibility work in future releases, we may also require the customer to maintain an appropriate support agreement alongside the development engagement. This ensures we can provide timely assistance with the new functionality, fund its ongoing upkeep and avoid a situation where the wider roadmap or other customers are negatively affected by the long-term cost of maintaining a niche feature.
Qualifying Value Exchange
Discounts must be earned. The customer must provide one or more of the following:
Time-bound commitment:
Close and purchase order by end of current month
Multi-year commitment with upfront payment
Marketing value:
Written testimonial for website
Video testimonial (higher value)
Public case study with metrics
Permission to use logo prominently on website
Joint press release or conference presentation
Social media endorsement from company account
Strategic value:
Reference customer for similar prospects
Early adopter program participation
Introduction to 2+ qualified prospects in their network
Customer Discount Conversations
When customers request discounts, use this framework:
Acknowledge: "I understand you're looking for the best value."
Establish context: "We're a small, bootstrapped team competing against companies 100x our size. Unlike our VC-backed competitors, we can't burn investor money on aggressive discounting. Every euro of revenue directly funds the engineers building features you'll use."
Propose exchange: "That said, we do offer discounts when there's mutual value. For example, if you could [close by month-end / provide a testimonial / introduce us to X], I could offer Y% discount."
Executive escalation (if needed): "Discounts above X% require executive approval. I'm happy to make the request, but our leadership will want to understand what makes this strategically important. Can you help me build that case?"
Red Flags
Never discount if:
Customer is simply price shopping with no intent to provide value exchange
Request comes without any deal urgency or commitment
Customer is using "competitor pricing" as leverage (with or without proof). They're welcome to use the competitor
Deal size doesn't justify the administrative overhead of custom terms
When in doubt: Escalate to the leadership team rather than offering a discount you're uncertain about.