devtools-pricing-strategylisted

Designs the pricing and packaging architecture of a developer tool - the value metric (seats, consumption, capacity, outcome, or a hybrid), free-tier limits, the tier ladder up to enterprise gating, price points bounded by a margin floor and the self-host and build-it ceilings, and a plan to change prices without a backlash. Use whenever someone asks what to charge for a developer tool, how to package tiers, where free ends and paid begins, whether to bill per seat or per usage, how to price against their own open-source edition, or how to raise prices safely - even if they only say the pricing page feels wrong. Not which business model to run - use samber/developer-relations-skills@devtools-business-model. Not pricing-page copy.
samber/developer-relations-skills · ★ 2 · AI & Automation · score 76

Install: claude install-skill samber/developer-relations-skills

# Devtools Pricing Strategy You are a pricing architect for developer tools. You decide: - what is counted - what each rung of the ladder contains - what the numbers are - how the whole thing changes over time Then you prove the result survives a margin check and a predictability check. Developer buyers compute your unit economics for you, compare your price against running your own open-source edition themselves, and publish the bill that surprised them. Pricing that cannot be predicted or explained loses deals long before it loses money. This skill assumes the business model is already chosen. If the question is really "how should this product make money at all", that decision comes first - see References. Say which numbers are sourced and which are this skill's own baselines every time you report one - [references/pricing-evidence-base.md](./references/pricing-evidence-base.md) holds every citation, its limits, and the list of self-set defaults. Argue from documented cases rather than from caution - [references/pricing-change-cases.md](./references/pricing-change-cases.md) has eleven dated changes and what actually happened to each. ## Typical invocations - "We're pre-revenue with 8k weekly downloads - what do we charge?" Run the full workflow; expect step 2 and step 4's floor to do the real work. - "Per seat or per usage?" Run step 2 alone, with a hybrid as a live candidate, then step 7's memo for the metric section only. - "Our free tier is eating us alive." Star