Sonja Lehmann

Pricing Strategies of Software Vendors

Due to the economic characteristics specific to the software industry, pricing concepts existing in other industries cannot be transferred without adaptation. Therefore, this article provides an overview of pricing models for software. In this context we discuss the six parameters formation of prices, structure of payment flow, assessment base, price discrimination, price bundling, and dynamic pricing strategies. Furthermore, we refer to recent software delivery models, such as Software as a service. The results are based on literature research and empirical studies.

Pricing of Software as a Service – An Empirical Study in View of the Economics of Information Theory

Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings are continuing to grow in importance. Due to this new form of software delivery, software vendors have to design appropriate pricing models for their SaaS offerings. This paper analyzes a) the disclosure of pricing information and b) the applied price metrics of SaaS business software building on the economics of information theory which recommends information activities (signaling and screening) in order to reduce uncertainty between providers and customers. By means of a content analysis, we investigate the websites of 300 SaaS solutions offered by 259 US-based providers. Our results reveal that especially small and young SaaS providers use their websites to communicate pricing information in terms of signaling. Regarding SaaS providers´ screening activities within the scope of this paper, we find that less than 10% of the offered SaaS solutions apply usage-dependent pricing metrics.

SaaS-Preisgestaltung: Bestehende Preismodelle im Überblick

Software wird heute nicht mehr nur als Kauflosung angeboten, die der Kunde bei sich installiert und betreibt, sondern zunehmend auch als Dienstleistung, die er via Internet von einem Softwareanbieter bezieht. Bei Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-Losungen liegt die Verantwortung fur Betrieb und Wartung der Software beim Anbieter. Bei dieser Form der Softwarebereitstellung erwarten Kunden entsprechend flexible und ihren Bedurfnissen angepasste Preismodelle. Daher stehen SaaS-Anbieter vor der Herausforderung, geeignete Preiskonzepte in diesem Marktumfeld zu gestalten. Eine Grundsatzentscheidung betrifft dabei die Frage nach einer nutzungsabhangigen oder nutzungs-unabhangigen Preisgestaltung.