Unveil the secrets of Nozbe pricing adjustments - see how we kept our valued customers while raising prices. Join the CEO of Nozbe on his journey and discover the strategies behind it.
In the 16 years of running Nozbe we’ve only raised the prices a handful of times. Last time was in 2017, so 6 years ago. A lot has happened since then: pandemic, inflation and in the meantime launch of the new Nozbe (initially called “Nozbe Teams”). That’s why starting from July 1 we’ve decided to adjust the prices to cover for the ever-increasing costs of doing business and at the same time harmonize the price lists of both of our products: Nozbe Personal and Nozbe.
We are a small business that answers to its customers!
We are a privately-held company by choice, so our only investors are our customers. We don’t report to any other bosses. We answer to our customers and we hope we have an understanding with them:
We promise to deliver the best productivity app for our customers so that they can save hours and earn more money with the time they’ve gained. In return we ask for a small monthly fee that ideally is just a tiny fraction of the value they get from using Nozbe to run their life and business.
The monthly fee pays for everything - servers, salaries, taxes and all other costs. I feel a strong bond with my customers thanks to this WIN-WIN relationship. We’re trying to offer as competitive a price as possible so that the customers get lots of value from it.
Ultimately it’s a bet on the future. We want to stay in business for many years to come while providing our customers with the best products we can. As long as we’re in business we will be maintaining indefinitely both Nozbe Personal and Nozbe - so our customers can choose whichever product suits their needs.
We’re rewarding long-time customers by giving them heads up!
Starting from July 1, all customers will be bound by the new pricing, so all renewals will be charged according to new price list.
However, we want to reward the loyalty of our long-time customers by giving you all heads up today, still in June, so that you can extend your account years in advance with your old prices. We’ve already emailed most of our customers and more than a thousand of them have taken us up on the offer to renew early.
To consult the new prices, go to:
We’re so thrilled that some of our customers believe in us so much that they’ve extended their subscriptions even 3 years in advance (and some more). Here’s one of the emails I received:
To be honest, when you wrote that “you haven’t changed prices since 2017 despite all costs of everything raising significantly”, my first thought was that “there’s no way that in 6 years I haven’t paid for Nozbe more each year”. Then I checked back and saw my invoice from 2018 and I saw the exact same amount as this year. So… thank you for the heads up about raising the prices. I’ll be extending my subscriptions for years to come!
However other customers decided to just let the new prices sink in:
Thank you for the offer, I will not make use of it though… I am very much prepared to pay the extra: Nozbe helps me and my company so much :) Good luck with all your ventures (and dreams).
Either way, we’re blessed with amazing customers! Thank you! 🙏
5 Rules for designing the new pricing based on fairness
When designing the new pricing I’ve set up some ground rules in the spirit of fairness that help me achieve good savings for the customers while keeping good cashflow for the business:
1. Fairness of having just one pricing
One pricing for all the customers starting July 1. Doesn’t matter how long they’ve been using Nozbe and if they use the new Nozbe or are still on Nozbe Personal. One same price for everyone.
We’ve also designed the prices in several main currencies: USD, EUR, GBP and PLN so that our customers from these countries don’t have to worry about the currency exchange rates.
2. Savings for yearly payments at 20%
Paying for Nozbe monthly gives customers a chance to take Nozbe for a spin without a big upfront investment. However committing to a yearly plan means they’ve chosen Nozbe as their productivity system for at least a year. It’s good for our cashflow and it’s convenient for the customer (only one payment and one invoice!) and it should be rewarded with a hefty discount. That’s why our yearly customers save a whopping 20%!
3. Savings as customers' team grows
More savings! If you’re using Nozbe with someone else or with your team, you should be saving as your team grows!
Contrary to our competitors that charge the same fee for each additional user per month, we came up with a hybrid approach of charging per user and later per tier of users with discounts on each level that add up to 25% of savings:
- 2, 3, 4, 5 users - 10% discount
- 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 users - 15% discount
- 15, 20, 25, 30 users - 20% discount
- 50 users and beyond - 25% discount
4. More tiers for smaller teams
Nozbe is a tool that helps entrepreneurs and their teams manage both their business and private life in a simple way. That’s why we’ve listened to our customers and added more tiers, especially for the smallest businesses. Between 1-10 users the pricing of Nozbe changes after adding each user. Small teams usually don’t grow too quickly so they should pay for the exact number of employees they have. Only starting up from 10 users we decided to add tiers every 5 users. Typically at this level the number of employees starts changing more frequently so we didn’t want the customers to think about switching plans all too much on one hand, and secure them a predictable monthly cost on the other.
5. Payless upgrade for maximum customer convenience
Switching plans and adding users to your team can be a challenge and we want to make it as easy as possible for everyone and not be bothering our customers with paying extra each time. That’s why we’re doubling down on “pay-less” account change, meaning that when you switch plans, we re-calculate your outstanding balance based on that and change your renewal date.
If you add a user, the renewal date for the new plan comes closer, if you remove user and switch to a lower plan, your renewal date is being moved further in the future. We just update your renewal date and only then you’re being charged for the new plan.
Pricing must reflect our values!
Running a business is hard. It was a tough decision to raise and harmonize the prices but I knew it was necessary to do it right to be able to serve my customers the best way we knew we could.
That’s why I believe writing down these rules and putting these assumptions in place is critical in designing pricing. This communicates what we believe in here at Nozbe and lets you, the customer, know you’re together in business for the long haul.
If you’re curious about the details of these pricing changes, I’ve written extensively about this whole pricing journey on my personal blog:
- Nozbe pricing changes - how to raise prices, reward long-time customers and bet on the future
- 3 compliments my customers gave me this past week: worth, investment and understanding
- 5 principles for designing a pricing scheme for SaaS companies - how to charge per user with savings and fairness in mind
- Pay-less upgrade - how to make plan changes for your SaaS customers completely effortless
Since July 2023 the new Nozbe prices have been in place:
