“B2B SaaS pricing is out of control. Everyone is pricing their service for endlessly-funded startups or enterprise.”—Jonnie Hallmann on Twitter

Maybe—just a thought—Venture Capital isn’t spread everywhere anymore. Maybe startups need to finally think about having a sustainable business model and maybe that is why so many services start to charge more money than we’re used to.

If you need Circle CI with 5 containers, there’s probably a reason for it. And the calculation is simple: The alternative to it would be hiring a System Administrator for setting up and maintaining a Jenkins or GitLab Ci server, renting a similarly capable server. Now ask yourself, do you want to commit this or rather spend $200 per month, which is fairly cheap compared to hiring an admin and renting a server for at least $50.

If you need 15 of such expensive tools, maybe consider starting to reduce them first? Why do you think you can make more money with your service than the service you pay for? They also need to pay people, they also want to create a sustainable, reliable service—the same as you.

“What?! You pay 10€ per month for your bank account?”—various people

I happily pay 10€ for my bank account. Yes, I think 50€ per month for the main tools you’re going to make money with is well worth it. Yes, I think paying 5€/month/user for Business Slack accounts is well worth the money if you really rely on it.

Of course there are bank accounts that cost “nothing” or are cheaper. They usually have hidden costs though and finance theirselves by making money with arms, or at the cost of other countries, other people. My bank is not making that business but instead charges me a fee that makes the service self-sustainable with honest work and even supports charities. I think that’s pretty cool for just 10€ per month, isn’t it? Instead of donating to a charity that cleans up the shit from other companies that you pay for, why not paying for a service that doesn’t cause such shit first?

“Adobe sucks, they want 55€ per month for Creative Cloud!”—a lot of people

Adobe asks for about 55€/month for their entire Creative Cloud. I use their Lightroom app extensively, their Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign app at least a few times per month. I charge my clients for work that has been produced with these tools. This suddenly makes 55€ per month pretty cheap. My mobile contract is even more than that.

If you’re not willed to pay for it, you’re free to use alternatives. Use Sketch, use Darktable, Gimp or other alternatives that are out there and might be free or cheaper.