“But the problem with the race to the bottom is that you might win.” Seth Godin
I cut the price of Trends Pro and watched the whole dynamic shift.
The move felt generous. Lower the barrier. Let more people in. The signup rate stayed about the same. But who signed up changed.
Support tickets went up. Refund requests followed. People joined confused about what they’d bought. Community conversations got shallower. Members who used to show up prepared started drifting because the room felt different.
So I re-raised the price.
Support dropped. Engagement deepened. The community felt like itself again.
The price was doing its job all along. It filtered for people who’d already decided they wanted in. They arrived ready.
Joe Riedel runs Rampart, a local journalism outlet. He priced subscriptions high enough to fund labor-intensive reporting. When subscribers churned, he added podcasts and exclusive columns instead of cutting the rate. Value up, price holds. The people who stay are the ones who came for the substance.
Dropping a price feels like opening the door wider. But you’re changing who walks through it. The downstream effects compound:
- More support
- More confusion
- More churn
The “savings” get eaten by the extra work.
This hits hardest in a paid community. People are paying to be in a room with each other. Lower the bar to get in and you change the room they paid to join.
Price selects your market before a single person reaches your inbox.
If you want to reduce churn, add value. The instinct to lower price optimizes for volume. But volume and quality pull in opposite directions when the product depends on who’s in the room.
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What kind of business are you building each time you set your price?
