“No, no, it needs to hurt. … You need a consequence that is obvious, not just to the marketer, but to their boss.”
Smart Bear Live · Bootstrapped & Indie SaaS · October 2026
On a live teardown of a SaaS company's falling trial-to-paid conversion, the founders proposed a $1,000 guided onboarding fee. Delano says the fee must be painful enough that the customer's boss notices, or the onboarding won't actually happen.
Transcript
…now it's in the budget. It's now in their monthly or quarterly reports that they're doing this. So now their boss is expecting it to happen. Coordination is happening on their side because they paid for it. In fact, 10 grand is probably too low, but whatever. I don't know what you should charge.
What we had in mind was like a thousand dollar guided onboarding fee.
No, no, it needs to hurt. That's why I was asking what are the consequences. You need a consequence that is obvious, not just to the marketer, but to their boss.
Right.
Because otherwise they won't show up.
Also, it's costing you more than $1,000 to get them onboarded. Right now, you are giving away free consulting services, it sounds like
More from Smart Bear Live
