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Pricing your AI product: Lessons from 400+ companies and 50 unicorns | Madhavan Ramanujam

27 Jul 2025 19 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Madhavan RamanujamLenny Rachitsky

Claim mix

recommendation 6belief 6commitment 2evaluation 2preference 2prediction 1

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Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

19 published records

01 / recommendation

Recommends Business Model Canvas. Recommends Contagious.

“The first one that comes to mind is Business Model Canvas by Alex Osterwalder. It's a classic and one of my favorite books. I recommend a lot of people to read that because I think it nicely ties a lot of what we are also seeing from a more strategic business model angle. I like this book, Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow. I think that's also a classic because, again, there's always a human element to things. And understanding the customer psychology is important whether you're in B2C or in B2B. Because if you're in a B2B situation, it's humans having a human conversation. So it's as much behavioral as it's actually numbers. So I love that book, and there's a lot of nuggets in there, so I recommend a lot. And probably the third one that I recommend is a book called Contagious by Jonah Berger. I love that. He was in the PhD program at Stanford in marketing, and he actually wrote this book on how to make messages viral. And he's actually seen the best viral messages and boiled it down to a framework. And if you follow that, then you can make those messages viral. And I've tried to use some of those in my own outreaches and things of that nature, so I think it's a fantastic read.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

03 / belief

I mean, if you're bringing a lot of value to the table and you started training your customers to expect $20 a month and you anchored yourself on a low price point, I think there are companies that have actually done that.

“I mean, if you're bringing a lot of value to the table and you started training your customers to expect $20 a month and you anchored yourself on a low price point, I think there are companies that have actually done that.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

05 / belief

I would argue that all four apply in the startup and all five actually apply in the scale-up phase, but it's not like you need to start focusing on nine things from day one.

“I would argue that all four apply in the startup and all five actually apply in the scale-up phase, but it's not like you need to start focusing on nine things from day one.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

10 / recommendation

" What that would mean is, how do I build functionality in the products to actually show attribution, how do I build more agentic workforces to take the human out of the loop and be more autonomous, and being thoughtful about your vision and strategy so that you will orient yourself towards more outcome-based pricing models. So when you think about increasing attribution, that means, first of all, understanding what are the KPIs of your customers.

“" What that would mean is, how do I build functionality in the products to actually show attribution, how do I build more agentic workforces to take the human out of the loop and be more autonomous, and being thoughtful about your vision and strategy so that you will orient yourself towards more outcome-based pricing models. So when you think about increasing attribution, that means, first of all, understanding what are the KPIs of your customers.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

11 / recommendation

" So these kind of questions become more critical, and that's why the chapter on blowing up your packaging from your early days and coming up with your packaging strategy for your scale-up phase become very critical. So I think that's the next thing that founders would be hit with, as in when they build multiple products, they need to think about the whole packaging, cross-selling, up-selling motion.

“" So these kind of questions become more critical, and that's why the chapter on blowing up your packaging from your early days and coming up with your packaging strategy for your scale-up phase become very critical. So I think that's the next thing that founders would be hit with, as in when they build multiple products, they need to think about the whole packaging, cross-selling, up-selling motion.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

12 / evaluation

Because if your customer is budget conscious, they'll say, "Hey, I like the hundred K price point, but I actually like the functionality in your 200K product.

“Because if your customer is budget conscious, they'll say, "Hey, I like the hundred K price point, but I actually like the functionality in your 200K product.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

13 / preference

How cool is that? And I think that I really love the product category. There's a lot of different use cases, longevity, extension, use cases, things of that nature.

“How cool is that? And I think that I really love the product category. There's a lot of different use cases, longevity, extension, use cases, things of that nature.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

14 / prediction

If you look at the state of where AI is today, as of the day of recording this podcast, now, the most popular model is right now a hybrid pricing model. So because this is also expected, because the previous SaaS playbook was usually on the seat-based model, but they've all now moved on to at least a hybrid to actually incorporate AI credits and usage, et cetera, about 5% of companies are probably in a true outcome-based pricing model as of today.

“If you look at the state of where AI is today, as of the day of recording this podcast, now, the most popular model is right now a hybrid pricing model. So because this is also expected, because the previous SaaS playbook was usually on the seat-based model, but they've all now moved on to at least a hybrid to actually incorporate AI credits and usage, et cetera, about 5% of companies are probably in a true outcome-based pricing model as of today.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

15 / evaluation

Probably my second one is the price paralysis axioms. So what that means is your reluctance to do a price increase is often internal and emotional and it's not external and logical.

“Probably my second one is the price paralysis axioms. So what that means is your reluctance to do a price increase is often internal and emotional and it's not external and logical.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

16 / recommendation

Back in the day, we used to say that you should revisit your pricing strategy, overall pricing model, how much you're charging at least once in two years.

“Back in the day, we used to say that you should revisit your pricing strategy, overall pricing model, how much you're charging at least once in two years.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

17 / commitment

I could even charge, let's say, a 500K for this product, but I don't have the courage to actually go and ask for a 500K price because I kind of know a hundred K is the budget.

“I could even charge, let's say, a 500K for this product, but I don't have the courage to actually go and ask for a 500K price because I kind of know a hundred K is the budget.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

18 / preference

I love people like you that do the work for, I don't know, decades at this point, learn from real life experiences over and over and over, and then just share all this stuff with people.

“I love people like you that do the work for, I don't know, decades at this point, learn from real life experiences over and over and over, and then just share all this stuff with people.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast
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