We forced a pricing migration. Some clients paid 5x more overnight.
We migrated all subscribers to a new pricing model. We lost €150k MRR in days. One quarter later, growth was back. Here's why it was the right call.
There’s a decision I postponed for two years because it was uncomfortable.
When we finally made it — forcing every subscriber onto a new pricing model — a significant chunk of our recurring revenue vanished within weeks.
It wasn’t a bug. It wasn’t a miscalculation. It was exactly what we’d planned. And it’s one of the most counterintuitive decisions I’ve made in twelve years as CEO.
The problem with flat-rate subscriptions
For years, Sortlist ran on a subscription model: agencies paid a flat monthly or annual fee to access leads generated by the platform. Simple, predictable, reassuring for a board.
The problem is that this model creates a value asymmetry that, as the platform grows, becomes unmanageable.
Some subscribers were consuming dozens of times more marketplace value than others, at a fixed price negotiated years earlier. Other subscribers of similar size were paying much more because they’d signed later with updated pricing. And we were generating value at scale — but only capturing a fraction of it. With a cost structure that wasn’t shrinking.
The diagnosis was clear: we had a fundamental value capture problem. Not a growth problem. Not a product problem. A pricing problem.
From buffet to à la carte
The analogy we used internally: we were a Pizza Hut buffet. Clients paid a flat price and ate all they could. Some came for the appetizer. Others cleared the buffet three times over.
We wanted to become a premium Italian restaurant. Bruschetta priced as bruschetta. Champagne priced as champagne. Each client pays in proportion to what they actually consume.
The new model: Sortlist+, consumption-based. CPC for visibility, CPL for opportunities. The more business you generate through Sortlist, the more you pay — but you only pay for what you actually receive.
The logic is sound. The execution was another story.
Eighteen months of preparation
We didn’t flip the switch overnight. We spent eighteen months building a tiered migration plan, starting with new accounts, then light subscribers, and finally the heaviest users — those extracting maximum value at minimum price.
Each phase required specific communications, commercial hand-holding, and pricing, product, engineering, and sales teams working in daily standups. A multi-month sprint with the entire organization aligned on a single objective.
Along the way, there was resistance. Subscribers threatened to leave. Sales teams pushed back because it created visible short-term churn. A representative from an industry association contacted us to publicly complain about our new value-based pricing model. When you generate that level of reaction, you know you’re touching something real.
The moment of truth
After eighteen months of progressive migration, one cohort remained: our heaviest subscribers, consuming the most value at the lowest price. Some would have to pay 5-10x more for an equivalent level of service.
We forced them to switch.
In the weeks that followed, we lost €150k in MRR within days. That number terrified everyone for about a month.
Because one quarter later, real growth had resumed. Then accelerated. Then exploded. By 2023, Sortlist was back to 40%+ annual growth. By 2024, operational profitability was reached for the first time in the company’s history.
The logic held: when you price based on actual value delivered, you lose subscribers who were gaming the system. But those who stay pay their fair share — and the model becomes healthy.
What this teaches about business models
Lesson 1: Flat-rate models reward the wrong customers. The ones consuming the most at a fixed price aren’t your best customers — they’re the ones with the best commercial leverage at signing. Your best customers are those for whom the value is real enough to pay proportionally.
Lesson 2: Short-term repricing pain is real but finite. Long-term pain from an underpriced model is silent but lethal. It bleeds you slowly for years.
Lesson 3: You can’t change models without changing customers. A deep pricing migration is also a client portfolio migration. Some will leave. That’s by design. The portfolio that remains is healthier.
Lesson 4: MRR is misleading during a transition. During the migration, our “SaaS” recurring revenue appeared to drop while actual revenue was rising. We had to explain this to the board for months. Choosing the right KPIs during a transition is almost as important as the transition itself.
What I’d do differently
Start the migration earlier. We waited until our backs were against the wall to make a decision we should have made two years prior, when we still had room to maneuver.
A repricing done calmly is infinitely less painful than a repricing under pressure. In calm, you can test, adjust, compensate churning clients with better-priced new ones. Under pressure, you execute in emergency mode.
If your pricing model doesn’t reflect the value you actually deliver — start now.
Thibaut Vanderhofstadt
11 years as B2B scale-up CEO (€10M ARR, 9 markets, 3 M&A). Fractional consultant for post-funding founders.