The perfect SaaS landing page

The Science-based Playbook of SaaS Optimization has just launched and I’m already receiving excellent feedback. Thank you so much!

So I thought I would share with you some of my favorite parts of the playbook. Hope you’ll enjoy them 🙂

🖥️ The perfect SaaS homepage

My team and I pulled together the latest, most impactful studies on how you should design your main SaaS landing page to maximize your sales.

This mockup shows a highly optimized landing page for a fictional SaaS that turns photos into illustrations using AI.

Note that these recommendations may change depending on your product type (e.g. exciting vs highly reliable). These differences are explained in depth in the Playbook.

The SaaS Playbook also contains a mockup and detailed recommendations for the ideal Pricing plans page.

Let’s dive into one of these recommendations.

💵 Offer between 3 and 5 plans

📈 Recommendation

• To ease user decision-making, aim to offer between 3 and 5 plans. 

• Offer a basic plan as a low-cost entry option, a standard plan as a balance between cost and functionality, and a premium plan focused on capturing a high-end market segment.

• Make sure the middle option is well-defined as a balance between the basic and high-end options - people will be most drawn toward this one. 

• You can consider an optional enterprise plan for large organizations with custom needs.

• Finally, if you opt for a freemium model (see the ‘Freemium’ section of the playbook), you can include a free plan.

🧠 How it works

• People tend to avoid options that are perceived as extreme or risky (e.g. the most expensive one) and prefer the middle or moderate options, thus most opt for the Standard plan.

• This effect is driven by people wanting to make a decision that is safer, reducing feelings of regret.

🎓 Research 

Simonson, I., & Tversky, A. Choice in Context: Tradeoff Contrast and Extremeness Aversion. Journal of Marketing Research (1992)

Universities: Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley, and Stanford University. 

The playbook then dives into LTV and MRR optimization. From preventing churn, to working with affiliates, to building the optimal referral program. 

Here is one of the recommendations on how you can easily improve your retention (i.e. reduce churn) and increase the lifetime value (LTV) of your customers.

🎁 Give gifts to long-time customers to boost LTV

📈 Recommendation. 

• Give free gifts to customers who have been with you long enough. For example, 20% higher extra bandwidth, for free. Make clear the unexpected reward is a thank-you gift for being a loyal customer, with no strings attached.

• Rewards reduce the churn of long-time customers but also slow down some of their natural increases in spending. Put together, it’s still more profitable to reduce their churn.

• Do not give these to recent customers. This would encourage them to churn and look for more free rewards elsewhere.

🧠 How it works

• About 70% of customers are “inert non-switchers” (i.e. they are happy with the status quo and can’t be bothered to look for another solution). Free gifts reawaken them to reconsider their options.

• For customers who have been with you for a while, the free gift is a way to justify and reinforce that they made the right decision in choosing you. This outweighs the likelihood that they will consider other options, and reduces their churn.

• Customers who have been with you for a long enough time have invested significant resources in you and don’t want to regret doing so. They want to justify their previous decisions and dread the idea they could have made a mistake. This outweighs the likelihood that they will consider other options. Rewards reinforce their conviction that they made the right choice choosing you, reducing their churn.

🎓 Research 

Henderson, C. M., Steinhoff, L., Harmeling, C. M., & Palmatier, R. W. Customer inertia marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (September 2020).

Universities: University of Oregon, University of Rostock, Florida State University, and University of Washington.

Enjoyed this sample?

Get these and 60 more recommendations in Ariyh’s SaaS Optimization Playbook.