The most common pricing mistake in bootstrapped SaaS: looking at what competitors charge and pricing slightly below. This approach seems rational (don't price yourself out of consideration) but it's anchoring your price to the competitor's pricing decision rather than to the value you create.
The uncomfortable truth: most bootstrapped SaaS products are significantly underpriced relative to the business value they deliver. A product that saves an accountant 5 hours per week is worth $400-600/month to an accounting firm. Most founders price similar products at $49-79/month because "that's what SaaS charges."
The pricing framework that captures real value:
Calculate the time/cost value you replace. How much does it cost your customer to do the job your software does manually? If you're automating 3 hours/week of work, and the person doing that work costs $50/hour fully loaded, your software is worth $600/month in pure labor replacement. Price at 30-50% of the replacement value.
Calculate the error-cost reduction. If your software prevents expensive mistakes — compliance errors, billing mistakes, data entry errors — the value is the expected cost of those mistakes times the frequency. This can be substantial.
Test higher prices with new customers while maintaining existing rates. Start your price-increase experiments with new customer cohorts. If a $200/month product converts as well at $350/month for new customers, you have validated the higher price without disrupting your existing base.
Remove the price from early sales conversations. When you lead with price, price becomes the framing. When you lead with ROI and let price come last in the conversation, buyers evaluate on value first.
Charge what the value is worth. Underselling is leaving money on the table that funds your next hire.