Three static tiers — good, better, best — is the default because it is safe. It is also a ceiling: once a customer is on "best," you have no built-in way to grow the account, and your pricing stops tracking the value you deliver.
How to escape
- Find the value metric. The one number that grows as the customer succeeds — seats, contacts, transactions, AI actions, GB processed. Price moves with it.
- Keep tiers for packaging, not for capping. Use tiers to gate features and support levels; use the value metric to scale price within each tier.
- Design an open top. Your highest tier should have no revenue ceiling — "Enterprise: let's talk" exists precisely so the biggest accounts can pay the most.
- Re-price on a cadence. Revisit the value metric and tier features annually as the product and market move.
Bottom line: tiers should package value, not cap it. Anchor expansion to a metric that grows with the customer's own success.