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Case study · November 9, 2024

Pricing and packaging review

Early ChatGPT assist

A review of Vercel's pricing and packaging, with concrete recommendations to simplify it.

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Overview

The brief was to analyze Vercel's pricing and packaging. Vercel is priced competitively, but it has plenty of room to simplify its pricing page, standardize usage-based pricing across the Hobby, Pro, and Enterprise tiers, and give non-technical buyers a way to see ROI.

The Managed Infrastructure Unit (MIU) concept is a step in the right direction, and it should be rolled out to the Hobby and Pro tiers as well. Vercel is a premium platform, and its pricing should say so while staying true to its developer-led roots.

Approach

  • Ran 3 user research interviews: to get feedback on Vercel's current pricing and to seed those companies as potential leads.
  • Used ChatGPT for a first competitive pass: then compared Vercel's pricing and packaging against other platforms.
  • Delivered it on Vercel: instead of a memo or deck, I presented the findings as a site deployed on Vercel.

Stack

  • Vercel for deployment and fast iteration
  • ChatGPT for market mapping, summarization, transcription, and coding help
  • Chart.js for a lo-fi mock of an ROI and cost calculator

What I learned

  • ChatGPT and Vercel compressed the work: the analysis took a few hours and the site less than that. It's part of why I built patrickhillstrom.com.

Outcome

Vercel is priced competitively. The opportunity is simpler packaging, consistent usage pricing across tiers, and an ROI view for non-technical buyers.