Elicit Online is a Dutch SaaS company that helps factories capture and share expert knowledge. Their platform turns decades of hands-on expertise into structured, digital Knowledge Files — so new employees can use that know-how from the beginning instead of spending months learning by trial and error.
"They didn't come in with a pre-baked solution — they worked alongside us, challenged our assumptions, and helped us build a pricing model we genuinely believe in. What started as a consulting project turned into a partnership, we still rely on today."
We first met the Elicit Online team at the We Love SaaS conference. At that point, they already sensed that pricing was one of their biggest growth levers — they just hadn't come across a pricing consultancy that focuses exclusively on SaaS pricing strategy. That conversation was the starting point.
When we looked under the hood together, a few things became clear pretty quickly.
The pricing model had drifted into a strange place: Elicit Online was giving away premium features while charging for the core ones. The billing logic was inverted relative to where the real value sat. On top of that:
What needed to happen was clear: find a billing metric that actually tracks the value Elicit Online delivers, build a packaging structure that makes sense for different types of customers, and bring some consistency back to how existing accounts are priced.
The goal was simple: to develop a pricing model in which: 1. customers are encouraged to grant an unlimited number of users access to the knowledge stored in ELICIT Online, and 2. what a customer pays is truly commensurate with what they receive. That sounds obvious. Most SaaS companies have never done the work to make it true.
For Elicit Online specifically: a billing metric that scales with usage, packaging that reflects how different customers use the product, and a team equipped to make confident pricing decisions on their own — long after we're done.
The Elicit Online team already understood their product and their customers. They didn't need a multi-week research phase — they needed a focused collaboration to turn that knowledge into a structured pricing strategy. So we designed the engagement accordingly.
One thing worth explaining: the project ran over roughly 18 months. That wasn't slow execution — it was a deliberate choice. Elicit Online's team had limited internal capacity, and compressing the timeline would have meant a worse result. More importantly, a big part of what we were doing was knowledge transfer. The goal was to build the team's own pricing capabilities so they wouldn't need a consultant every time a pricing question came up. That kind of work takes time if you want it to stick.
The Elicit Online team already understood their product and their customers. They didn't need a multi-week research phase — they needed a focused collaboration to turn that knowledge into a structured pricing strategy. So we designed the engagement accordingly.
One thing worth explaining: the project ran over roughly 18 months. That wasn't slow execution — it was a deliberate choice. Elicit Online's team had limited internal capacity, and compressing the timeline would have meant a worse result. More importantly, a big part of what we were doing was knowledge transfer. The goal was to build the team's own pricing capabilities so they wouldn't need a consultant every time a pricing question came up. That kind of work takes time if you want it to stick.
We started with a focused review of Elicit Online's internal data and revenue structure. The goal was simple: understand where the current model was creating gaps between the value delivered and the value captured. Customer usage analysis showed us who the most and least engaged accounts were, and where the pricing model was failing to follow actual value. That shaped everything that came next.
With the diagnosis in hand, we ran a two-day workshop at Elicit Online's headquarters. A well-structured workshop with the right people in the room delivers roughly 80% of the pricing strategy in two days. That's exactly what happened here.
Day one was customer mapping and pricing architecture. We mapped jobs to be done and buyer personas. The key finding: the customer base is pretty homogeneous. What differentiates accounts isn't size or industry — it's the number of Knowledge Files they need and the features around them. That insight pointed directly to the right billing metric.
We also ran a Feature Placement Matrix — every feature categorized into table stakes, differentiators, and potential add-ons. Several things bundled into the base product by default weren't actually used by everyone. Those became the foundation for add-ons: new revenue streams tied to real customer choice, not packaging guesswork.
The billing metric question got resolved through a side-by-side comparison of per-user, usage-based, flat rate, and hybrid models. The team landed on per Knowledge File — differentiated by size and type. It's tied directly to what Elicit Online delivers. It grows as customers capture more processes. And it creates natural variation in price that reflects real differences in what customers are actually getting — effectively a tiered pricing model built around the product's core value metric.
Day two was about equipping the team for the long run. A pricing model deep-dive — not a lecture, but a working session designed to build pricing intuition so the team could own future decisions. We also co-developed a value selling framework: how to test willingness to pay, how to communicate value during sales conversations, and how to run a pilot phase where prospects experience the full product before committing to a package. Commercial terms and contract structures rounded out the day.
Strategy without implementation is just a document. We supported the rollout directly — pricing page revisions, brochure redesign.
The full picture is still developing. Transitioning existing customers to the new model is an ongoing process — not a switch that gets flipped overnight. The 15 customers already on the new model are each on different amounts, which tells you something about how complex that transition really is. It's being done carefully, not quickly.
But the direction is clear. And a few things have already shifted in a meaningful way.
New customers are now onboarded onto a model where what they pay is connected to what they use. The per Knowledge File metric grows as customers capture more processes — the relationship deepens, and the revenue reflects that. That's a fundamentally different dynamic than a flat seat count that never moved.
Features that were previously bundled in by default — but used by only some customers — now have a natural home as add-ons. Customers who need them pay for them. Customers who don't aren't subsidizing them. Simpler and fairer for everyone.
Perhaps most importantly: the Elicit Online team now makes pricing decisions independently. Through the workshops and ongoing partnership, they treat pricing as a continuous process — not a one-off project that gets handed back to a consultant whenever something changes.
Many pricing projects end with a deliverable and a handshake. Ours don't. Over a year after our first conversation at We Love SaaS, we're still working with Elicit Online — and the scope has grown.
It started as a pricing redesign. It became the team's go-to resource whenever a pricing question comes up: a new deal structure, procurement pushback, thinking through a market expansion. Having that on call means no re-scoping a new engagement every time something moves.
One thing we consistently recommend at this stage: dedicate someone internally to pricing. Even 0.25 FTE is enough to maintain what gets built. Pricing left unattended drifts back toward inconsistency. The companies that get the most out of a project like this are the ones that keep at it.
Want similar results for your pricing? Book a consultation.
New billing metric tied to core product value (per Knowledge File)
Pricing now reflects what customers actually use — not how many seats they have
Add-on revenue streams built from features that were previously given away for free
1+ year ongoing pricing partnership
Pricing Professional with over 10 years of experience in the world’s leading consulting firms and the financial institutions. Passionate about helping clients and sharing knowledge about pricing and strategy especially in SaaS companies and Custom Software Development teams.
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Pricing Professional with over 10 years of experience in the world’s leading consulting firms and the financial institutions. Passionate about helping clients and sharing knowledge about pricing and strategy especially in SaaS companies and Custom Software Development teams.
