Average price realisation across the $5M–$50M B2B SaaS band: 84% of list price. At $15M ARR, that translates to $2.4M in annual revenue leakage through pricing architecture alone. Not margin erosion from rising costs. Not competitive pressure forcing price cuts. Architecture — structural decisions about discounting authority, feature bundling, expansion mechanisms, and annual adjustment policies that were made when the company was smaller and have never been formally revisited.
Pricing architecture is the dimension most $5M–$50M CEOs have never formally diagnosed. They know the list price. They know the average selling price. They rarely measure the gap between the two with the granularity needed to identify where the leakage occurs, what percentage is strategic, and what the structural cost is. These five benchmarks provide that granularity. Each includes a self-test you can apply with your own data.
1. Price Realisation: 84%
Median: 84% of list price | Top quartile: 93% | Bottom quartile: 72%
Every percentage point below 100% is revenue the pricing architecture leaks. Some leakage is strategic — discounts that genuinely win competitive deals the company would otherwise lose. The rest is habitual — discounts applied reflexively because the rep expects the customer to negotiate, because the rep wants to remove price as an objection before it is raised, or because the approval process is so unstructured that discounting is the path of least resistance.
Without measuring realisation, there is no mechanism to distinguish strategic discounting from habitual discounting. And habitual discounting, across every company assessed in this band, accounts for 40–60% of total discount volume. That is revenue transferred from the company to the customer without any commercial justification — deals that would have closed at higher prices if the sales motion established value before introducing cost.
Self-test
Total revenue collected last quarter divided by total list-price value of deals closed in the same quarter. If below 85%, the pricing architecture has a structural discount problem. If below 78%, the problem is severe — and the annual cost likely exceeds the company’s entire marketing budget.
2. Discount Frequency: 64%
Median: 64% of deals discounted | Top quartile: 38% | Bottom quartile: 82%
High discount frequency is not inherently problematic if the discounts produce measurably higher win rates. The diagnostic is the correlation between discounting and conversion improvement. If 80% of deals are discounted but the win rate for discounted deals is only 2–3 percentage points higher than non-discounted deals, the discounting is habitual. It is reducing revenue without meaningfully improving conversion. The company is paying for discounts that are not buying anything.
The structural cause in most cases: no pricing governance framework. No approval matrix defining who can authorise what level of discount. No margin floor. No competitive discount policy. When there is no structure, the default is to discount — because saying ‘yes’ to a lower price is easier than building the business case for the full price.
Self-test
Compare win rates for discounted versus non-discounted deals over the last four quarters. If the gap is less than 5 percentage points, discounting is not improving conversion. It is transferring revenue from the company to the customer without commercial return.
3. Expansion Revenue as Percentage of New ACV: 22%
Median: 22% | Top quartile: 41% | Bottom quartile: 8%
Below 15%: expansion is absent or accidental. The installed base is a dormant revenue asset. Revenue growth comes entirely from new logos, each carrying full acquisition cost and a new sales cycle. Between 15–30%: expansion happens but is not governed — driven by individual CSM initiative or customer request. Above 30%: expansion is a deliberate commercial programme with its own pipeline, its own triggers, its own conversion methodology, and its own commercial accountability.
The unit economics of expansion are the most compelling in the revenue model: every expansion dollar costs $0.15–$0.25 to capture versus $1.00 for every new logo dollar. At $15M ARR, the gap between 22% (median) and 41% (top quartile) expansion rate represents roughly $2.85M in annual revenue from the existing base — revenue the company is structurally unable to capture because the expansion architecture does not exist.
Self-test
Total expansion revenue last 12 months divided by total new logo ACV in the same period. If below 20%, the most capital-efficient revenue source in the business is structurally underleveraged.
4. AI / Premium Feature Monetisation
68% of $5M–$50M SaaS companies bundle their strongest differentiator free
The companies that monetise their strongest feature separately — premium tier, standalone add-on, or usage-based module — generate 18–25% incremental revenue on enterprise deals. The feature already exists. The engineering investment has been made. Customers already cite it as a primary reason for choosing the product. The only variable is whether the pricing architecture captures the value the product creates.
The typical origin: the feature was bundled free to win a competitive deal 12–18 months ago, or because the product team believed it should be part of the core platform, or because nobody modelled the revenue impact of giving away the strongest differentiator at no incremental cost. Each of these decisions made sense at the time. None of them was revisited when the feature became the primary competitive advantage.
Self-test
Identify the single feature or capability that wins the most competitive evaluations. Is it included in the standard enterprise tier at no incremental cost? If yes, model a 10% tier premium or a standalone add-on at $50–$200/user/month. At the $15M mark, this single architecture decision typically exceeds $300K in annual incremental revenue.
5. Annual Price Increase Application
Only 34% of companies in the $5M–$50M band apply annual increases to existing customers Those that do: average increase 5–8%, applied at renewal and typically framed as an annual platform investment adjustment. Cumulative revenue impact over 3 years: 12–18% higher realised ACV on the installed base. Companies applying 5–8% annual increases see no statistically significant change in logo retention — the increase falls within the ‘acceptable annual adjustment’ band for enterprise procurement departments.
The resistance is emotional. The data is structural. The customers who would churn over a 5% annual increase were already at risk for other reasons — poor product fit, changing needs, competitive displacement. The price adjustment simply accelerated an exit that was already in motion. Meanwhile, the 66% of companies that do not adjust are subsidising their installed base with pricing inertia — collecting 12–18% less cumulative revenue over three years than they could capture without any measurable impact on retention.
Self-test
When did your earliest active customer last receive a price increase? If the answer is ‘never,’ calculate the compound effect: current ACV of the installed base multiplied by 5–8% annual increase over the number of years since their original contract. That is the revenue the pricing architecture chose not to capture.
Lead-to-Order Structural Assessment
These benchmarks show where the $5M–$50M B2B SaaS market sits on pricing architecture. The Lead-to-Order Structural Assessment shows where you sit specifically — and quantifies the quarterly cost of the gap between your realisation and the benchmark. Pricing Realisation is one of six scored dimensions.
The sample company scored 2/5 on Pricing. Realisation was 78%. The AI module was bundled free. Expansion was ad hoc. Annual increases had never been applied. See the numbers and judge whether the patterns look familiar.
Before You Commit Capital, Credibility, or Momentum
Technology CEOs are increasingly using decision-grade GTM due diligence before high-stakes commercial bets — not to outsource judgement, but to ensure the decision stands up before it's made.
When a GTM decision is hard to unwind — a senior hire, a pricing change, a market entry — the cost of being wrong compounds quietly. Two quarters slip away before you know it failed.
Commercial Bet Due Diligence (CBDD) is a short, independent review used before commitment. It evaluates a single GTM bet across product, pricing, positioning, sales, and customer growth — and concludes with a clear verdict:
- Review a sample CBDD board memo — the artefact CEOs and boards use to govern these decisions
- Learn how the CBDD process works — and when it's applied
