Talk to an Expert
[ When packaging has drifted ]

Repackaging
your pricing.

The SKU structure has bloomed. The licensing metric underneath has drifted. Repackaging treats the surface; simplicity arrives by fixing the layer below.

[ Plain answer ]
What does repackaging B2B software pricing actually fix?

Repackaging the SKU structure rarely resolves the underlying pricing problem on its own. Most repackaging projects are licensing decisions wearing a packaging disguise: the value metric, the AI capability boundaries, or the customer-mix grouping underneath needs to change before the editions can be re-drawn cleanly. Repackaging done well is a simplification project — fewer, better-bounded editions that reflect how customers actually realize value — not a SKU-rationalization exercise that leaves the licensing metric untouched.

Three symptoms most software companies see first:

  • The SKU structure has multiplied to the point that nobody internally can fully explain it — sales rooms quote off it, but no one can defend why each edition exists.
  • Similar customers end up on different editions through quote-time decisions, not by design — the published packaging isn’t the operative packaging.
  • Every renewal opens a custom-package negotiation because the standard set doesn’t fit anyone exactly — the packaging boundary is no longer holding.
The reframe

Repackaging is not a packaging exercise. It’s a simplification project — and the lever is the licensing metric, not the SKU structure.

The signals

Four signals that packaging
has lost its licensing anchor.

01

Too many
moving parts.

You have seats plus storage plus add-ons plus modules plus tiers. Is this pricing structure too complex? Buyers can’t price-shop it themselves; sales has to translate every quote.

02

Per-seat
to consumption?

How do B2B SaaS companies move from per-seat to consumption pricing? Without breaking the renewal cycle for existing customers who priced as seats.

03

Legacy customers
on the old metric?

How do we transition legacy per-user customers to a new pricing metric with better growth dynamics? The transition design defines who stays and who churns.

04

Add-ons that started
as features.

Pieces of your product split off into add-ons over time. Some belong in a base SKU; some belong in editions; some don’t belong as add-ons at all.

Chris Mele, CEO of Software Pricing Partners
About the expert

Chris Mele

CEO, Software Pricing Partners

Ranked #1 on OpenView’s list of B2B SaaS pricing experts. Chris leads every repackaging engagement, surrounded by a team that has held CFO, CPO, and CIO seats inside software companies. You get the pricing architect — not their associate.

LevelSetter runs the pricing infrastructure end-to-end so the experts focus on the calls only humans can make. It scales practitioner judgment — it doesn’t replace it.

Read more about Chris →
The diagnostic

Most repackaging breeds complexity.
We start at simplicity.

Most repackaging projects fail in one of three predictable ways. Each looks like a packaging problem on the surface and is a licensing problem underneath.

[ Failure Mode 01 ]

Model first, diagnosis later.

The team picks a target shape (good / better / best, free / pro / enterprise) and works down to rationalize the structure into it. The decision precedes the diagnosis.

[ Failure Mode 02 ]

Accumulation paralysis.

The current edition has absorbed every capability the product has shipped. Everyone agrees the SKU structure has bloomed; no one wants to own the subtraction.

[ Failure Mode 03 ]

Metric trapped in packages.

The value metric is embedded inside the editions themselves. Changing the metric and changing the packaging become the same project — indistinguishable from each other.

[ LICENSING METRIC ] the unit that grants access [ PACKAGING BOUNDARY ] how capabilities group into editions [ PRICE LEVEL ] list price → net price FIG 01

Underneath all three is the same foundation problem: most repackaging sits on traditional marketing segmentation (firmographics, personas, vertical buckets), which is exactly what breeds the complexity. The licensing metric is usually excluded from the conversation entirely.

SPP groups packaging around Customer Groups — the common threads in how customers derive value and how they return that value back to their organization. The microcosm-thinking of traditional segmentation is useful for messaging; applied to pricing, it generates more SKUs, more discount exceptions, more bespoke configurations.

Once those threads are visible, simplification arrives through one of two levers — sometimes both. The licensing metric, recalibrated to track value the way customers actually consume it. Or the way AI capabilities are folded into the packaging, integrated against customer-mix patterns rather than sprinkled across editions. LevelSetter instruments the architecture so the boundaries hold up against actual deal behavior, not against a theory.

The engagement

Full rebuild or
targeted evolution?

B2B Pricing Strategy

The full pricing-architecture rebuild. When packaging has drifted because the underlying licensing metric is wrong, not just suboptimal. The right entry when re-packaging without re-deciding the metric will produce the same problem in 18 months.

See the engagement →

Evolve B2B Monetization

Targeted evolution. When the licensing metric still holds but the packaging boundaries have aged out. Faster timeline, narrower scope. The right entry when the underlying pricing architecture is sound and packaging is the specific layer that needs work.

See the engagement →

Frequently asked questions

Usually yes, but not all of them at once. Repackaging that doesn’t model the existing-customer migration is an unfinished design. The right pattern is to map cohorts (deal-size, term-remaining, renewal-date, expansion-history), design transition paths per cohort, and let renewal cadence carry most of the migration. Customers who priced as seats remain on seats through their current term; new pricing applies at renewal with explicit upgrade economics.
Two tests. First, can a customer explain what they’re paying for in their own words, without a sales rep translating? If not, the metric isn’t tracking how they realize value. Second, do you see consistent over-buying or under-buying at signing? If the same customers always negotiate down (or up) the same way, the metric isn’t sized to what they actually consume. Two yeses means the metric is still doing its job. One no means it’s the layer that needs the work, not packaging.
Yes, and often this is the right answer. Hybrid pricing architectures (seats for predictable workloads, consumption for variable workloads) work when each metric measures a distinct value moment. They fail when they overlap or when the buyer can’t tell which one they’re being charged for. The boundary between the two metrics has to be designed explicitly so they reinforce each other instead of competing.
Three guardrails. First, never force the metric change at the contract boundary — let it land at renewal with deliberate cohort sequencing, smaller and lower-risk cohorts first. Second, model the implied per-seat-equivalent so existing customers can see their old and new structure side by side; surprise is the friction that breaks ARR, not the metric change itself. Third, run the new consumption metric in parallel for one full cycle before it becomes the billing metric — the data builds buyer comfort, surfaces calibration issues, and gives the sales team a defensible quote conversation by the time the new metric goes live.
They stay on the old pricing until renewal, with a designed off-ramp. Holding customers on legacy pricing is not a permanent state; it’s a defined transition window with explicit boundaries (term-end date, upgrade event, expansion threshold). Customers who try to stay on legacy pricing indefinitely are usually a sign that the new pricing has a problem the legacy cohort already worked out, worth investigating before treating it as a customer-retention issue.

The SKU structure is the symptom. The metric is the lever.

If your packaging has gotten away from you, that’s the conversation.