Per-seat pricing

Per-seat pricing is the dominant SaaS pricing model. The provider charges a fixed amount per active user per month, so the customer's bill scales linearly with their team size. The model aligns revenue with one easily-measured proxy for value (number of people using the product).

The downside, from the customer's perspective, is that per-seat pricing punishes growth. A nonprofit that doubled its volunteer base would double its time-tracking bill without doubling the underlying value. A restaurant that opens a second location pays again for the same staff scheduling tool. The pricing model creates an implicit ceiling on how much the customer wants to engage the product across their organization.

The alternative is flat pricing, where the customer pays a single fixed amount regardless of headcount. Flat pricing is rare in SaaS because it caps revenue per customer, but it's well-suited to product categories where the customer's value-per-user is uneven (volunteers, part-time staff, drop-in users).