How PriceWell Transforms Subscription with No-Code Solutions

In this interview, we sit down with Matthew Reid, the founder of PriceWell, a no-code platform designed to simplify subscription billing for businesses using Stripe.

Matthew shares insights into how PriceWell helps businesses streamline their subscription processes, prevent churn, and experiment with pricing strategies, all without requiring coding expertise.

His journey from idea to execution offers valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and business owners looking to enhance their subscription models.

The Problem PriceWell Solves

SBS – What inspired you to create PriceWell, and how did you come up with the idea? Can you explain the problem that PriceWell solves for businesses using Stripe?

Matthew – In 2019, I sold my previous SaaS business, a scheduling tool for developers. During the development of that product, I realised I was spending a lot of time on things unrelated to the actual software, the landing page, billing, etc. The idea for PriceWell came from my personal frustration setting up Stripe subscriptions for my previous project. It took me weeks to get right, and I’m a developer. Just think how long it takes for someone with little technical knowledge.

Overcoming Early Challenges

SBS – What was the biggest challenge you faced during the early stages of developing PriceWell?

Matthew – Scoping an MVP was difficult. We wanted to prove we were solving a real customer problem without putting too much development effort into it. It actually took two months of near-constant development to have a working prototype. The initial version allowed customers to create their own pricing table from their Stripe products for very simple use cases (Stripe’s own pricing tables didn’t exist at the time). We’d collected some emails from a landing page, but when we emailed the list, almost no one had signed up. The problem was that people were looking for a solution at that exact moment; a month later, they’d already solved it in some other (probably long and tedious) way. Eventually, we found a way to reach potential customers at the moment they were looking for a solution on platforms like Indie Hackers and Reddit.

Ideal Users of PriceWell

SBS – What types of businesses can benefit most from using PriceWell?

Matthew – There are a couple of businesses that benefit the most from PriceWell. One example is no-code applications built using Bubble, etc., where we have a plugin that saves hundreds of hours of manual work, like syncing data and listening to webhooks.

The second type of customer has their own small development team but doesn’t want to waste developer time on pricing changes. PriceWell puts the power to change pricing in the business leaders’ hands.

Implementing PriceWell on Websites

SBS – Can you walk us through how a typical user would implement PriceWell on their website?

Matthew – Our customers typically have an existing Stripe account. Once they connect that to their PriceWell account, their products and prices are automatically pulled into PriceWell. Creating a great-looking pricing table or customer portal is done in a few clicks, and a simple code snippet can be copied into a web application built with any technology. Customers often use the pricing table on their marketing website and also within their application which keeps their pricing in sync.

Ensuring Data Protection & GDPR Compliance

SBS – How does PriceWell ensure GDPR compliance, and what steps do you take to protect customer data?

Matthew – The most important thing is that customer/payment data is always stored in Stripe. PriceWell acts as a layer on top of Stripe, so our servers never see any credit card data. Secondly, we don’t use any cookies or share customer information with third parties (except Stripe, where it is already stored).

Managing Subscription Pricing Changes

SBS – How do you support businesses in managing subscription pricing changes, especially when they need to update pricing or experiment with different strategies?

Matthew – This is one of the main benefits of using PriceWell. The development team can add a little snippet to the application once, and pricing changes or A/B tests can be made without any further development resources being used. All pricing changes or A/B tests can be configured within the PriceWell app. We offer analytics to help customers decide when they can charge more, and switching pricing is as simple as clicking a button. Existing customers stay on their existing pricing (grandfathering), and new customers will automatically get the new pricing.

Preventing Churn with PriceWell

SBS – Can you explain the concept of churn prevention and how PriceWell helps businesses retain revenue?

Matthew – The default Stripe customer portal offers few options when it comes to cancellation. PriceWell adds a churn prevention layer on top, which collects cancellation reasons before allowing customers to cancel. Once a business knows the main reasons their customers cancel, they can put preventative measures in place. It might be offering discounts to vulnerable customers or making it clearer what benefits their customers get.

Integrations with Other Platforms

SBS – What role do integrations with platforms like Bubble.io, Webflow, and WordPress play in PriceWell’s ecosystem?

Matthew – Integrating with multiple platforms has helped us get new customers from the no-code world and made it very easy for our customers to use PriceWell by integrating directly with their favourite tools. The code snippet works by default in almost any website builder, but having a deeper integration helps us solve specific problems in different platforms (data syncing in Bubble, for example).

Impact of No-Code Platforms on Business

SBS – How do you think no-code platforms are changing the landscape for subscription-based businesses?

Matthew – No-code and AI are allowing anyone without a technical background to launch their business ideas cheaper and faster than ever before. A lot of our customers don’t have any software development knowledge but are able to realise their business idea in a matter of weeks thanks to no-code tools. These platforms are a really great leveller and PriceWell tries to be a small part of that by enabling anyone to start collecting subscription revenue without wasting hours on working out how to integrate Stripe.

Effective Growth Strategies for PriceWell

SBS – What strategies have you found most effective for growing your customer base and expanding PriceWell’s reach?

Matthew – We started SEO from day one, and Google search is our top source of traffic to this day. Other good sources of traffic have been replying to questions on Twitter (X), Reddit, and Indie Hackers from entrepreneurs looking for a solution like ours. Free tools also bring a lot of customers. We built a Stripe invoice generator that we offer completely free and brings a lot of traffic to our app.

Addressing Subscription Management Pain Points

SBS – What are the biggest pain points businesses face when managing subscriptions, and how does PriceWell address them?

Matthew – Stripe is the best payment provider, and their developer documentation is great, but the product is very complex and can be overwhelming for a first-time user. PriceWell makes it super simple, and we offer a personal one-on-one call with all new customers to walk them through setting up their subscription infrastructure.

Key Metrics for Success

SBS – What are the key metrics you focus on to measure PriceWell’s success?

Matthew – There are a couple of key metrics, the most obvious one being monthly recurring revenue. As long as the MRR is increasing, the business is growing. More important is the health of our customers’ businesses. If our customers’ business is growing, then they are much less likely to churn as customers. In fact, 90% of our churn can be attributed to the customers’ own business rather than our product. Our customers churn because they decide not to continue with their business (either the idea didn’t work or the business is not making enough money).

Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs in the Subscription Space

SBS – As a CEO, what advice would you give to other entrepreneurs looking to build a tech product in the subscription space?

Matthew – Look at products that already exist. Don’t try to build something that has never been built before; there’s plenty of room in existing markets. A lot of entrepreneurs try to do something completely unique and end up failing. If you build in an already validated space, you simply have to focus on building a great product that solves the problem better than others.

Also, experiment with your pricing. We tend to price things too low because we don’t put much value in what we build. I’d recommend increasing your prices every six months until MRR stops growing in order to find the maximum users are willing to pay for your product.