Forge Packaging Tiers

---
name: forge-packaging-tiers
description: "The user has an offer and a price, and is deciding whether to sell one thing or three things at three prices. Load when you hear \"should we have a pro tier,\" \"what about a free plan,\" or \"we need basic / plus / premium.\""
metadata:
  author: wayland
  version: "1.0.0"
  category: "forge"
---

# Packaging and tiers

## When to load this mode

The user has an offer and a price, and is deciding whether to sell one thing or three things at three prices. Load when you hear "should we have a pro tier," "what about a free plan," or "we need basic / plus / premium."

## Procedure

Tiers exist to capture different willingness-to-pay segments without forcing one buyer to subsidize another. They are not decoration. Three steps.

**1. Confirm tiering is the right move.** Tiers help when:

- The audience has visibly different WTP bands (a solo user paying $20/mo and a team paying $200/mo for the same outcome at different scale).
- There is a feature or service level that the high-WTP buyer values and the low-WTP buyer doesn't need.
- The buyer expects a ladder (most B2B SaaS, most service businesses).

Tiers hurt when the offer is a single transformation with no scale variable (a course on landing your first freelance client is one outcome; tier-stacking it produces decoy noise, not segmentation). When in doubt, ship one tier. A clear single offer beats a confusing ladder.

**2. Design the ladder around outcome, not feature count.** Each tier promises a different *level* of outcome or a different *speed* to the same outcome. Not "12 templates vs 20 templates." More like:

- **Entry** — the buyer does the work themselves with the playbook. Lowest price, lowest hand-holding, lowest risk.
- **Middle (the anchor)** — the buyer does the work with coaching or done-with-you support. The tier most buyers should land on. Price set so margin is healthy here.
- **Top** — done-for-you, or premium speed, or premium access. Captures the buyer with money but not time, or the buyer who wants certainty.

The middle tier is the anchor. The entry tier is the price reference that makes the middle look reasonable. The top tier is the price reference that makes the middle look like a deal. This is decoy placement, used honestly: every tier is a real, kept-able offer.

**3. Set the price ratios.** Common starting ratios:

- Entry ≈ 0.3–0.4× middle
- Middle = the value-capture price from `value-pricing.md`
- Top ≈ 2–4× middle

Wider gaps push more buyers to the middle. Narrower gaps push some to the top. Pick based on which tier carries margin. If the top is high-margin and the user can deliver volume, narrow the gap; if the middle is the workhorse, widen the gaps and let the middle dominate.

**Output shape.** A three-row table: tier name, price, core promise (one sentence per tier), what's included beyond the previous tier (one line). Nothing else.

## Decision rules

- **Three tiers is the ceiling, not the target.** Two tiers is often correct. One is fine. Four or more confuses the buyer; conversion drops measurably.
- **Skip tiers entirely when the offer is a single transformation.** A book, a one-time service, a single workshop. Tiering these creates fake choice.
- **The cheapest tier must stand alone honestly.** It cannot be a stripped-down trap. If the entry tier doesn't deliver a real outcome, you have a free trial, not a tier.
- **Lock the middle tier as the recommended pick.** Visual emphasis, a "most popular" label only if it's true. The middle is where most buyers should land.

## Anti-patterns

- **Feature-count tiering.** "Basic: 5 projects. Pro: 25 projects. Enterprise: unlimited." Tells the buyer nothing about outcome. Forces a counting decision instead of a value decision.
- **Tier inflation.** Eight tiers because every objection got a custom price. Eight tiers means none; the buyer picks the cheapest or leaves.
- **Decoy tiers that aren't real.** A top tier no one buys, priced absurdly to make the middle look cheap. If the price is fake, the buyer eventually notices, and trust collapses.
- **Free tier with no upgrade trigger.** A free plan that solves enough of the problem to never need an upgrade. You've built a charity, not a business. Route to Coin for unit economics if a free tier is on the table.
- **Tier names that describe the user, not the outcome.** "Hobbyist / Pro / Enterprise" tells the buyer to self-identify down a level. Use outcome words: "Starter / Growth / Done-for-you."

## Before / after

**Before:** *"Basic $97 (5 modules), Pro $297 (12 modules + community), Premium $997 (everything + group calls)."*

**After:** *"Starter $297 — work through the playbook on your own, ship your first outreach within 30 days. Growth $797 (most picked) — playbook plus weekly coaching call, first paying client within 90 days or refund. Done-with-you $2,497 — we sit on the call and write the outreach with you, first paying client within 45 days. Three tiers, three different speeds to the same outcome, priced to land most buyers on Growth."*