You only make money when new users sign up
Create an additional thing existing users can buy: extra AI credits, premium templates, priority support, or data exports.
When to use
You have paying users and can identify something extra worth charging for.
Hypothesis template
If we offer fill in: add-on to existing users, we'll generate fill in: target additional revenue/month because it's easier to sell more to existing customers than to find new ones.
Method
The problem: Your only revenue is subscriptions. Once someone subscribes, there's no way to increase their lifetime value without adding seats.
How to do it:
- Survey your users: "What would you pay extra for?"
- Common add-ons: extra AI credits, premium templates, white-label, priority support, data exports, custom domains
- Price it low enough to be an impulse buy ($5-15)
- Offer it contextually when users need it (not as a separate menu item)
- Track: add-on attach rate, revenue per user, impact on churn (should decrease)
Key insight: Users who buy add-ons churn less because they're more invested. The add-on revenue is a bonus — the real value is the retention.
Success metrics
- •Add-on attach rate
- •Revenue per user increase
- •Churn rate of add-on buyers vs non-buyers
- •Most popular add-ons
Prerequisites
- An add-on worth selling
- A way to handle additional payments
- Contextual placement for the offer
Common pitfalls
- •Creating add-ons that should be in the base product
- •Pricing too high for an add-on
- •Not offering add-ons contextually
- •Too many add-ons (start with one)
Source: Common SaaS pattern. Add-on buyers have 40% lower churn than non-buyers.
Suggested ICE scores
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