Why We Built Revenue-Based Pricing (and Why Standard SaaS Pricing Is Unfair to Small Businesses)

The Problem with Flat-Fee SaaS

The standard SaaS pricing model: "Rp X per month" — the same price for everyone. A cafe that opened last week pays the same as an established one that's been running for 3 years.

For office software, this might make sense. Everyone gets the same features, usage volume is roughly similar.

But for a small cafe POS in Indonesia? This creates a real problem.

Imagine two cafes:

• Cafe A: opened 2 months ago. Revenue of Rp 3 million/month. Still finding customers. Cash flow is extremely tight
• Cafe B: running for 2 years. Revenue of Rp 40 million/month. Profitable and stable

If both pay a flat fee of Rp 200,000/month, that's 6.7% of Cafe A's revenue but only 0.5% of Cafe B's. The relative burden is 13 times higher.

And worse: Cafe A — the one least able to pay — is the one that needs a POS the most. Without a POS, they have no sales data, can't track performance, don't know when they'll break even. The tool that's supposed to help them survive becomes an additional burden.

The Principle We Hold

When designing CrescendPOS's pricing, we started with one question: "When does paying for a POS feel fair?"

The answer: when the cost is always proportional to the business's ability to pay. And the most honest proxy for ability to pay is revenue — not features used, not number of users, not transaction count.

From that, our pricing model was born:

• Free for businesses with low revenue. A cafe just starting out with small revenue doesn't need to pay anything. They need a POS to survive, not to be charged
• Scales proportionally as revenue grows. The more you make, the more you pay — but always as a small, predictable percentage
• All features available to everyone. No feature tiers. A small cafe gets exactly the same features as a large one. The difference is only in cost, not in capability

Why Not Per-Transaction?

Another model we considered: charging per transaction. Every sale triggers a percentage or flat fee deduction.

We didn't go this route because:

• It creates the wrong incentive. If you pay per transaction, psychologically every sale "feels" more expensive. You start thinking "is this small transaction worth it?" — that's not a healthy business mindset
• Unpredictable. Busy months mean high POS costs, slow months mean low costs. Sounds fair, but during busy months when you should be maximizing revenue, the larger deduction stings
• Administratively complex. Every transaction needs to be tracked and deducted. This adds reconciliation complexity that we're trying to eliminate

Why Not Freemium with Limited Features?

The classic freemium model: free version gets basic features, pay for premium ones. Popular in SaaS.

We didn't go this route because:

• "Basic" features are subjective. Who decides that sales reports are basic or premium? For a small cafe, sales reports are the most critical feature — without them, they're flying blind
• It creates second-class users. Free users feel like second-class citizens. They know features are hidden behind a paywall, and that creates unnecessary friction
• Small cafes need "advanced" features most. Multi-printer so orders go straight to the kitchen? Hourly reports to know peak times? These aren't "premium" features — they're features that help small cafes compete. Locking them behind a paywall means making it harder for those who need them most

Trade-offs We Accept

Revenue-based pricing isn't without drawbacks. We're aware of the trade-offs:

• Our revenue grows slowly too. If our customers are all small, our income is small too. This model requires us to be patient while customers grow
• Harder to forecast. Our revenue depends on our customers' revenue. If they have a slow month, so do we. Higher volatility than flat fees
• Trust-based. Revenue is self-reported by customers (through their POS sales data). We trust their data — and so far this works because the POS data itself is the calculation basis

But we think these trade-offs are worth it. Because this model aligns our incentives with our customers': we profit when they profit. We have a natural motivation to build a POS that helps their business grow — because their growth directly becomes our growth.

Real Examples

To make this concrete:

• New cafe, revenue Rp 800,000/month: free. Zero POS cost. Focus on finding customers first
• Growing cafe, revenue Rp 10 million/month: POS cost is very small. Less than the price of one cup of coffee
• Established cafe, revenue Rp 40 million/month: POS cost increases, but remains a tiny fraction of revenue. And at this point, the value they get from the POS (reports, tracking, efficiency) far exceeds what they pay

In every scenario, POS cost never becomes a meaningful burden relative to the revenue it helps generate.

Why This Matters for the Indonesian F&B Ecosystem

Indonesia has millions of F&B micro and small businesses. Most are small — coffee carts, tea shops, food stalls, mini cafes. These businesses operate on thin margins and tight cash flow.

If POS pricing is a relatively expensive flat fee, these businesses have two options: (1) pay and strain their cash flow, or (2) skip the POS and keep recording manually. Neither is good.

Revenue-based pricing opens a third option: use a proper POS, pay what you can afford, and grow together. This isn't charity — it's logical business alignment.

We believe that if Indonesian F&B small businesses have the right tools at the right price, they can operate better, make smarter decisions, and ultimately grow. And if they grow, we grow too. That's the kind of business we want to build.