Our new pricing model, explained.
TL;DR — Commerce Layer is an enterprise-level platform that's best suited for brands with higher sales volumes. Our pricing model will change soon to better support this kind of customer while staying free for developers. All the existing plans won't be affected by the new pricing, so in case you are evaluating a switch to a paid plan, we recommend you to do it now, as there will be no better time.
Commerce Layer has been around for about three years now. We've learned a lot from running our platform into the wild. We listened to our client's needs and translated them into new features, either released or added to our roadmap.
It's pretty clear that Commerce Layer was born for enterprise brands and that we should start talking to them more directly. Apart from being headless, our platform ships with a set of functionalities that are typically required by larger clients that sell internationally. Think of multi-currency price lists, multi-warehouse inventory models, or country-specific payment gateways and carrier accounts.
This enterprise nature needs to be reflected in our pricing model. This doesn't mean that we should increase our prices just because we compete with the most expensive solutions on the planet. It's actually the other way around. What we are increasing is the minimum number of orders included in our paid plan, decreasing the average price per order. So our entry-level price point will go from 50€/month, with 50 orders included (1,00€/order) to something like 900€/month, with 2000 orders included (less than 50 cents/order).
As a result, we will become even more appealing for brands with higher sales volumes, knowing that the side effect will be to lose the smaller merchants that are just starting out. It's a matter of target. There are dozens of solutions out there that can best support them, like Snipcart that just released the third version of their JS shopping cart or the well-liked Shopify, if you don't feel ready to move to the Jamstack yet.
The new plans
So what the new pricing table will look like? Even if we are not 100% sure about all the metrics and prices, for the sake of transparency we decided to share our latest draft:
As you can see, the free developer plan is still there (and it always will be). The only thing that you can't do as a developer is placing real orders. This means that if you are using Stripe, for example, you will be able to connect just the Stripe test key and only use test cards to place test orders.
When ready to make some money (i.e. get real orders), you switch your plan to live, configuring a fixed price per month by adding the upper limit of your estimated sales volume. Any extra order will be paid separately at a higher price.
Our enterprise customers will finally get unlimited metrics, a private infrastructure, custom development, and white-glove treatment. We are talking about brands that make tens or hundreds of millions per year.
But wait, we still love startups!
Being small doesn't mean that you don't want to grow and Commerce Layer is not just an order machine. Our team is made of ecommerce experts with ten or even twenty years of experience that can support your startup from the very beginning, regardless of your sales volume.
Many brands are already paying 4 figure fees even if their monthly orders are not that many. The value they get is provided by our dedicated support, consultancy, training, and business advisory. All the things that you need even more when you are a startup rather than when you run an established business.
There will be no better time to upgrade
A price change is never easy to digest, even if all the reasons behind make sense. That’s why none of the existing plans will be affected by the new pricing. Moreover, there are tens of agencies that are evaluating Commerce Layer with the current pricing in mind, investing their time and resources to understand if it's a good fit for their needs.
The goal of this article is to not create any surprise when the pricing page will change. We will make sure to communicate it at our best, through our website, newsletter, and social channels. With that being said, if you are evaluating an upgrade of your current plan, keep in mind that this is a great opportunity that is very unlikely to happen in the near future. So you better act fast. And please consider us at your disposal if you have any questions about the new pricing or the platform itself.