How per-seat SaaS pricing works

How per-seat SaaS pricing works is the homepage multiplier. You tick Notion, Slack, Linear, and Figma, then you raise the people count. Those four cards grow. A flat card stays put.

Last time I wrote about building your own Obsidian Sync. That was a teardown. This one is a regular backlog topic. The first-project post is which app to start with. This post is why the yearly number jumps when you hire.

Every card that says “per person / mo” uses that multiplier. Public paid plans only. Custom quotes, taxes, and overages stay out of the receipt.

How per-seat SaaS pricing works

Open the audit. The stepper under the receipt is labeled “People using these apps”.

A card marked per person multiplies by that number, then by twelve. A card marked per month ignores the stepper.

Notion is $12–$24 per person per month. $144–$288 a year for one person. Five people is $720–$1,440. Ten people is $1,440–$2,880. The product page FAQ writes that yearly range as “for every person on your team”. You still multiply. The homepage is the one that does it.

const notion = {
  product: 'Notion',
  perPerson: { low: 12, high: 24 },
  people: 5,
  yearly: { low: 720, high: 1440 },
}

yearly.low is 12 * 5 * 12. The homepage does that for every selected card that scales.

The product page does not. Notion’s page shows $144–$288 a year, then adds “per person”. The FAQ says that yearly range is “for every person on your team”. If you read only the $144 and skip the “per person”, you undercount a five-person workspace by a factor of five.

Typeform does not scale. $29–$99 a month. $348–$1,188 a year. Eight people still pay that, because the card is flat.

Per-seat pricing for Notion, Slack, Linear, and Figma

All four scale. The yearly totals below are the catalog prices times people times twelve.

Slack is $15–$18 per person per month. One person is $180–$216 a year. Five people is $900–$1,080. Ten people is $1,800–$2,160. The verdict on the card is “Only for a focused team”. The Slack regular post is why that price still is not a reason to rebuild the company chat.

Linear is $10–$16 per person per month. One person is $120–$192 a year. Five people is $600–$960. Ten people is $1,200–$1,920. The first estimate is 12 hours for issues, statuses, and a backlog view. The Linear teardown is why the offline sync engine stays on the skip row.

Figma is $16–$55 per person per month. One person is $192–$660 a year. Five people is $960–$3,300. Ten people is $1,920–$6,600. That high end moves the receipt more than the other three. The first estimate is 4 days for shapes, text, select, move, and undo. The Figma teardown is the multiplayer file you are not building.

Pick all four at five people and the homepage adds them. Low end is $3,180 a year. High end is $6,780 a year. Ten people is $6,360 to $13,560. Those are public paid plans from this catalog. They are not a custom quote, and they leave out tax.

const fourSeats = {
  products: ['Notion', 'Slack', 'Linear', 'Figma'],
  people: 5,
  yearly: { low: 3180, high: 6780 },
}

3180 is (12 + 15 + 10 + 16) * 5 * 12. 6780 is (24 + 18 + 16 + 55) * 5 * 12.

How team size changes SaaS cost

The stepper only changes cards that already scale. Raise it from 1 to 8 and Typeform does not move. Notion does.

Tick Notion, Typeform, and Trello. Leave the stepper at 1. The receipt is $144–$288 plus $348–$1,188 plus $120–$210, so $612–$1,686 a year. Set the stepper to 5. Notion becomes $720–$1,440. Trello becomes $600–$1,050. Typeform stays $348–$1,188. The mix is now $1,668–$3,678.

Trello is the cheaper per-person cousin. $10–$17.50 per person per month. One person is $120–$210 a year. Five people is $600–$1,050. The first estimate is 3 hours for columns and drag-and-drop cards. The Trello guide is that board.

Canny is flat. $79–$99 a month. $948–$1,188 a year, for one person or for twenty. The Canny walkthrough is a weekend board and a status column. At five people that yearly number sits next to five Linear seats on the low plan.

Calendly also scales. $12–$20 per person per month. Five people is $720–$1,200 a year. The first estimate is 6 hours for one meeting type, weekly availability, and bookings. The Calendly teardown is why calendar OAuth and the last-second double-book stay on the later rows.

Intercom is the loud end of per-person pricing. $74–$139 per person per month. One seat is $888–$1,668 a year. Five seats is $4,440–$8,340. The first estimate is 4 days for a help button and a shared inbox. The Intercom teardown is routing, the customer graph, and product tours. That bill can justify the scoped inbox, because the support OS is the third row.

I would set the stepper to the number of people who open the app this week, not headcount on the org chart. A design seat you do not use still multiplies if you are paying it.

Flat monthly pricing vs per person

A flat card can still be expensive. It just does not grow when you hire.

Typeform at $1,188 a year costs more than five Linear seats on the low plan. Canny at $948–$1,188 a year sits in that same band. Those are good cancel candidates when you are the only person filling the form or posting the request.

A per-person card can stay cheap at one seat and get loud at eight. Notion at one person is $144–$288 a year. At eight people that is $1,152–$2,304. The first estimate is still 10 hours for markdown pages, nesting, and search. The Notion teardown is why databases and live collaboration stay paid if the team already lives in them.

The scope post is which row you pin after you read the receipt. The price tells you the bill. The three rows tell you whether a clone can replace the seat.

When per-seat pricing is worth replacing

A multiplied bill is a reason to open the card, because the first estimate and the non-goal sit on that same page.

I would start with a per-person app you are the only user of, or a cheap one whose first row is a tonight or weekend build. Trello at five people is $600–$1,050 a year and 3 hours for a board. Linear at five people is $600–$960 a year and 12 hours for issues. Both beat rebuilding Slack for twelve coworkers who already search last March’s thread.

The homepage line under the stepper is the other guardrail. Public paid plans only. Custom quotes, taxes, and overages are excluded. If your company is on an enterprise Slack contract, the $15–$18 band on the card is the public plan, not your invoice. Use the invoice for the cancel decision. Use the card for the scope.

Slack’s first estimate is 4 days for channels, messages, and threads. Figma’s first estimate is 4 days for a single-player canvas. Those side quests stay side quests even when the yearly number looks ugly. The Figma regular post is that split.

If you do ship a slice, copy the Astro prompt on the product page. Node.js plus Astro is the default on this catalog. TanStack Start is the other tab if you already write React. The stack post is which tab you paste. The hosting post is where that Astro tab lives.

The people stepper is the check I would run before I cancel anything. Set it to the seats you pay today. Read the yearly range. Then read the first estimate and the non-goal on the same card.

Start now

Go to the audit. Tick the apps you already pay for.

Set the people count to the seats on the invoice, not the size of the company. Read the yearly range on the receipt.

Open the card whose number moved. Copy the first estimate. Ship that row on a hostname you own. Cancel the seats you stopped using.