In a recent YouTube video titled "Figma's $18.8B IPO: 4 Pricing Secrets Every SaaS Founder Needs," Akil from Monetizely breaks down the brilliant pricing strategy that helped propel Figma to its impressive IPO valuation. The video offers a detailed analysis of Figma's S1 filing, highlighting how their innovative approach to pricing became a key growth driver for the design software company.
The Problem With Traditional SaaS Pricing
Most SaaS companies make a critical mistake when it comes to pricing: they assume one model fits all users. This approach fails to recognize the different ways various users derive value from a product, leaving significant revenue on the table.
As Akil points out in the video, "Most SaaS companies get pricing wrong by thinking one size fits all." This observation sets the stage for understanding why Figma's approach was so revolutionary.
Figma's Role-Based Pricing Innovation
What sets Figma apart is their sophisticated role-based seat pricing model. Rather than charging a flat fee per user, they've created a segmented approach that aligns pricing with the specific value different user types receive from the platform.
"Figma actually cracked the code with role-based seat pricing. They don't just charge per user. They have full seats for designers at premium pricing, dev seats for engineers using their code features, content seats for marketers, and collab seats for light users," explains Akil.
This segmentation has paid off tremendously. Developers now represent 30% of Figma's user base and generate significant incremental revenue that might have been left uncaptured with a one-size-fits-all approach.
The Freemium Model That Actually Works
Many SaaS companies use a limited free trial as their entry point, but Figma took a different approach. Their freemium offering isn't just a sample—it's a fully functional product that delivers genuine value.
"Figma's premium is not just a trial. It's a fully functional design tool that provides real value," notes Akil. "This drives wider adoption where one designer shares a file and suddenly multiple teams are collaborating."
This strategy creates a natural path to monetization. As Akil describes: "They monetize through natural expansion as teams need more advanced features. 70% of their enterprise deals started with someone on the professional plan."
Bottom-Up Growth vs. Top-Down Sales
Unlike traditional enterprise software companies that focus on selling to procurement departments, Figma built a product that spreads organically throughout organizations.
"They're not selling to procurement. They are growing organically from individual users to organization-wide deployment," Akil emphasizes in the video.
This product-led growth approach has created a much more efficient sales model with lower customer acquisition costs and higher retention rates.
Pricing Psychology That Removes Barriers
The genius of Figma's pricing model extends to how they've thought about collaboration. By making viewers free but charging for content creators, they've removed barriers to adoption while still capturing revenue where value is being created.
"The pricing psychology here is brilliant. They removed barriers to collaboration by making viewers free but captured revenue from active content creators," explains Akil. "As teams grow, they naturally need the organization controls in higher tiers. It's not artificial limits. It's genuine value alignment."
The Results Speak for Themselves
The effectiveness of this pricing strategy is evident in Figma's impressive financial metrics:
"Their rule of 40 score of 63 and 132% net revenue retention shows this pricing strategy actually works at scale," Akil points out.
For context, a Rule of 40 score (the sum of growth rate and profit margin) above 40 is considered excellent for SaaS companies. Figma's score of 63 is extraordinary, demonstrating the power of their pricing model.
The Key Lesson for SaaS Founders
The most important takeaway from Figma's success is the need to think beyond simple per-user pricing models.
As Akil summarizes: "The lesson, don't just think about user-based pricing. Think about role-based value extraction. Figma turned their pricing model into a growth engine by aligning pricing with genuine user value at each tier."
Conclusion
Figma's $18.8 billion valuation wasn't just about having an excellent product—it was about crafting a pricing strategy that perfectly aligned with how different users derive value from that product. Their role-based pricing approach, combined with a freemium model that encourages organic growth, created a powerful engine for sustainable expansion.
By studying Figma's pricing strategy, SaaS founders can learn how to segment their own pricing models to extract appropriate value from different user types while still encouraging adoption and growth. The key insight is clear: align your pricing tiers with genuine user value, not artificial limits, and you can turn your pricing model into a growth accelerator.