Platform Pricing — B2B for Shops
Pricing model for the shop-facing platform (loyalty + allocation coordination). Separate from consumer-facing membership pricing (see membership-platform).
Context
The platform has two value layers that shops pay for:
- Loyalty/membership engine — the Guild product (POS integration, gamified loyalty, events, member portal)
- Allocation coordination — the network effect play (sales data sharing → better inventory allocation → tier-2 distribution)
Layer 1 is the wedge. Layer 2 is the moat. Pricing should work for layer 1 alone and scale naturally as layer 2 comes online.
Pricing models considered
% of GMV
- 0.5–1% of total shop revenue
- Pros: scales naturally with shop size, simple
- Cons: taxes revenue the platform didn’t help generate (impulse walk-in buys, etc.)
% of sourced-through-platform sales
- Only charge on inventory purchased through the coordination network
- Pros: directly tied to value delivered
- Cons: hard to track end-to-end, shops can game by attributing sales elsewhere, requires POS pipeline control
% of purchase orders placed through platform
- Charge based on what they ordered through the network, not what sold
- Pros: clean — we know exactly what was sourced through us, no POS dependency for billing
- Cons: shop pays even if product doesn’t sell
Flat tiered subscription (current recommendation)
Simplest model. No tracking complexity, no gaming, predictable for the shop.
| Tier | Shop size (annual revenue) | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Small | <$250K | $99/mo |
| Medium | 750K | $179/mo |
| Large | $750K+ | $299/mo |
Revenue self-reported or verified via POS connect.
Why flat tiers for now
- Variable pricing requires controlling the purchase order → sale pipeline end-to-end — we don’t have that yet
- % models are easy to abuse or hard to track without deep POS integration
- Flat tiers are simple to sell, simple to bill, and remove friction from onboarding
- Bookmanager (the incumbent comp) charges ~2,148/yr) is right in that range
When to switch to variable
Variable pricing becomes natural when we become the tier-2 distributor. At that point:
- We literally invoice shops for inventory
- The “platform fee” is just margin on the transaction
- No separate pricing model needed — we are the vendor
- The flat subscription could become a “network membership” fee on top of transaction margin
Comps
Bookmanager
- ~$7K upfront (Year 1)
- ~$2K/yr ongoing (maintenance + Titlelink + Pubstock + Webstore)
- 1% transaction fee on online sales
- The standard for indie bookstores — shops are already comfortable paying this
Phil (Victory Point) — pricing signal
- Would pay $100/mo minimum for full suite (loyalty + events + distro)
- Would pay $500–1K/yr for allocation coordination alone
- Said $1K/yr is too low if the value is real — needs to be comparable to Bookmanager
- At $X/mo: “idk if the value’s there — would need more volume to scale”
- Victory Point likely 299/mo = $3,588/yr
Ballpark: $300K/yr game store
| Metric | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Avg transaction | ~$25 |
| Transactions/yr | ~12,000 (~33/day) |
| Line items/yr | ~18,000–24,000 |
| Active SKUs | ~2,000–5,000 |
| Distro purchase events | ~50–100/yr |
At Small tier: 1,188/yr. Comparable to Bookmanager’s ongoing cost for a similar-sized shop.
Revenue projections (napkin math)
| Shops on platform | Avg monthly | Annual revenue |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | $150 | $18,000 |
| 30 | $170 | $61,200 |
| 100 | $180 | $216,000 |
| 500 | $190 | $1,140,000 |
Blended average assumes mix of tiers. 30 shops at ~$170/mo avg is enough to cover one person’s salary and infra costs.
Open questions
- Should loyalty (Guild) and allocation coordination be priced separately or bundled?
- Annual discount (pay yearly, get 2 months free)?
- Free tier / freemium for data-only participants (share sales data, no allocation coordination)?
- Onboarding fee for POS integration setup?
Related
- membership-platform — consumer-facing membership pricing (Bronze/Silver/Gold/Mithril)
- re-inventory-strategy — distribution and inventory coordination strategy