The first step in designing your monetization strategy is simple:

What are your customers actually paying for?

This isn’t about the exact dollar amount yet. It’s about identifying the thing that drives revenue.

There are three common answers:

1. Features unlocked — customers pay more as they unlock additional features or higher-tier access.
   • Example: Canva charges extra for brand kits, premium templates, and collaboration features.
   • Example: Peloton’s higher tier unlocks live classes and performance tracking.
2. Usage consumed — customers pay more the more they use the product.
   • Example: AWS charges for compute hours, storage, or data transfer.
   • Example: Twilio charges for text messages or API calls.
3. Outcomes achieved — customers pay when your product helps them reach a result.
   • Example: Airbnb charges hosts per booking.
   • Example: Ticketmaster charges a fee per ticket sold.

Notice the pattern: as customers unlock more features, use more of the product, or succeed more with it, the amount they pay goes up.

That’s the essence of a good monetization strategy: your revenue should rise in step with the value your customers receive.

Putting It Simply

You don’t need to overcomplicate this. All you’re really doing is naming:

“What’s the thing our customers are paying for?”

That “thing” might be:

• Features unlocked (extra tools, premium access)
• Usage consumed (emails sent, data stored, minutes logged)
• Outcomes achieved (bookings made, tickets sold, leads generated)

The rule of thumb: the more of that thing they get, the more they pay. That’s what we want to anchor our monetization strategy around.

If you’ve studied monetization strategy prior to joining the Growth Program, you may be connecting the dots that we’re talking about a “value metric.” And you’d be correct. But we’ve found that concept can create more confusion than it’s worth especially when first immersing someone into the world of monetization and pricing. So we prefer to keep it as simple as possible before layering the industry jargon.

How to Identify Yours

• ‍Revisit your Job-to-be-Done (JTBD). Why do customers “hire” your product?
  
  • Airbnb: connect travelers with places to stay → nights booked.
  • SendGrid: help companies send email at scale → emails/month.
  • HubSpot: manage customer relationships → marketing contacts.‍
• Translate the JTBD into something measurable.‍
  
  • If you’re a podcast editing tool, your ultimate JTBD may be: “The job our customers hire us to do is grow their business via podcast marketing.” But that’s too abstract. How could you connect your monetization strategy to whether or not their business grows? Most likely, you can’t. Which is why this step is important.
  • Instead, you use proxies — things that are measurable, even if they aren’t the ultimate outcome. For a podcasting or editing tool, examples might look like:‍
    
    • Usage proxy: Number of episodes edited or hours of audio processed. The more content a creator runs through your tool, the more value they’re clearly getting.‍
    • Feature proxy: Access to advanced features like multi-track editing, noise reduction, or AI transcription. The more features, the more value (in theory).‍
    • Outcome proxy: Let’s say you also offer a service where you get your customers on other podcasts as a guest. Charging per booking secured would be an outcome proxy.
  • Real-life examples of proxies (value metrics):

• ‍Pressure-test your options. Ask of each possible proxy:

Cut any metric that doesn’t check all those boxes.

By the end of this exercise, you should be able to answer in plain English:

• “Our customers pay for ____.”
• “When they use/get/unlock more of ____, they pay us more.”

That clarity will guide the rest of your monetization and pricing strategy. Which brings us to the next component…