How to monetize your software (and earn more without raising your customers' prices)

The 8 ways to monetize software at a glance

Perpetual licence

This is the classic model: the customer pays once for the right to use the program, usually per installation or per seat. You earn a lot at the moment of sale and, from then on, depend on selling new versions or maintenance contracts.

It fits software installed on the customer's own machines, with long sales cycles and customers who prefer a one-off investment. The problem is cash flow: every year you start almost from scratch, and when you charge for an upgrade, customers compare you with cloud alternatives paid monthly.

Example: selling 40 licences at €1,500 brings in €60,000 in the year of sale. If 30 customers renew maintenance at €300 the following year, you bring in €9,000. The business depends on selling new licences.

Subscription (SaaS)

The customer pays a monthly or annual fee while using the software. It is the dominant model in the cloud because it delivers recurring, predictable revenue and lets you improve the product without depending on selling versions.

The fee usually depends on the number of users, locations or the plan chosen. Its limit is price: when you want to earn more, the obvious lever is to raise the fee, and every rise tests your customers' loyalty, especially in tight-margin sectors such as fitness, training or hospitality.

Example: 200 customers at €60 a month is €12,000 a month. Raising the fee by €5 adds €1,000 a month, but it also gives every customer a reason to look at the competition at their next renewal.

Freemium

You offer a free version with the basics and charge for plans with more capacity or features. It helps you attract many users without a sales team: the product sells itself.

It works when the product is easy to understand without help and each free user costs little. In vertical management software, where each customer needs onboarding, configuration and support, it is usually expensive: you serve many people who will never pay. And if you later cut back the free plan to force upgrades, users see it as a loss and say so.

Paid add-ons and features

You keep a base plan and sell specific features separately: online bookings, an app for end customers, e-invoicing or advanced reporting. Each customer pays for what they use and you raise average revenue without touching everyone's fee.

The key is choosing carefully what is an add-on and what is core. Charging separately for something the customer considers essential creates resistance; charging for something that genuinely saves them work is accepted without argument.

Example: if 50 of your 200 customers buy a €15-a-month booking add-on, you add €750 a month.

Usage-based pricing

The price depends on activity: per invoice issued, per appointment managed, per active user or per volume of data. It is fair to small customers, who pay little, and grows with you as the customer grows.

The drawback is predictability: neither you nor your customer knows what the monthly bill will be, and a high bill in peak season can go down badly. It is often combined with a minimum fee or tiers to give both sides stability.

Services: onboarding, training and premium support

Onboarding, data migration, staff training, custom configuration or support with guaranteed response times. In management software it is common to charge for set-up separately, because every customer needs to get up and running.

It is healthy revenue and well received when the customer sees the value, but it doesn't scale: it depends on your team's hours. It funds each customer's start rather than growing the business.

Integrations and marketplace

When you have many customers in the same industry, other companies want to reach them: suppliers, insurers, booking platforms or marketing tools. You can charge them to connect to your software, to appear in your marketplace, or a commission on what they sell.

It requires volume and a team to manage those partners. For your customer it is neutral or positive, because they gain tools without paying more.

Embedded payments: earning from your customers' payments

Embedded payments let your customers take payments from their own customers inside your software: fees, bookings, enrolments, treatments or invoices, by card terminal, Tap to Pay, payment links or recurring payments. Every time they get paid, part of the transaction fee comes back to you.

It is the only option on this list that doesn't raise your customers' prices. They already pay a fee on every card payment to their bank or payment provider; with embedded payments, that payment goes through your software and you get a share. You don't change your fee or your pricing model: you add revenue that grows as your customers grow.

With Avirato.money you earn up to 0.10% of every transaction your customers process, depending on their billing volume. Avirato Payments pays it out of its own margin, and your customers pay the published pricing.

Examples by type of software (illustrative, at the maximum rate of 0.10%)

• Gyms: 80 centres collecting €15,000 a month in card membership fees → up to €1,200 a month.
• Academies: 120 academies collecting €6,000 a month in enrolments and monthly fees → up to €720 a month.
• Clinics: 60 clinics collecting €25,000 a month in consultations and treatments → up to €1,500 a month.
• Bookings and PMS: 150 properties collecting €20,000 a month in bookings and extras → up to €3,000 a month.

What you need (and what you don't have to take on)

An API to trigger payments from your software, webhooks to know instantly what has been paid, tokenization to save the customer's card and recurring payments for fees. PCI DSS compliance and 3D Secure authentication are handled by the payment platform: card data never touches your servers.

Calculate what your software could earn →

How do I monetize my software if I already charge a fee?

This is the most common case: you already charge a fee and don't want to change it. Subscriptions and embedded payments combine well because they charge for different things: the fee pays for using the software and embedded payments share in the money your customers move with it.

Example: management software with 200 customers at €60 a month brings in €12,000 a month. If each customer takes an average of €8,000 a month in card payments through the software, embedded payments add up to €1,600 a month, 13% more, without changing the fee.

On top of that, taking payments inside your software makes it harder to replace: if your customer gets paid through it, switching software also means changing how they get paid.

Mistakes when monetizing software

• Raising prices without adding value. The rise shows up on the customer's bill; the improvement doesn't.
• Charging for core features. If customers feel they are paying for what they assumed was included, they will look elsewhere.
• Depending on one large customer. Any model is fragile if one customer accounts for a large share of revenue.
• Integrating a payment provider that pays you nothing. Your customers already take card payments in or alongside your software; if the provider shares nothing with you, someone else keeps that margin.

Frequently asked questions