The Pay What You Want (PWYW) model has been used for designers wanting to use great typography on Lost Type, game developers to entice new users, and even musicians with a large following. It can have great impact to drive quantity of sales but also impact the industry negatively setting price points that may not reasonable for smaller teams to compete in and still eat.
Creative agency 8k is trying out that exact model with their new and existing clients, asking them to pay what they think their service is worth. Meaning pay as much or as little as they want. The opportunity will definitely help the agency understand what price points clients expect without the usual RFP blind quotation that many deal with everyday. However, even after a client offers a bid the agency still has rules to govern the process and can reject if it isn’t appropriate.
Not all of the agencies offerings are available as part of the pricing strategy, but there is a great list of valuable services that can be garnered. Of course only if you can justify asking to pay $1 for a logo, stationary design, slogans or name generation.
The idea of a pay what you want strategy made us wonder, can this work for a startup? Would you ever think to launch a business with this method to acquire a user base as opposed to the usual freemium or trial methods? If you’re a startup that’s tried this we would love to hear your story.