Pricing Philosophy
Pricing is a tricky business. You can approach it from several different perspectives, ranging from “charge what the market will bear,” to “recover your development costs plus a small profit,” to “give it away and hope for a bigger payoff down the road from the relationship,” to myriad other cost accounting, profit based formulas.
For CU*Answers it’s simple: we take on the perspective of a manufacturer of value whose ultimate goal is the financial success of our owners and clients. We set our prices to fit the income statements of our clients, first. Our pricing models are designed to participate with credit unions in building revenues and sharing the proceeds. No big up-front risk is passed from our business to the credit unions. Pay as you go, pay as you earn. We are not a middleman; we are a cooperative manufacturer, and we have the power to price like one.
As a cooperative, we remind ourselves that each and every time a client remits a payment, that paid invoice is an investment, not simply a transaction for services rendered. Therefore, our price should be based on our continued ability to innovate, carry forward as an ongoing concern, and ultimately, add to the collective capital of the credit union system. The expected return from our service is truly not reflected only in a price. It is based on seven simple concepts that we hope our clients will leverage to gain the ultimate return on every dollar they spend on our services:
- The Power of Ownership
- A Focus on Utilization
- Be the Best You Can Be
- First to Implement
- Guaranteeing the Difference
- The Value of Equity
- Return on Investment
To investigate these concepts more thoroughly and learn more about our CU*BASE Online (ASP) strategy, visit our “Why CU*Answers?” page.
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This Pricing Guide is a snapshot in time. To fully understand that we do walk the talk, contact our Sales staff for a copy of “The CU*Answers Pricing Model: A Historical Perspective” (Volume 1: 1999-2004; Volume 2: 2005-2009; Volume 3: 2010-2014; Volume 4: 2015-2020; Volume 5: 2020-2024).
View current Pricing Model Historical Perspective
Should you wonder what we did with the revenues earned, check out the Release Summaries page for over 10 years worth of new solutions delivered without a fee.
Learn more about what it means to have innovation guaranteed as part of your price.
