Freshbooks In-app Pricing

Project Type

Web Application

Tasks

Research, UI / UX Design, Prototyping

Tools

Miro, User Interviews, Sketch

Timeline

May 2021
(12 Weeks)

Background

Context

The in-app pricing page for Freshbooks is outdated and has not been audited for a long time. The website marketing copy does not match with the in-app content that we currently display. I was tasked to research, analyze and improve the in-app pricing page experience of Freshbooks. This would also help me understand how it’s currently helping trialers and observe how customers interact with it to identify areas where we can improve the page.

Problem

I observed the following during my initial problem exploration phase:

  • General lack of clarity and understanding of the in-app pricing page.
  • Features FreshBooks currently offer are causing confusion among users.
  • Not setting accurate expectations for customers once a plan is chosen.
  • No indication of total cost and how much would they be charged (not only for the first charge but subsequent charges for annual plans).

Objective

  • Understanding customer goals with the pricing and add-on page.
  • Learn about current UX and UI issues with the  pricing page and improve the current layout.
  • Validate assumptions made through usability testing, interviews and user research.

Generative Research

User Interviews

I conducted moderated user interviews with both Trialers and Internal Stakeholders to understand how they navigate around the pricing page and also to identify areas of oppurtunity when they interact with customers on an everyday basis.

Interview with Trialers

Demographic Information about the users I interviewed :

  • Interviewees - 5 Customers (trial users)
  • Country - Canada
  • Industries - Social Media consultants to Solopreneurs

Main Themes

The main themes I observed and received feedback were as follows :

Theme 1 - Confusing terminology and Features

Overview - Users complained about lack of detailed information and context for certain features inside the pricing page.
‍
‍Problem - I identified that this theme can be segmented into two categories

No context features - Some features in the pricing page such as ‘Dynamic fields for automated communication’, ‘Access to award winning support’, ‘ Clients - Active vs Inactive’ etc.

Accounting terminologies - ‘Double entry accounting’, ‘Project profitability vs project budgets’, etc were technical terms that users did not understand.

Theme 2 - Features not visible or unclear

Overview - Users were uncertain if we accepted credit card payments for clients on all plans. There were also other features that users did not know existed in the product.

‍Problem - 3/5 users were not sure if we accepted credit card payments on all plans and not information about the charges. We do not mention credit card rates or payments until the ‘select’ plan. There were also other features such as reporting for accountants, bank reconciliations, app integrations etc we do not talk about in the pricing section.

Theme 3 - Currency conversion, tax and additional charges

Overview - We do not display currency and tax details on the pricing page. Also, the additional charge of 10$ per team member was a surprise to a lot of users.

‍Problem - 5/5 users reported that they were confused about the currency and tax details as we do not provide clear information about the charges. For ex: A canadian user thought he would be charged in CAD but instead it was USD and the total cost shot up by 100$ more. Also, the sudden display of “Team Member” cost in the add-on page was a shock to almost all interviewees as they did not expect that from the previous page.

Theme 4 - Usability issues overall (pricing and add-on pages)

Overview - I also identified a lot of usability issues throughout the pricing section and flagged bugs.

‍Problem - 4/5 users never scrolled past the ‘more features’ section and 3/5 users found it hard to compare plans when they click ‘+more’ as it scrolls you away from comparing plans. Some users were confused about the UX copy on the payment payment and expected more detail about inviting team members directly.

Interview with Stakeholders

I conducted interviews with multiple internal stakeholders to understand customer experience and journey from each team's perspective. This helped me to be more cognizant of our assumptions and identify various touch points in the customer journey.

Feedback (Customer Support and Account Management)

  • Lots of repetitive calls about current plans, pricing, payment and credit card related failures.
  • Deleting a staff member doesn’t delete the team member subscription. This causes customers to overpay for their subscription even though the expected behaviour is for the system to automatically adjust payment.
  • Change ‘YYYY’ to ‘YY’ on the credit card page, as most credit cards currently display the last two digits of the year.
  • ‘Pay now’ button error on the payment page disappears for some accounts and the user does not know what the empty ‘green button’ does
  • No warning message about the 51st client added to the account. This error leads to clients creating invoices and when they try sending or saving it the page refreshes and all of the data is lost.

Suggestions (Client Acquisition and Accountant Partner program)

  • Display ‘Annual billing’ as the default view for the pricing page to increase customer retention.
  • Move current features available on the ‘Plus’ plan to the ‘Lite’ plan.
  • Multi currency view for CAD and USD customers.
  • See complete feature comparison of all the plans
  • Rearrange the current pricing layout to promote the ‘Select’ plan further.
  • No listing of accountant specific features on the current plans we offer.

Theme 3 - Currency conversion, tax and additional charges

Overview - We do not display currency and tax details on the pricing page. Also, the additional charge of 10$ per team member was a surprise to a lot of users.

‍Problem - 5/5 users reported that they were confused about the currency and tax details as we do not provide clear information about the charges. For ex: A canadian user thought he would be charged in CAD but instead it was USD and the total cost shot up by 100$ more. Also, the sudden display of “Team Member” cost in the add-on page was a shock to almost all interviewees as they did not expect that from the previous page.

Theme 4 - Usability issues overall (pricing and add-on pages)

Overview - I also identified a lot of usability issues throughout the pricing section and flagged bugs.

‍Problem - 4/5 users never scrolled past the ‘more features’ section and 3/5 users found it hard to compare plans when they click ‘+more’ as it scrolls you away from comparing plans. Some users were confused about the UX copy on the payment payment and expected more detail about inviting team members directly.

Competitive Analysis

I also did competitive analysis to understand ways in which companies display their pricing page and took notes of some good UX practices in the industry overall.

Brainstorming

Team Charette

I had the opportunity to present my research findings with internal stakeholders and brainstorm on new features and pricing page layout.

Design Iterations

Explorations

I initially started with making some changes to the color palette, hierarchy and layout just to understand how each of them have an impact over the pricing page.

Design Critique

Once I finalized on the layout, colour and hierarchy I started designing different versions for the pricing page. I also attended design critique sessions with the design and product team to get further feedback on my designs.

Version - 1

Version - 2

Version - 3

Next Steps

Pricing Page copy

The next steps involved discussion with the Product team to finalize on the product copy and also discuss the sequence and prioritization of features.

Reflection

Learnings

  • The opportunity to work with one of the best product design teams that follows a design thinking process end-to-end and their emphasis on extensive research is something I will always cherish.
  • Pricing page project I worked on presented me with so many real world challenges that really pushed my product and design thinking skills further. The ability to validate your assumptions, collaborating with internal and external stakeholders and getting your designs critiqued extensively gave enough experience to tackle complex projects in future.