[supernova87a]

Sometimes I ask sales people of these companies, "why is it that SpaceX can give me a price for launching something into space, with detailed manuals about how to prepare all my interfaces, but you have to take 2 weeks to think about how much to charge me?"

Yes I know the comparison isn't quite right, but sometimes you just have to put some pressure on bro salespeople coming in, making shit up, and trying to test how willing you are to pay for something they haven't even built yet, and pricing it to maximally extract value later. Otherwise they'll start to think it's reasonable.

[paxys]

You cannot tell SpaceX to move up their launch date for you. You cannot send a payload that exceeds the weight or size limits. You cannot tell them that you don't like the color of the rocket since it doesn't fit with your brand. As far as sales go, it's easy for SpaceX to publish their prices because it's the most rigid type of service possible.

Enterprise SaaS is the exact opposite. The product that is listed on the website is just a starting point. There are teams of sales reps, account managers, solutions architects and more who will customize it exactly to the customer's liking, and all that needs to be priced.

[supernova87a]

SpaceX has years-long development timelines, huge capital and personnel costs, and huge liabilities/risks. Yet they can give you predictable pricing and understandable margins and cost models. Sure they are rigid in their requirements, but that pales in comparison to / is far from them using it as a pricing factor in comparison with the requirements asked of a sales guy selling a software team's services.

At the heart of it, the ridiculous pricing practices of "contact us" pricing are to test what a customer is willing to pay.

Have a look at this ML-favorite lately. $50/month for a general user turns into something you will not believe for corporate users. Totally testing what they can get away with. https://wandb.ai/site/pricing

[chasd00]

also if you screw up bad enough as a spacex customer and not meet their payload requirements after so many failed attempts then they refuse to ever do business with you again.

[ricardobayes]

Exactly. This is the reason some smaller self-driving companies exist, even though Tesla has pretty much dominated the space. Tesla might have superior tech, but it's not for sale.

[lazide]

Most of them do already think it’s reasonable!