Monetisation

The SaaS model shifts software pricing from one-time purchases to recurring subscriptions, creating predictable and steady revenue streams instead of irregular sales cycles. To fully support this shift, the application’s architecture must adapt to the subscription- and consumption-driven model. The following architectural dimensions highlight key areas to consider when aligning your application design with SaaS business model.

Tenancy model defines how tenant resources are allocated and managed. SaaS providers can adjust deployment strategies to balance performance, cost, and security needs. For example, premium tenants can run on dedicated resources to ensure maximum isolation, whereas standard tenants share resources to keep operational costs lower.

Tenant cost allocation ensures that resource usage costs are fairly distributed across the tenant base, supporting more effective pricing strategies. While assigning costs of dedicated resources is usually straightforward, shared resources require more effort to track and allocate accurately. The level of detail and precision needed in this process mostly depends on the chosen pricing model.

Metering and billing form the backbone of pricing model in SaaS. By tracking subscriptions and consumption data, SaaS providers can design flexible pricing models that align closely with customer value. This drives smarter monetisation and creates a significant competitive advantage.

Tenant performance isolation guarantees that application resources are assigned based on each tenant’s subscription level. This capability protects higher-tier customers from being impacted by the heavy usage of lower-tier tenants, helping maintain both service quality and a sustainable business model.

A flexible pricing model is one of the strongest advantages a SaaS provider can offer. To make this possible, the application should be ready to support multiple subscription tiers, usage-based billing, and optional add-ons. With this flexibility, SaaS providers can scale more efficiently, reaching a broader market segments.