If you sell digital products, courses, or SaaS, you're probably losing visitors from emerging markets every day without realizing it. They land on your site, see US pricing, and leave. You get $0. They get nothing. Everyone loses.
That's why instead of a flat price, you should use purchasing power parity pricing instead! You're not discounting. You're monetizing traffic that currently converts at 0%. Data shows businesses see 15-30% more revenue after implementing it.
Granted it won't work for every SaaS, but for digital products with zero-to-little delivery cost, it's kind of a no-brainer."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"You are wasting your non-US traffic"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://www.evendeals.com"}},"_tags":["comment","author_devarifhossain","story_47069069"],"author":"devarifhossain","children":[47069913],"comment_text":"Not every country has the same purchasing power. A $199 product feels very different in the USA vs. China vs. Brazil vs. India.
If you sell digital products, courses, or SaaS, you're probably losing visitors from emerging markets every day without realizing it. They land on your site, see US pricing, and leave. You get $0. They get nothing. Everyone loses.
That's why instead of a flat price, you should use purchasing power parity pricing instead! You're not discounting. You're monetizing traffic that currently converts at 0%. Data shows businesses see 15-30% more revenue after implementing it.
Granted it won't work for every SaaS, but for digital products with zero-to-little delivery cost, it's kind of a no-brainer.","created_at":"2026-02-19T02:13:46Z","created_at_i":1771467226,"objectID":"47069070","parent_id":47069069,"story_id":47069069,"story_title":"You are wasting your non-US traffic","story_url":"https://www.evendeals.com","updated_at":"2026-03-05T23:35:31Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"elmascato"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["purchasing","power","parity","saas"],"value":"Hi HN,
I am a CTO/Founder usually stuck in "development hell" on long-term projects. To fix my perfectionism, I started a challenge on Jan 1st: Ship 12 startups in 12 months.
This is Project #01: TierWise.
The Problem: Most SaaS founders price for the US/EU market. Charging a flat $49/mo excludes huge segments of users in LATAM, India, or Southeast Asia where purchasing power is lower. Building a custom GeoIP/PPP logic for every side project is a distraction.
The Solution: I built a drop-in JS widget that detects the visitor's country and calculates a discount based on their local Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).
The Stack (The "Speed Run" setup):
Backend: Laravel 11 (API).
Frontend: Nuxt 3 (SSR).
Logic: Custom Middleware + Redis (for request throttling) + MaxMind GeoIP.
Design: Soft Brutalism (trying to avoid the generic "AI dark mode" look).
Business Model: It\u2019s an open SaaS.
Free: 500 adjustments/month (no credit card).
Paid ($9/mo): Unlimited + White-label.
I\u2019d love your feedback on the implementation and the "Soft Brutalism" UI approach.
Link: https://tierwise.dev/"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["pricing","saas"],"value":"Show HN: TierWise \u2013 PPP pricing widget for SaaS (Built in 7 days)"}},"_tags":["story","author_elmascato","story_46531614","show_hn"],"author":"elmascato","children":[46615557],"created_at":"2026-01-07T19:52:53Z","created_at_i":1767815573,"num_comments":1,"objectID":"46531614","points":5,"story_id":46531614,"story_text":"Hi HN,
I am a CTO/Founder usually stuck in "development hell" on long-term projects. To fix my perfectionism, I started a challenge on Jan 1st: Ship 12 startups in 12 months.
This is Project #01: TierWise.
The Problem: Most SaaS founders price for the US/EU market. Charging a flat $49/mo excludes huge segments of users in LATAM, India, or Southeast Asia where purchasing power is lower. Building a custom GeoIP/PPP logic for every side project is a distraction.
The Solution: I built a drop-in JS widget that detects the visitor's country and calculates a discount based on their local Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).
The Stack (The "Speed Run" setup):
Backend: Laravel 11 (API).
Frontend: Nuxt 3 (SSR).
Logic: Custom Middleware + Redis (for request throttling) + MaxMind GeoIP.
Design: Soft Brutalism (trying to avoid the generic "AI dark mode" look).
Business Model: It\u2019s an open SaaS.
Free: 500 adjustments/month (no credit card).
Paid ($9/mo): Unlimited + White-label.
I\u2019d love your feedback on the implementation and the "Soft Brutalism" UI approach.
Link: https://tierwise.dev/","title":"Show HN: TierWise \u2013 PPP pricing widget for SaaS (Built in 7 days)","updated_at":"2026-03-05T23:18:33Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"elmascato"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["purchasing","power","parity","pricing","saas"],"value":"The point about "removing the mental overhead" is underrated. It is often the cognitive load of the pricing model, rather than the absolute cost, that kills adoption.
I'm seeing a strong parallel in SaaS regarding Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). We often assume a user in India or Brazil doesn't convert because they "can't afford" $49, but the friction is often psychological. Even for high earners in those regions, paying a double-digit USD subscription feels "wrong" or predatory relative to local goods.
Just as you are abstracting away the token math to lower the barrier to entry, we need to abstract away the currency inequality. I've been working on a client-side widget to handle this (tierwise.dev) and noticed that simply aligning the price with the user's local context making it "feel" fair spikes conversion rates significantly.
Whether it's flattening token variance or localizing purchasing power, the goal is the same: stop the user from doing math and let them focus on the product value."},"story_title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["pricing"],"value":"Ask HN: Is token-based pricing making AI harder to use in production?"}},"_tags":["comment","author_elmascato","story_46648365"],"author":"elmascato","comment_text":"The point about "removing the mental overhead" is underrated. It is often the cognitive load of the pricing model, rather than the absolute cost, that kills adoption.
I'm seeing a strong parallel in SaaS regarding Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). We often assume a user in India or Brazil doesn't convert because they "can't afford" $49, but the friction is often psychological. Even for high earners in those regions, paying a double-digit USD subscription feels "wrong" or predatory relative to local goods.
Just as you are abstracting away the token math to lower the barrier to entry, we need to abstract away the currency inequality. I've been working on a client-side widget to handle this (tierwise.dev) and noticed that simply aligning the price with the user's local context making it "feel" fair spikes conversion rates significantly.
Whether it's flattening token variance or localizing purchasing power, the goal is the same: stop the user from doing math and let them focus on the product value.","created_at":"2026-01-17T23:11:50Z","created_at_i":1768691510,"objectID":"46663076","parent_id":46648365,"story_id":46648365,"story_title":"Ask HN: Is token-based pricing making AI harder to use in production?","updated_at":"2026-03-05T23:27:03Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Abishek_Muthian"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["purchasing","power","parity","pricing","saas"],"value":"One of the easiest way to increase global sales of our SaaS products is to sell our product in the local currency of our market. But there's another mechanism to increase the sales even further, That's pricing our product according to the purchasing power of the market.
Those who sell physical products have been doing this from the beginning of the global trade, But SaaS product developers often tend to ignore the value in pricing the products according to the purchasing power. After all, A product price should be what the market is willing to pay!
Besides increasing the sales, I think it's the right thing to do.
I wanted to price my products according to the Purchasing Power Parity but the existing calculators are all outdated or non-functional. So I had to build one myself and I'm sharing it with you all folks today.
As for the development, I've been a vanilla JS guy and wanted to experiment with the reactive libraries for a while. Recent selection of Vue.js by Wikimedia Foundation piqued my interest in it and so this project was perfect opportunity to explore Vue.js.
Let me know if the figures from the PPP calculator reflects the reality in your country."},"story_title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["purchasing","power","parity"],"value":"Show HN: Purchasing Power Parity Calculator"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://startuptoolchain.com/calculators/ppp.html"}},"_tags":["comment","author_Abishek_Muthian","story_28465900"],"author":"Abishek_Muthian","comment_text":"One of the easiest way to increase global sales of our SaaS products is to sell our product in the local currency of our market. But there's another mechanism to increase the sales even further, That's pricing our product according to the purchasing power of the market.
Those who sell physical products have been doing this from the beginning of the global trade, But SaaS product developers often tend to ignore the value in pricing the products according to the purchasing power. After all, A product price should be what the market is willing to pay!
Besides increasing the sales, I think it's the right thing to do.
I wanted to price my products according to the Purchasing Power Parity but the existing calculators are all outdated or non-functional. So I had to build one myself and I'm sharing it with you all folks today.
As for the development, I've been a vanilla JS guy and wanted to experiment with the reactive libraries for a while. Recent selection of Vue.js by Wikimedia Foundation piqued my interest in it and so this project was perfect opportunity to explore Vue.js.
Let me know if the figures from the PPP calculator reflects the reality in your country.","created_at":"2021-09-09T03:43:33Z","created_at_i":1631159013,"objectID":"28465950","parent_id":28465900,"story_id":28465900,"story_title":"Show HN: Purchasing Power Parity Calculator","story_url":"https://startuptoolchain.com/calculators/ppp.html","updated_at":"2024-09-20T09:21:13Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Jefro118"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["purchasing","power","parity","pricing","saas"],"value":"Hey, sorry I just realised I forgot to come back to this, here's some feedback:
I think the landing page is really well done - that kind of format can be bad if the content isn't well written but each sentence made me want to read the next so I think you've pulled it off. I do think some visuals to reinforce your message might help (e.g. a graph of willingness to pay vs location, etc.).
My understanding of this is that it's going to sit amongst your pricing code and run experiments to change the price dynamically and return the best result after some time - is that correct? If so, I do wonder why no one has pulled this off particularly well as a SaaS before? (or have they?). I believe that Profitwell for example makes their revenue from consulting.
The other thing is that if my understanding above is correct, what stops the user from just cancelling once you've optimised their pricing and you lose capturing a lot of the value you've created for them (again, you revenue model may be completely different, I don't know).
I would also question whether this kind of thing isn't ultimately solved by the old "talk to you users" thing and understanding what they would pay from that strategy rather than software (at least with purchasing power parity though software + independent research does seem more likely to work since it's hard to talk to people from all over the world).
Ultimately this is the kind of thing I would give a try once I have some moderate amount of revenue and I feel that I've at least figured out who my customers are and can then optimise from there.
Pretty cool anyway, hope it succeeds and I'm in a position to try it out in a few months."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?"}},"_tags":["comment","author_Jefro118","story_26478387"],"author":"Jefro118","comment_text":"Hey, sorry I just realised I forgot to come back to this, here's some feedback:
I think the landing page is really well done - that kind of format can be bad if the content isn't well written but each sentence made me want to read the next so I think you've pulled it off. I do think some visuals to reinforce your message might help (e.g. a graph of willingness to pay vs location, etc.).
My understanding of this is that it's going to sit amongst your pricing code and run experiments to change the price dynamically and return the best result after some time - is that correct? If so, I do wonder why no one has pulled this off particularly well as a SaaS before? (or have they?). I believe that Profitwell for example makes their revenue from consulting.
The other thing is that if my understanding above is correct, what stops the user from just cancelling once you've optimised their pricing and you lose capturing a lot of the value you've created for them (again, you revenue model may be completely different, I don't know).
I would also question whether this kind of thing isn't ultimately solved by the old "talk to you users" thing and understanding what they would pay from that strategy rather than software (at least with purchasing power parity though software + independent research does seem more likely to work since it's hard to talk to people from all over the world).
Ultimately this is the kind of thing I would give a try once I have some moderate amount of revenue and I feel that I've at least figured out who my customers are and can then optimise from there.
Pretty cool anyway, hope it succeeds and I'm in a position to try it out in a few months.","created_at":"2021-03-20T15:08:43Z","created_at_i":1616252923,"objectID":"26523684","parent_id":26482241,"story_id":26478387,"story_title":"Ask HN: What (side-)project are you working on?","updated_at":"2024-09-20T08:09:48Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"wtmt"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["purchasing","power","parity","pricing","saas"],"value":"I can confirm and share additional details. Located in India, I automatically see a message that says I can choose a purchasing power parity discount if I wish to. The discount is 70%, but it applies only to the most expensive package (bringing it down from $349 to $105). The lower tier packages are marked as not eligible for such pricing. It clearly says that the access will work only in India (I\u2019m guessing this whole thing is based on IP addresses).
I don\u2019t yet know if I\u2019m interested enough in this course, but I really appreciate content authors who consider pricing variations in different locations. Bonus if they offer to help people in tough situations (even in countries where PPP may be higher)."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"What do I need to read to be a CSS dev?"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2021/what-do-i-need-to-read-to-be-a-css-dev/"}},"_tags":["comment","author_wtmt","story_28968137"],"author":"wtmt","comment_text":"I can confirm and share additional details. Located in India, I automatically see a message that says I can choose a purchasing power parity discount if I wish to. The discount is 70%, but it applies only to the most expensive package (bringing it down from $349 to $105). The lower tier packages are marked as not eligible for such pricing. It clearly says that the access will work only in India (I\u2019m guessing this whole thing is based on IP addresses).
I don\u2019t yet know if I\u2019m interested enough in this course, but I really appreciate content authors who consider pricing variations in different locations. Bonus if they offer to help people in tough situations (even in countries where PPP may be higher).","created_at":"2021-10-24T05:08:35Z","created_at_i":1635052115,"objectID":"28975142","parent_id":28969653,"story_id":28968137,"story_title":"What do I need to read to be a CSS dev?","story_url":"https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2021/what-do-i-need-to-read-to-be-a-css-dev/","updated_at":"2024-09-20T09:43:05Z"}],"hitsPerPage":20,"nbHits":9,"nbPages":1,"page":0,"params":"query=purchasing+power+parity+pricing+SaaS&advancedSyntax=true&analyticsTags=backend","processingTimeMS":35,"processingTimingsMS":{"_request":{"roundTrip":13},"afterFetch":{"merge":{"mergeLoop":{"prepareNextHit":3,"total":3},"total":3},"total":3},"fetch":{"query":18,"scanning":11,"total":30},"total":35},"query":"purchasing power parity pricing SaaS","serverTimeMS":36}