# Ledgerline · Pricing Rationale (Internal) For the operator and buyer of Ledgerline. Not for prospects. Why $1,495, when to discount, when to walk, the LTV math, and where Ledgerline sits relative to comparable platforms. --- ## Standard price: $1,495 / month One legal entity. SOC 2 Type II. SAML SSO. 5 user seats included. Additional seats $99/mo. Multi-entity stacking at $895/entity for entities 2 and beyond. Annual prepay knocks 15% off. Includes: continuous evidence capture, auditor portal, SOX 404 control library, IRS response automation, reconciliation engine, ERP integrations (NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QBO, SAP), regional data residency. ### Why $1,495 specifically Three anchors: 1. **The competitive set sits between $850/mo (Floqast entry) and $4,500+/mo (Workiva mid-market).** Ledgerline is positioned as a continuous-evidence layer specifically, not a full close-management platform, so we land below Workiva and above Floqast entry. The customer is typically also buying Floqast or AuditBoard for close management; Ledgerline does the evidence-capture job those products do not do. 2. **The math closes inside the first audit cycle for any company doing 2+ external audits per year.** A typical mid-size company spends 60 to 160 internal hours and $25K to $80K on external CPA fees per cycle. Ledgerline collapses ~70% of internal hours and ~20% of external fees. At 4 cycles/yr the savings are $50K to $200K, against an $18K subscription. Net positive on cycle one. 3. **It sits below the controller-discretion threshold and above the procurement-noise threshold.** Controllers can authorize $1,500/mo without a CFO sign-off; procurement does not flag it as an enterprise software purchase requiring a 12-month evaluation. This is deliberately the band where the controller can champion and ship. --- ## When to discount ### Annual prepay: 15% off $15,250 prepaid, equivalent to $1,271/mo. Cuts churn and pulls cash forward. Take it every time. ### Multi-entity stacking Entity 2: $895/mo. Entity 3+: $695/mo per. Marginal cost is the chart-of-accounts mapping, which is real but bounded. ### CPA practice partnership A CPA practice serving 5+ audit clients gets 25% off list and a co-branded portal. Their clients are billed on the practice's master subscription. We give up margin per client and pick up roughly 4 to 6 clients per practice partnership, with practice-side enforcement of usage. Net positive over 18 months. ### Design-partner enterprise (new vertical): 50% off for 6 months Insurance, healthcare, government contracting, banking. Verticals we have not productized for. One design partner per vertical. Recorded case study with metrics. After 6 months, list price. --- ## When to walk We do not negotiate below $895/mo on standard plan. Hard floor. - **Below $895, the support cost eats the margin.** Even AI-led customers consume ~6 to 10 hours/month of human supervision (control library tuning, ERP integration nuances, audit-firm portal coordination). At $895 we are still profitable; below that we are not. - **The CFO who fights $1,495 will fight every quarterly check-in.** They will demand custom integrations and threaten to leave when we charge for them. - **The CFO who fights $1,495 cannot afford the next product.** Multi-entity consolidation, IRS response premium, and regulatory-filing automation are all $500 to $1,500/mo add-ons. If they fight the entry, the expansion conversation never happens. Walk-away script: "I understand. Ledgerline is priced so the math closes inside one audit cycle. If $1,495 does not feel right, the audits may not be costing what we think they are. I will follow up after your next cycle." Do not chase. --- ## LTV math ### Assumptions (refresh quarterly) - Standard ARPU: $1,495/mo = $17,940/yr per entity. - Annual prepay penetration target: 35%. - Multi-entity expansion: ~22% of customers add a second entity within year two. - Blended ARPU after annual mix and expansion: ~$22,800/yr. - Gross margin: ~73% (LLM inference + ERP integration maintenance + ~8 hr/mo of human supervision per customer). - Monthly churn target: ~1.6% (audit platforms have very high switching costs once onboarded). - Average customer lifetime at 1.6% monthly churn: ~62.5 months. ### LTV $22,800 × 0.73 × (62.5/12) = **~$86,690 LTV** per customer at standard. ### CAC ceiling 3:1 LTV:CAC means we can spend up to ~$28,900 per customer acquisition. We will not approach that. Realistic blended CAC is $4,000 to $8,000 (mix of inbound, outbound, CPA-practice partnerships). ### Payback period At $22,800 ARPU and 73% margin, gross profit per customer-year is ~$16,640. Payback against a $6,000 CAC is about 4.3 months. Very fast for an enterprise SaaS product. The CPA-practice channel is the biggest CAC compressor. --- ## Comparable services | Service | Pricing | What you get | What is missing | |---|---|---|---| | Floqast | $850 to $2,500/mo | Close-management workflow | Continuous evidence capture, IRS response automation | | AuditBoard | $30K to $200K/yr (enterprise) | SOX, ITGC, audit management | Mid-market price point; long sales cycle | | Workiva | $40K to $500K/yr | Reporting + SOX + financial close | Way too much platform for sub-$250M companies | | BlackLine | $40K to $300K/yr | Account reconciliation, close | Reconciliation-focused, not evidence-capture | | FloQast + manual evidence | ~$1,500 to $3,500/mo | Close + manual evidence in shared drives | The evidence is still manual. Audit prep still happens. | | Ledgerline | $1,495 flat | Continuous evidence, auditor portal, SOX library, IRS response | (Standard) one entity, 5 seats | The cleanest comparison for the prospect call is the audit-prep hours number. Every alternative still requires the controller to spend 60+ hours on prep. Ledgerline collapses that to under 20 hours. --- ## Prices we will revisit - **Q4 2026:** raise standard to $1,795 once we have 50 paying customers and a 12-month retention cohort. - **2027:** introduce Ledgerline Enterprise at $4,995/mo with multi-entity, multi-currency, full IRS response premium, and dedicated CSM. - **Never:** a free tier. Free trials are 30 days, no credit card. After day 30, the math has either closed or it has not.